My Love Eun Dong

Let me start with a warning. If you’re looking for a drama with lots of subplots, exciting and fast events and many funny scenes, don’t start this drama. My Love Eun Dong is a drama that gives a classical feel. A drama laden with emotions, and tackles them slowly and thoroughly. My Love Eun Dong is a drama that relies heavily on music, narration, flashbacks and cinematic effects. It’s not about the storyline as much as it is about the emotions carried in the story. And when it comes to that, the drama is incomparable. My Love Eun Dong is a drama you’d watch on the veranda, feeling the night breeze, lights off and drinking your favourite drink. It’s a drama to leave you continuously with tears in your eyes and a hand on your heart.

So for those who are ready, shall we start?!

Park Hyun Soo is a rebellious and careless 17 year old boy going around riding motorcycles crazily. One day he hits a young girl. That girl "enters his life like a meteor". Hyun Soo starts worrying about the girl, caring for her and helping her in every way possible. He slowly quits all his bad habits and matures. One day, that girl, Eun Don, disappears. Hyun Soo lives his life looking for her.

The drama is about how these people meet, how their love grows, how they part ways and how they meet again. The drama mainly revolves around fate. How fated people will eventually meet no matter what.

Park Hyun Soo is acted by three brilliant actors. I’m surprised at how great the three are. Let me discuss them one by one.

Teenage Hyun Soo by Jr.

Whether you know Jr as a member of Got7 or as an actor, I’m sure you don’t know this Jr. I started the drama for the two leads (and Kim Tae Hoon) but once I saw Jr’s acting here, I wanted him to just continue. Jr plays young Hyun Soo, the troublemaker. He shifts from the ‘bad’ boy into the caring one in such a way you’d feel his earnest desire to help the young girl.

Hyun Soo’s teenage love is not what we define as love. I know it sounds weird for a high schooler to fall for an elementary student. But it wasn’t that kind of falling. It was his protective self. It developes later, yes. But it was innocent and pure.

I know it’s so unrealistic. But who cares? Isn’t that the reason why we watch dramas.

Hyun Soo in his 20s by Baek Sung Hyun

This boy was born a talent. He’s been acting forever. But have you seen him in Blades of Blood. He was a rightful rival for Cha Seung Won. How impressed I was!

So BSH plays 20er Hyun Soo, the Hyun Soo who has waited a long time to meet Eun Dong and who meets her as a woman for the first time. BSH gives a powerful performance for a guy who waited for a young girl but found instead a woman, and a woman with many secrets. He wants to give her the world but he keeps hesitating because of her uncertain attitude. Once again, I didn’t mind if he kept acting the role.

Ji Eun Ho (Park Hyun Soo’s actor name) played by Joo Jin Mo

How beautiful is Joo Jin Mo here! He looks so young and so gorgeous. His hairstyle fits him perfectly. He’s so hot oh my god!

Well that’s not the point.

Hyun Soo loses Eun Dong again. JJM plays the exhausted lover hopelessly and endlessly waiting and searching. He’s originally a funny person and when that side of him shows, I faint. But, because of all the pain and loneliness, he becomes melancholy. The pain in his eyes and voice, his vacant look and disinterested self, the waiting, struggle and hoping against hope are all real by Joo Jin Mo. He makes the character so real. He makes the struggle –even for someone who doesn’t believe in love like me- real. He makes me want to find her for him and end it with a they-lived-happily-ever-after ending even if it’s the ending I dislike the most. He’s Hyun Soo and Eun Dong is his life. As watchers, this is what he makes us feel, that his yearning and love is the most important and urgent issue on Earth. That’s what Joo Jin Mo does.

Let’s talk about Eun Dong

Child Eun Dong played by Lee Ja In

Eun Dong grew in a poor area with her sick grandmother receiving aid. She’s a quite and kind child with lots of fears. One day, a savior appears. The child starts to lean on him and tries to please and care for him. When the child needs him the most, he isn’t there. 

If I have to choose only one actor in this drama, I’ll choose Lee Ja In. Lee Ja In is 11. Jr will be 21 in two months. For a child with only 2 work experiences, to work with a famous idol with this age gap and actually relays the emotions of the character is no easy job. This child will make it big, I’m sure.

Eun Dong in her 20s played by Yoon So Hee

Eun Dong is still as bright and kind as ever. But she’s constantly under the shadow of something. She’s always trying to escape something.

I just wrote a spoiler and erased it. I did well, right?!

I love Yoon So Hee and I’m biased so… She’s done a really good job I think.. mmm even better than the main actress, if I was to be.. subjective!

Sorry!

Seo Jung Eun (Ji Eun Dong in her 30s) played by Kim Sa Rang

Something serious happens to Eun Dong that changes her life completely. Her personality never changes but she suffers more. She gets stuck between her past and present and undergoes a real battle. Poor Jung Eun.

I’m a fan of Kim Sa Rang. I enjoy looking at her and I think she really did an amazing job in Secret Garden and A Love to Kill. She is doing great here. But the character is too sad and lost to handle I guess. At some moments –brief ones- I feel that Sa Rang gets lost as well.

We have a typical rich and beautiful girl trying to steal the main lead away (typically enough Kim Yoo Ri). Won’t they give her other roles for a change?!

And we have an intriguing character as the almost-second lead (my huge crush Kim Tae Hoon). I still can’t figure the character out yet, thanks to him.

The drama presents a dreamy account of eternal and fated love, the kind of love we only see in books and dramas. I don’t know if the writer is trying to stress out that it actually never happens in real life or is trying to give us hope, she’s succeeding at both.

All the cast are really, seriously, honestly, absolutely, wonderfully, etc.. doing great. I cannot describe how much. The cinematic effects and the BEAUTIFUL music plays a big role in presenting the acting thus I bet.

Narration, flashbacks, shifting between the three generations, memories and the loaded emotions make the drama worth watching for how much hard work has been invested in it. Despite the clichés and some overused themes, the drama is worth every emotion put in it, by the actors or the audience.