To the End of the World (1998)

Gift For The End

In the somehow archetypal structure, we can recognise one of the greatest qualities of ‘Forever Yours’, a 1998 drama that is still able to captivate even after many years, thanks to a well-defined narrative construction, as articulate in its form as it is fluid and linear in its execution, well supported by an excellent cast at the service of the story, full of (future) stars...
The drama's development has continuous references to other famous productions that will arrive in subsequent years and is a real feast for all lovers of vintage television of the Asian country

We have the female character, Suh Hee (Kim Hee Sun) who is an orphan; she has been abandoned by her mother who, in one of the saddest scenes of the drama, disposes of her daughter, with the false promise to return soon to take her back; the headmistress of the orphanage who takes care of Suh Hee has a son, Sae Joon (Ryu Shi Won), with the highly promising talent of a future Doctor; Sae Joon and Suh Hee love each other, tenderly and innocently, as they do for many youngsters of their age, but Sae Joon's mother is a real witch who stands in the way of their love, because she wants her son to marry a girl from a middle-class family background...

It is a classic plot theme, one of the cardinal principles of movie and television melodrama; the absolute love that must overcome all boundaries and prohibitions, but it doesn’t end there:

Sae Joon has a friend (or supposed to be), the wealthy and vicious Min Hyuk (Kim Ho Jin) who, of course, falls head over heels for Suh Hee, falling madly in love with her (not hard to believe, given Kim Hee Sun's extraordinary handsomeness); Suh Hee is wracked with guilt, she is the indirect cause of an injury that compromises Sae Joon's life and future, she wishes for a better future for herself, she struggles with various jobs to scrape together enough money to live and, although she loves Sae Joon, ends up succumbing to Min Hyuk's advances, in a toxic relationship where the spoilt rich man's not only physical violence gets the better of the fragile character of the unfortunate orphan:
The result is the most classic of triangles with a continuous back-and-forth between the heroine and the two suitors, but it doesn't end there:

Suh Hee is pregnant by Min Hyuk; we've previously witnessed a horrible scene of violence and it's easy to see that this is the cause of conception, so what to do!? Have an abortion, or keep the baby in the hope that Min Hyuk will decide to marry her, perhaps finally growing up and taking responsibility!?

In the meantime Sae Joon tries to get on with her life, but he can't forget his first love; it's an incredible back-and-forth, with Suh Hee partly with one, partly with the other and partly running away, seeking comfort from her friends at the orphanage,
but it doesn't end there, because there's a further twist, absolutely tragic...

It is a drama that treads hard on the emotional foot pedal, all great dramas overflow with emotion, it is inevitable; they tell of human emotions, especially those that accompany difficult choices that require great courage, and love experienced in extreme circumstances or love thwarted. And the characters, of which there are many, even in the minor parts, accompanying the main story, find themselves lost, full of hope, but also locked in their own feelings, unable to manifest them;
As in the case of the friends from the orphanage, who are often unable even to find the right words to express their emotions;

In all the portrayals, the desire for a little happiness prevails, even if only for a few moments, because, as we have learned from so many other dramas, behind the brief moment of calm and happiness, unfortunately, the harshness of life immediately reappears, even ironically, by antinomy, and takes a toll...

Kim Hee Sun plays a character with a submissive nature, decidedly passive in submitting to the dictates of adults; Sae Joon's harpy mother is also a kind of surrogate mother for Suh Hee and in fact sees the two youngsters as ‘’siblings‘’, a further reason for opposing their love. The orphan is often level-headed in front of her and other respected adults (in terms of social status, etc.), responds in a low voice, unable to look them in the eye, weighed down by an atavistic sense of guilt that paralyses her even in her feelings and conditions her personal choices...
The Eun Suh of ‘Autumn In My Heart’ takes its cue from here, after all.…
The Hye Won of ‘Summer Scent’ also has several points of contact, as does the Soo Jung of ‘What Happened In Bali’.

Ryu Shi Won in the role of Sae Joon is probably the best defined character, because he is resolute, obstinate; the audience often needs to find itself, to identify with a figure, with a role, and in fact Sae Joon is this; We can describe him as the true protagonist, the hero of the story, decisive and direct; His love for Suh Hee is his North Star, even at the cost of going against his own family or his bright future; almost a work of abstraction from Shi Won who limits the dialogues to the essential, concentrating on gestures and expressions, with a personal style that he will replicate a couple of years later in the excellent ‘Secret’ with Kim Ha Neul and Ha Ji Won...
The Cha Song Joo of ‘Stairway To Heaven’ owes so much to the Sae Joon of ‘Forever Yours’...

Kim Ho Jin in character as Mun Hyuk is another good one; He is decidedly obnoxious and arrogant from the very first scenes, he arrives with an absurd tuft of hair, in the style of Brian Gregory from the Cramps, or Japanese anime of the 70s and 80s, which is perhaps the same thing, he plays the tough guy, but in the end his harshness derives mainly from his conflictual relationship with his father who considers him - not so wrongly - a perfect slacker; he too, unable to express his feelings in words, ends up translating them into bodily action with the absurd pretence that violence -goodness to him!- is nothing more than a different kind of love; He attempts a belated road to redemption but is too self-destructive a character and of spoilt rich dandies with self-destructive impulses the streets of the Dramaverse are paved...

Accompanying the main cast is Kim Sun Ah, young and already very pretty in the role of Ji Young, a female student of good social standing, suffering from a stutter, at the centre of a ‘secondary’ triangle that introduces rather interesting points of reflection on class differences, and also Kang Sung Yun, also a pleasant presence in the ensemble, in the unhappy role of the hopeless lover...

The lovely music theme, a kind of nostalgic, cadenced waltz, performed in various arrangements, is one of those tunes that immediately gets into your head and stays there; of course, it isn't Leonard Cohen, but it has that dose of unabashed old-fashioned romanticalism that adds just the right pathos to the story...

But then, is this drama good!? It's good yes, it's not perfect of course, here and there there are some slightly tired and repetitive parts, something in the characterisations also gets lost along the way, every now and then we even forget Sae Joon's invalidating condition, but fortunately in the last episodes the central theme comes back and the drama regains depth, putting the focus of the story back on the original love of the main characters, and closing well, with that very nice ending that can't leave anyone unmoved...

It does not have that aura of classics such as ‘Autumn In My Heart’, or ‘Stairway To Heaven’, ‘The Snow Queen’ and comparable masterpieces, but it has the great credit of having helped to mark out a way, to define some guidelines for undoubtedly more successful and celebrated series (and movies) and definitely deserves more favourable appreciation.
7½

P.S. I preferred to follow the title variant ‘Forever Yours’, in my humble opinion more pertinent than the perhaps too magniloquent ‘To The End Of The World’ used as the main title here on MDL

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