Coffee Prince (2007)

Tomboy chaos at its finest

'Coffee Prince'- a legend in its own right. It truly works, in my opinion, by putting a spin on the flower-boy concept, making it fresh. I think it's a mixture of believable acting, funny characters and slight angst that makes this drama so good in my eyes. It's by no means perfect, but by today’s standards, and if you are a fan of tomboy characters and 2000s kdrama romcoms, it's a classic and I highly recommend it.

I loved Eun Chan’s boyish charm, their morals, their loyalty and that they had personality and weren’t just the love interest. I also liked how they actually passed as a guy. Han Gyul came from a place of heartbreak and self-importance but bettered himself by the end. He learnt to except himself and loved Eun Chan no matter who they were. I appreciated how hard working he became and how much he generally loved the café.

I immensely enjoyed the chemistry and family bonds between the characters, I really got the sense that these were real people. The actors did a great job!! I think this was helped by the down to earth script, and the use of many grounded sets and shots that added to the atmosphere, it really sold the drama's tone and humour, which made the watch that bit more immersive. Some of the characters were outright messy, they could be interesting, good people but selfish at times, driven by their need for company, love or money, but it worked because that's real life, no-one’s perfect. Everyone has their battles when it comes to needing connection and resources - this drama did a great job at highlighting that. Not everyone has the luxury of being like the Choi family; Cheabols with money to throw at their problems. In real life, sometimes you’re pulled into difficult situations.

This is a 2000s drama however, meaning it does come with some of the annoying tropes of the era, like dramatic miscommunication, love triangles and the ~classic~ rich guy doesn’t know how to be nice, but the nostalgia and realistic acting diluted it’s substantial-ness for me. It switches from comedy to raw and impactful believably. I really like its message of love who you are, your job and who you want to become - which I would argue are very important ideals to have in your life and makes for a great take away/shower thought.

The songs were stuck in my head for weeks. This has certain re-watch value for me, I always smile when I see its icon on Netflix. I sincerely enjoyed the journey this show took me on and I can't wait to watch it again soon ^^

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Worth watching

I must say that I appreciated the drama.

One thing that kind of disturbed me is the confusion between being "untamed" and unreliable. I don't think that controlling one's partner is a goal in a relationship, but couples do, and should, negotiate boundaries and rules and be mindful of what one's partner is comfortable with -not saying that each have to agree to anything, but each one's concerns should be discussed and taken seriously-. This is true even if open or polyamorous couples. People have boundaries that they have every right to ask be respected, and if they treat someone with loyalty, respect and honesty, they have every right to expect to be treated in the same manner in return. This does not mean that people cannot fall out of love and in love with someone else, but it does mean that there is a difference between deceiving your partner versus being honest with them and breaking things off cleanly and respectfully, without going behind their backs for more than a year like she did. Again, if she had merely dumped him because she didn't love him anymore and loved someone else, then it would have been a completely different situation and, however painful, I wouldn't have had a problem with that, given that the alternative would have been to deceive her partner, which she did.

When pursuing a long term relationship, I don't think that it is a good think to glorify being unreliable, or to confuse it with being strong and independent, as if they are the same thing, or even as if you cannot have one without the other. It's not being "wild" and "uncontrollable" and something impossible to decouple from being a free spirited and independent person: we are mixing two things that don't necessarily have anything to do with each other. One can be fiercely independent and still be reliable, show up for the people they love and be there when it matters, and be honest and upfront if they change their mind.

I mean, I struggle to come to terms with where the exact boundary is, and in the end I can only draw the line at treating one's partner with honesty:
1. As much as one might wish to, one cannot guarantee that they won't fall out of love and/or in love with someone else. I think that if the situation is such that it is a true change of heart, and not a superficial whim, if this is discussed honestly with one's partner then really they have no reason to complain about the person's conduct given those premises: they might complain about fate and the circumstances, and wish things were different, but given that they are not and that the only alternative was to be deceived, being treated with honesty and respect rather than being lied to and cheated on is the best one can do and expect.
2. That said, people can also draw the appropriate conclusions from the situation and are not obliged to take such a person back if they change their mind. In fact, while I think that such a case would be quite different from the shamelessness of going up to someone you had deceived for more than one year and ask them to take you back, I also think that one would have every right to ask themselves if the person might have another change of heart down the line, because after all they already did, and while they might appreciate the fact that they didn't break their trust and talked about the situation honestly, one also doesn't really want to repeatedly end up in a situation where a person changes ones' mind, so the question of why they did and why it's not likely to happen next time around is still relevant.
3. In terms of people's wishes, when talking about stable relationships and building a family, clearly people would like to be with someone stable and reliable that they can count on to be there in time of need and to show up when it counts. This does not guarantee that one's feelings couldn't change with time and they might fall out of love, and in that case we come back with the importance of honesty and being up front about the situation and what to do -do you want to wait and try to rekindle the flame? Do you up?-. Being with someone so flaky and unreliable that they could change their mind at a moments' notice and want to break up, then come back unannounced after years they didn't speak a word to you and want to get back together really is not a nice prospect, albeit a quite different and much better one than the real situation faced by HS, namely being with someone that deceived him for more than a year (and we are not sure even owned up to it and admitted it at any point in time, even when asking him to take her back, when he really deserved the ability to make an informed decision and that piece of information would have been very important).
4. From what I understood, HS knew about YJ seeing DK behind his back for more than a year while she was lying to him about working, so it's not that he knew because she told him, he was aware of it beforehand. Does this mean that at no point in time she actually confessed to having carried on a more than year long affair with DK? Because that would be utterly damning in my eyes, if she came back after running off with DK for two years, had the gall to ask HS to take her back, and deprived him of the ability to make an informed decision by hiding such an important piece of information. If I was thinking of taking someone back, it would matter *a lot* if they had been respectful and honest in the relationship prior to the breakup. I might still have some concerns about the possibility of repeating the experience if they change their mind in the future, but I could at least assume that they would be open in their communication and let me know if their feelings change. If they had deceived me for more than one year, it would be a whole other matter. As I said above, this is the equivalent of depriving him of a very important, I would say even critical, piece of information very much relevant to his decision of whether to take her back or not. To hide this information from him while asking him to make this decision would be in essence to deprive him of the ability to make an informed decision about a key aspect of his life, asking him to make a choice based on faulty premises and in essence treating him like an object and self servingly manipulate him to get the outcome you want while in essence continuing to deceive him -a lie by omission, and I suppose a good old fashioned lie if he ever asks and you deny the truth like back in the day when she was telling him she was working while seeing DK behind his back-. Not saying that this is what she did, but frankly, it's another of the things that I wished the show was not vague about: she does kind of brush off his words at the side of the road, they never talk about it again if not in that insultingly jocking manner that completely disrespected the severity of the topic and the pain expressed in that outburst on their way to the airport, in the end it's not clear to me whether she knew he knew. I guess that there are various options: he did discover it himself, having been aware of it during that more than half a year of deception, but it's not clear whether he told her he knew, or she discovered he knew, at some point in time prior to her asking him to take her back, or whether she told him about it at some point in time prior to asking him to take her back, or whether she just plain didn't knew he knew and intentionally hid it from him while asking him to take her back. Hiding it from him while asking him to decide whether to take her back would have been unacceptably self serving (and if she didn't say because she already knew he knew, I guess that we are left with the question of whether she would have... given how self serving and self entitled she had been this whole time, and the way she lied about leaving to allow him to follow his heart, while in reality she was threatening him with the prospect of getting back with DK again, and later on almost running off with him, because she couldn't take him being the one to leave her -so, to protect her pride she chose to leave and hurt him again, choosing to hurt him again like she did in the past and only changing her mind at the last second, and in any case after using DK to make HS jealous and threaten him into begging her to stay-). I guess that we know for sure that FL doesn't know about this because HS just told her his gf dumped him, and one would hope that his cousin didn't either, because otherwise it's hard to imagine why he would want to associate with someone that treated someone he claimed to love in such a manner -his reactions to her coming back were akin to what one would expect from her changing her mind about being with HS, rather than someone that had intentionally deceived him for more than a year-. Again, this is someone that the shows asks us to expect wouldn't tolerate his gf being kissed by someone else without reciprocating even before they were together, an absurd notion given that he was a playboy himself, not to mention hitting on his cousin's girlfriend, and a notion that felt to me like overthinking and underestimating him (or maybe it's HS's trauma speaking, when he says that even if he pretends he is okay he is not I got the feeling that this is what he felt with DK when he brought up the betrayal and hating DK in the end and they made it into a joke -even after recently using him to hurt HS, make him jealous and force him to beg her to stay-... but we know that he tried to play it cool while being disturbed by DK in the past).

In all this, I obviously ignore the unrequited mini-crush with the one sided kiss, one because he did that to someone that showed him no loyalty, respect and honesty and therefore had no leg to stand on to ask the same in return, while she did it to someone she knew had always loved only her and never even took a coffee with another girl (therefore, they would not be even even if he did to her exactly what she did to him with more than one year of deception, etc.; there is simply no way for him to get even, no comeuppance, the fact being that he was the kind of person that would put up with more than a year of betrayal and wait around for years for her to come back, while she was unwilling to even give him the space to sort out his feelings, and resorted to threatening him with getting back with the man she had cheated on him with... and he doesn't even come close to even in any case: their relationship is profoundly unequal, as are their expectations for each other, the latter being severely, almost comically, unbalanced in YJ's favor, and it's telling that she is not willing to endure a billionth of a fraction of what he went through for the sake of the relationship), two because it's simply laughable to talk about this in the same breath as her lying to his face for more than a year -and potentially hiding this fact even after asking him to take her back-. Again, I would have very much preferred a full blown affair with someone that wanted him back, so that she would have to actually struggle to get him back -instead of him trying to get her not to leave him for DK again-: as awful I felt about World of the Married for having them back together, if I recall correctly, at least ML had to sweat for it more than YJ did here, where she merely needed to show up twice and then she was back with HS, and he was the one chasing after her and begging her to stay, again. Not that I think that either in World of the Married or here they should have gotten back with the people that had originally betrayed them, much better situation in A Good Lawyer's Wife or The Magicians where the betrayed spouse/girlfriend has a revenge affair and does not go back with the cheater -again, turnabout is fair play, and they cannot exactly complain of being paid back with their own coin: what goes around comes around, and if someone treated you with no respect, loyalty and honesty (as is the case with the year long deception, and was the case with the husband/boyfriend cheating in those other shows), they are not entitled to get any themselves-. In any case, nothing even comparable to this karmic/poetic justice happened in Coffee Prince, as anyone with a sense of perspective, or a neuron in their skull, would have to acknowledge.

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Powerful Story for early 2000s

Coffee Prince seems a bit crazy at first - how could a man fall for someone he thinks is a guy? But the story is necessary because it teaches you to love people as they are.

The character of Chan Hoi Kyul comes to befriend Go Eun Chan, thinking she's a boy. Their friendship grows and eventually Chan Hoil Kyul, despite conflicting emotions, falls for her. One would think the truth could be revealed earlier, but the charade allows Chan Hoil Kyul to really consider her (his) worth as a person. He finally gives in, thinking even if it's a guy, these emotions are real. Considering social expectations, it's a risky move.

So many questions come up for the viewer - Why didn't he figure it out? Could that kind of desire come through despite a false premise? How might Go Eun Chan feel, considering her "love" has fallen for her (as a man)? But it all comes together and the truth is revealed - and it makes sense. You wonder HOW and the characters answer that quite well.

Such a powerful show for early 2000s that says a great deal about our focus on beauty and less on character. What if we all cared for others no matter their representation (focusing on their beauty within)?

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I'm rewatching this more than 10 years after I watched it for the first time as a kid, I don't know why I've been doing this recently but it is by far my MOST ENJOYABLE REWATCH of a drama I've seen as a kid!

I remembered the very basics of the story, where there is a girl pretending to be a guy and running a coffee shop and all.. But revisiting this now, may I just say, a MASTERPIECE!

There isn't much I can add to the many positive reviews for this drama here, but I absolutely love how this drama aged like wine. It tackles a topic that's rather taboo in Korea then (and fortunately even now) and handles it quite realistically. Things tackled in the drama are still of time, really the only disaster I can point out here would be the costumes (early 2000s fashion is just.. horrible). Anyway, compared to other girl pretends to be a guy dramas I've seen, My Chan is probably the best I've seen so far in terms of how her character was made and how she grew throughout the drama. I love also how this is a romcom, but just has the right amount of cheese for sweet moments (compared to other romcoms that I kinda get turned off from for being overly cheesy). Yoon Eun Hye and Gong Yoo's chemistry here is just absolutely beautiful and seeing proper development even from side characters is another aspect of this drama that I really appreciate. This was super fun and I enjoyed so much that I binged all 17 episodes in one go,,, RIP to my body clock really.

Side note: Kim Jae Wook is absolutely beautiful here.

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Nice drama

A good story with excellent music.

On YJ, I must say that I enjoyed her jealousy, but it's telling that neither when she first came back asking to get back together with HS, nor later, she ever tried to fight for him or give him any reason to chose her. Basically, she just showed up, and he took her back. She didn't have to work to convince him to take her back, she didn't have to make any positive case (not that there is any reason he shouldn't prefer basically anyone else, or even no one and just remain single). She gets him back by just showing up and barely apologising (but he had already taken her in the house by that point), and then by threatening to leave him to get back with the very person she had cheated on him with, and for some reason this outrageously manipulative behaviour pushes him to grovel and beg her rather than pushing him away.

Again, it was good that she was jealous because at least it meant she cared. But she never fought for him, or made any sacrifice (not sure this is the right word, because we would be talking about giving up something of lesser value for something she values more, and I would say that technically speaking that wouldn't be a sacrifice) or gave up anything of any importance or even risked anything, while he was willing to wait for her despite nothing indicating that she would ever come back, and I would say that he gave up any semblance of self respect by groveling in response to her toxic attempt to strong arm him into begging her to stay.

In other words, speaking technically, I would say that she did no "costly signaling" whatsoever. She showed up and asked to get back together and barely apologized. She never fought for him. He was the one that came back to her after their first intimate encounter. He was the one that asked to have a vacation to reconnect, and then groveled and begged her to stay when she threatened to leave. She just shoved up, did absolutely nothing to fight to get him back, or give him a reason to, and succeeded by just showing up and then threatening to leave him for the man she had cheated him with, forcing him to beg her to stay and even giving him a scare when she decided at the last minute that after all, given he had groveled and begged for her to stay, she would.

What I wish she had done was yes, being jealous, but then follow it up with the natural next thought, namely an acknowledgment that what she had done to him, by lying to his face for more than a year when he knew, was billions of time worse than anything she had had to ever endure -frankly, I was amazed to see her brush aside him mentioning her more than one year long betrayal when she brought it up and *still* only caring about herself and what she felt, without any acknowledgment of his pain-.

I would have liked her to acknowledge that fact, how hurt, humiliated, disappointed, betrayed, tortured he must have felt putting up with it for a year, and begging her to stay even after all that. I would have liked her to acknowledge that she had done that to him while he trusted in her completely and had eyes only for her, while what she experienced came on the back of her atrocious more than year long betrayal and two year of absence without a single word, and, frankly, a new relationship where she did exactly nothing to rebuild trust (if that was even possible, which imho it was not, not that HS or the show even required her to), but instead continued to flirt and even talk on the phone and meet up one on one and have lunch with the very man that she had been seeing for more than a year behind HS's back, and that still has feelings for her. This prompted him to talk about his insecurities with FL and even in part, semi-subconsciously, played a part in him inviting her to the exhibition in the first place. I would have liked for YJ to make HS feel safe to share his insecurities about DK, which she knew about anyway given that she exploited them to make him jealous and then to threaten him into beg her to stay, least she went back to DK, rather than mocking him for them -even after his outburst at her more than year long betrayal, which left her unfazed and didn't prompt any reflection on how he must have felt, and that she mocked him for later on, with him having to play along, while she exploited those very same insecurities to make him jealous and then threaten him to beg her to stay unless he wanted her to go back to the man she cheated on him with-.

I mean, it's obvious that HS is deeply scarred by the betrayal, one can see it in the way he asks FL to hide the kiss from his cousin, even if he says he doesn't mind. Now, I think that this is selling his cousin short (and they were not even together at the time, not to mention FL didn't reciprocate it). But it's also very worrisome from the perspective of his mental health that he seems to be at a point where delusion and putting his head in the sand seem preferable to knowing the truth about the kind of person you are choosing to live your life with. The kind of person that would humiliate and deceive him, lying to his face for more than a year, without a shred of loyalty, respect or honesty, is a very different kind of person from someone that would find the idea utterly repulsive. The kind of person that would treat him with respect and honesty and have a clean breakup with was the kind of person that he was in love with and that turned out to live only in his mind, while the real person turned out to be someone very much cabale of looking someone they have been with for nine years in the face and tell him they were going to work while meeting DK behind their back, and do this again day after day for more than a year. This matters, if you are in a relationship with someone and you don't know this critical piece of information you are not really in a relationship with them, but with a figment of your imagination, someone very different from the real person, and we should want to have a relatioship with a real person, not with a delusional fantasy we constructed. In the case of ML and FL, this doesn't really apply, given that she was kissed but didn't reciprocate, so it says nothing about her, and it happened before she was in a relationship with ML, who was in any case a playboy that was trying to semi-seriously/half-jockingly get in YJ's pants anyway, and so would have had no reason to complain.

Bottom line, in any case, good that she was jealous. Bad that she didn't acknowledge how she had done a billion times worse and HS would have been made to feel a billion times worse, and her deception went on for more than a year before she finally left him and run off with her lover for two years, not even when he pointed it out to them (she brushed it aside on the side of the street on their way to the airport, and mocked him for it later on... obviously we know about his insecurities and it's not really a joke, like her telling him not to get too close to FL was not really a joke in the previous episodes). Bad that she never does anything to fight for him or give him any reason to choose her (if someone shoved up after more than a year of lies and two years with no words while she run off with her lover, and told me they had broken up and she wanted to get back with me, and later on followed that up with trying to make me jealous of someone she had cheated on me with for more than a year, talking about the house they lived together in in NY, and ultimately outright telling me that said person they cheated on me with still had feeling for them, they were starting to reciprocate and wanted to run back to them unless I groveled and begged them to stay, and almost doing it anyway when I did, only to disappear... well, that would be a hard pass for me, thanks but no thanks, next).

I am ambivalent about using DK to make HS jealous.

On one hand I think that it was worse when she got together with HS and continue to talk to DK on the phone and meet up one on one and have lunch together, while he was still smitten with her and trying to get her to come back to him, indulging his flirting and bantering with him, letting him caress her head in a manner that seemed pretty intimate, walking shoeless on the grass while he was talking about wanting to make an impression on her, all in all building up to an overall atmosphere and vibe that was decidedly ambiguous, rather than putting a hard stop and setting down boundaries, while fully knowing that HS was bothered by DK, and for very good reasons, given that she had been seeing this man dfor over a year while she was still with HS, lying to his face about going to work, so this is not a matter of a sassy and open person very comfortable with her ex that has a solid relationship with very good trust with HS, based on a foundation of honesty and respect, but rather of someone that saw this very person, DK, behind HS's back for more than a year and lied to his face about him, then run off with DK for two years, and had just gotten back to HS, for which, as she well knows despite him trying to play it cool, DK is still a sore spot -otherwise she wouldn't be trying to use him to make him jealous or threaten to leave him for DK-.

I consider these talks and meetings worse because they signaled a fundamental lack of care: she knew that HS was bothered by them, and had very reasonable insecurities born as a result of her own action (which included lying to him for more than a year while seeing DK behind his back); she knew that DK was smitten with her; she should have been fighting to rebuild trust (not that I think it would have been possible, and not that the show required her to, given that HS took her back immediately), instead she basically ignored -when not outright mocked and made light of- HS's insecurities, only to later exploit them to manipulate and threaten him.

This to me is maybe worse than the outright manipulation, because it signals that she takes HS for granted, knows of his insecurities, and instead of taking them seriously, even if she disagrees, she mocks them or simply ignores them, basically not caring about his discomfort, which she weaponized later to make him jealous. So, this signals "you are going to be with me anyway, so I don't have to care about your insecurities, forcing you to pretend to be okay while knowing you are not, and making fun of them if you bring them up, only to exploit them to make you jealous and threaten to leave you with the man I cheated on you with for a year if you don't beg me to stay", basically making it abundantly clear that yes, she knew very well what she was doing and the effect on HS.

In some respect, one could say that using DK to make HS jealous was crueler because it was done explicitly for that purpose, but I would argue that knowing of his insecurities and simply not caring, after she was the one that asked to get back with him despite her more than year long betrayal and two years she run off with her lover without a word, was simply worse, because it signals a taking him for granted, and a lack of care.

In fact, I would say that while I would have much preferred if she actually fought for HS instead of tormenting him with DK and threatening him to leave him for the man she had cheated with, again, at least she is trying to make him jealous because she is jealous herself, so she is no longer taking him for granted, plus she is exploiting DK's feelings for her own ends, and after witnessing the infuriating spectacle of seeing DK treat HS as someone that he couldn't even remember how many times he had met, and having the gall to talk about a project, while being someone that had been seeing his girlfriend behind his back for more than a year... you cannot get more disrespectful than that, the hypocrisy was infuriating. Given the fact that he had been seeing YJ behind HS's back for more than a year, I feel very little simpathy for his complaint about being used by her -serves him right, not sure where he gets the idea that it's atrocious for him to be used in such a manner when he is willing to walk all over others, such as HS, to get what he wants, if he cannot see the sliver of poetic justice there I sure can smell karma-.

It was still cruelly sadistic and utterly insane, and something that would have repulsed me and made me run away, more than anything else, and for her to threaten to run back to DH if HS didn't grovel and beg her to stay, and almost doing it, only to then disappear, was even worse -and in as much as she was really intentioned to get back to DK, which she ultimately didn't, if HS wouldn't comply with her demands, you loose all the upside of trying to make him jealous in an attempt to make HS stay with her: here she is leaving becaus she prefers to hurt him than to risk having her pride bruised if he ever chosese to leave her, that's not really something that could in a roundabout way be seen as a manipulative and messed up way to persuade HS to choose her so that they could stay together, quite the opposite, it's threatening to leave him for DK if he doesn't bend the knee-.

What was definitely missing was her fighting for HS. She didn't fight to get back with him, nor did she really struggle or do anything to mend the damage she caused and rebuild broken trust. She took HS utterly for granted, and ignored his concerns and insecurities -which she knew and later exploited, so there is no pretence that she was unaware of them-, mocking them when he brought them up and forcing him to pretend he was cool with everything, while asking him to be hyper aware of hers, the standard being that he would have to never be even remotely attracted to anyone else, while he had put up with more than a year of deception and her running away with DK, which she acknowledges she loved at the time, while he stood there waiting for her.

It feels incredible, but she didn't have to do anything besides showing up (she barely uttered half an apology after he was more or less hooked), he put up a tiny amount of token resistence, and then he was the one chasing her, never the reverse, starting from after their first intimate encounter up until he was groveling and begging her to stay. He was the only one doing the chasing, groveling and begging, she never even fought for HS and did nothing to keep him. It was utterly one sided, and even after breaking up with DK, they had more of a love triangle there than HS ever did with FL -because DK actually had feelings for YJ and the threat of getting back to him was a realistic one-. So she pushes him to compete with DK for her affection by manipulating him into groveling and begging, and even that is only barely enough -and she disappears anyway for a time-. But she never goes through even a iota of the effort for HS's sake, in fact all she has to do to get him to take her back is show up and ask, and then threaten to leave him again for the man she cheated with, unless HS grovels and begs her to stay.

Really, I would have been contented to see her make any effort at all to fight for HS, to acknowledge his insecurities and take them seriously, to acknowledge the pain and humiliation and betrayal she put him through, which were much worse than anything she went through, and to rebuild trust (impossible in reality, was not even required in this fic via kdrama magic). Any self awareness whatsoever, please. And action, her doing something to address the insecurities and broken trust, a costly signal or any signal at all, really, something to indicate that she is willing to fight for HS (maybe him having a real affair with someone that reciprocated would have helped to prompt more of an effort, not that it should have been needed if he was not so ready to take her back anyway and she actually had to work for it and put some effort into it besides merely existing).

It's false that she was self reflective and acknowledged her faults. She lied about why she was leaving, later admitting she did it because couldn't stand he might be the one to leave her. She brushed over the more than one year of betrayal. Sure, she admitted once with ML that she was self centered and unfair, in the past and now, but didn't even acknowledge that what she had put HS through had been billion of times worst (nor did she mention her manipulation, or the usage of DK to make HS jealous, to HS). And in any case, merely saying it and doing absolutely nothing about it counts for nothing. Okay, it's less hypocritical than the alternative (and he had her moments of lies and hypocrisy, as indicated by the aforementioned justification for leaving, or even her starting to reciprocate DK's feeling, and certainly the double standard where she makes a big deal only of her feelings, while not acknowledging in the next line the much worse emotional trauma she had caused HS, and the disparity between what she gave him and what she was asking of him, is maybe being honest about being a hypocrite and having two weights and two measures), and spares us the time to argue about her being completely self serving, self entitled and self absorbed, and that she is, again, hurting HS and not giving an inch while he is trying his best, and endured much more she ever did, waited for her for years and took her back despite everything she had put him through, since she is acknowledging it... but then, if this is not followed by any action and she does not change her behaviour, what does it count for? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Empty words, as empty as her half uttered apology when HS took her back, not followed up by any action. She took more than she ever gave in return, and never fought for HS, never worked for, endured, struggled to get back with him, just showed up and asked, and then reduced him to a groveling, begging mess by threatening to leave him for the man she had cheated with.

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I don't have the nostalgia that a lot of people have with this show. I eventually watched it because it was recommended by so many people and was deemed such a classic, and when I did I found that I really enjoyed it. Other classic dramas like Full House or Autumn in my Heart really rub me the wrong way -- those tropes from the early and mid-2000s are so grating. The shouting, the absolutely awful main lead, the usually dumb female lead, the repetitive and over the top plot points... I don't find it charming, I just find it to be bad writing, directing and acting.

But! Coffee Prince has charm, a thoughtful story and good acting from a dynamic ensemble cast. Sure it's got plenty of the tropes of the era (and some of those do bring down the rating for me), but it also its central premise (girl pretends to be boy, falls in love with arrogant boss) to tell a thoughtful story full of romance and self-discovery that actually rings true.

Coffee Prince is built around the premise of a poor, hard-working, not very romantic girl (Go Eun Chan) who is often mistaken for a boy because of the way she looks and dresses. She is in fact mistaken for a boy by the male lead (Choi Han Gyul), who is rich and arrogant and who hires her to pretend to be his gay lover so that he can stop going on the blind dates his grandmother sets up for him. She is supremely responsible for her mom and younger sister and is just scraping by, he is irresponsible and lazy and yet rich as hell. It's a classic setup that is initially played for laughs. But as the drama progresses and Eun Chan's lies get deeper the actual implications of the situation become clear.

This is where I think Coffee Prince really deserves its classic status. Both of the main characters start to fall for each other, but feel that they can't express their love -- Eun Chan is afraid to tell Han Gyul she is a girl because he might hate her for lying to him, and Han Gyul is having a crisis as he falls in love with Eun Chan, who he thinks is a man. The longing, heartbreak, repression and unsaid feelings of that are really delved into as the show goes on. I think its that exploration of the inner turmoil of the characters that really gives this drama its lasting impact.

On a more superficial note, Gong Yoo is incredibly handsome and charismatic as Han Gyul and Yoon Eun Hye is very funny and relatable as Eun Chan. The rest of the cast at the coffee shop are very fun and have great chemistry. I think the success of the show is partly also due to the hilarity and sweetness of that ensemble.

The reason this doesn't have a higher score is because I don't think the storylines with Choi Han Sung and Han Yoo Joy (Han Gyul's best friend and former love) are very interesting and I think the semi love triangle that develops between Sun Chan, Han Gyul and Han Sung has very little tension. It's one of those love triangles that just feels like a waste of time. I also think that Eun Chan's mother and sister are very one-note and annoying and that most of the scenes at her house are dull and repetitive. It's very typical of that period of dramas to have the family of the female lead be somewhat stupid, useless and annoying, because it makes her seem like even more of a toiling saint for taking care of them.

All in all, although the show has its weak points its so entertaining and emotionally moving that I think it firmly deserves its classic status. I highly recommend it to anyone who feels like all the dramas pre-2010 are full of nothing but shouting, hysterical sobbing and sudden amnesia.

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Overall, a nice drama

Overall, this was a nice drama. I liked some things and disliked others (your mileage may vary, some fringe takes I consider absolutely crazy, but I am more or less aligned with the general sentiment).

I think that most other reviews nail down the strengths pretty well. In terms of the pet peeves, one thing I didn't like was the treatment of the topic of betrayal. In My Mister there was a great line that talked about how in kdramas betrayal is treated flippantly or romanticized, and you don't see the true effects, or they are swept under the rug when you need to move the story forward, and My Mister was a perfect example of a show that didn't do that at all, not shying away from the pain and long term consequences of the affair, with flashbacks and DH's imagining his wife being intimate with her lover.

I feel that My Wife Is Having An Affair This Week was an example of the above mentioned flippancy, in that there are some scenes where the anguish is shown, but for the sake of the plot they move past it when convenient, and someone who couldn't even touch her without thinking of her with her lover suddenly has his trauma healed because of what, a decision? The power of love? If one could simply chose to get past that trauma and rebuild trust that manner, they wouldn't have needed to divorce and people wouldn't need therapy and counselling. Healing and rebuilding trust are not easy, they don't happen on command, and some times they don't happen at all (and some time, it's appropriate for them not to happen: if somebody was factually speaking disloyal and betrayed your trust, they have shown themselves to be unworthy of your trust, and if you didn't believe them capable of that, you should realize that the object of your affection didn't exist outside your head and the real person is quite different).

In a review of Crazy, Stupid Love, a commentator had written that it was fundamentally fake, phony, dishonest, in that it does not show the true pain one goes through, the trauma, the broken trust, there is no effect on surrounding relationships and no therapy and marriage counsellor, and trying to move past the pain and failing to do so, etc. My Wife Is Having An Affair This Week used the flashback/image with the lover only when he embraced his wife, not before, which was unrealistic, and even that was shown only once and in a tame manner.

Coffee Prince is that way: for some reason, despite having lived through the hell of YJ having an affair with DK for more than a year and lying to his face about working while she was with him, and leaving him for two years despite him begging not to, he continues to pine after her and remembers only the good times. No flashbacks to the pain and anguish of discovering her betrayal and choosing to forgive her day after day for more than a year, no imagining her with her lover, etc. Some times at the beginning and the time where he confessed to have known of the affair at the side of the road were the only two times where his anguish was manifested, then it was brushed aside and we saw someone who didn't act as if he was carrying trauma commesurate with the hell he was put through. No comparable trust issue, him joking and playing along when she makes light of the betrayal and him being the victim that took her back, and feeling his pride hurt by mentions of DK, who he hates. After the scene in the car and all the pain that showed up? After she used a man she cheated on him with for more than a year and abandoned him, and recently used to make him jealous, threatening to leave him to DK? When he felt he couldn't even open up to her about not feeling comfortable with DK's presence when she phoned the guy and met/had lunch with him one on one?

Frankly, I wonder if the writer's intentions was to make it appear as if she had merely dumped him, because what I saw, him being uncomfortable with DK but pretending he was cool with it with YJ, even shaking the guy's hand as if he didn't know she had been seeing him behind his back for more than a year while they were together, or him appearing uncomfortable with her indulging/flirting with his cousin (when he saw him with his head in her lap)... I thought he was insecure because of the abandonment, but that she knew the line and wouldn't betray his trust, and would talk and be honest with him, but her having carried on a full blown affair for more than a year puts every of these actions in a quite different light.

Frankly, I don't understand how anyone could consider her not self entitled and self centered, selfish and manipulative. She uses DK, who has feelings for her, to make her bf jealous, teasing him about the fact they lived together, knowing the immense pain she had caused him, that he had tolerated her more than year long affair and lies, and begged her to stay, while she abandoned him, only to come back when the relationship with DK didn't pan out (maybe because of the underwear model she mentions?), and picking him up like a pair of old shoes, fully expecting him to be there waiting for her -you cannot take one any more for granted than that-. He takes her back almost immediately, with barely an apology, and she doesn't do anything at all to regain his trust -on the contrary, she still keeps in contact with DK and meets up with him (both with him and his cousin the touchy/feeling part was rather ambiguous, because while his cousin might never come between them, with DK she did have a more than year long affair and lived for two years, so him caressing her, and her letting him, has a whole other meaning). She doesn't set any boundary, either physical or otherwise, despite being aware of it potentially upsetting someone she betrayed for more than a year and abandoned for two, and whose trust she is supposed to rebuild: she asks him whether he is okay with his cousin's flirting and DK, which means she is aware enough to understand that it's something she should probably stop indulging, even if he pretends he is. Just minimal care and consideration for his point of view. For that matter, she herself admits that she is the selfish one, and even just using her ex bf to hurt/make jealous the man she had cheated on with said ex bf means manipulating both.

HS being painted as selfish and manipulative is ludicrous by comparison, which, again, the drama acknowledges. I mean, he put up with her betrayal for more than a year, and took her back basically immediately, and didn't even feel able to be open enough to talk about DK, pretending he was okay while she, being completely inconsiderate, didn't do a single thing to gain back his trust. Him inviting a female friend at the show, in part because she wanted to go, in part as a maybe partially subconscious desire to make YJ not even "jealous", but aware of the fact that she is taking him very much for granted, in response to the DK thing, while not knowing of FL's feelings for him, or his subsequent little one sided mini-crush and small kiss, in no way can be placed on the same plane as her lying to his face for more than a year while seeing DK while she was telling him she was working, and running off with the guy for other two. He was more reactive (meaning that he responded to YJ's actions) and aphazard than calculative or intentionally manipulative. She was very much not: she intentionally deceived him for a year, and used the feelings of the guy she cheated on him with to make his jealous, manipulating both of them (well, for DK I feel little pity, given he was willing to have a more than year long affair with her and then shakes the guy's hands and proposes a project as if nothing had happened). He sleeps with her because he loves her, and then tries to "take it back" because he feels that he has no self respect and self dignity (and yes, he was a chump). He is baffled, rightly, by the fact that his subsequent rejection doesn't phase her, while he was utterly destroyed when she left him. Theirs is not an equal relationship, either in terms of what they did to each other, and in terms of commitment, and he keenly feels that.

To "two wrongs don't make one right", I would reply banality with banality with "turnabout is fair play" or "you reap what you sow", and then challenge the notion that him seeing someone else would be "wrong". In my eyes, you don't owe respect, honesty and loyalty to someone that didn't show you any, and I was 100% in approval of the wives and gfs in shows such as A Good Lawyer's Wife and The Magicians sleeping with other man -their cheating spouses had no right to complain-.

Again, some empaty with someone that was put through unbearable emotional abuse by the traumatic experience of his girlfriend of nine years lying to his face for more than one year, having to beg her and her then picking up and leaving him for two years, and expecting she had any right to come back in his life and get back together with him since she and DK had broken up... self entitlement and taking him for granted to the n-th power. Also some sense of proportions. We are talking about a one sided mini-crush and an unreciprocated small kiss, versus deceiving someone for more than a year and spitting on nine years together, then ignoring his begging to run away with her lover and showing up after two years with barely an apology, while continuing to flirt and continuing to talk and meet up with the man she cheated with in a creepily ambiguous atmosphere, knowing he still had feelings for her.

I saw someone claim that YJ was "mature" and used her femininity to choose her sexual partner and her career. This is hogwash: in terms of the career, she advanced through her talent, not by sleeping with DK, and suggesting the contrary seems to me to be more insulting than an example of female empowerment (on the contrary, it mirrors the sexist trope of the actress sleeping with the guy financing her work to advance her career), as for choosing sexual partners, that's simply factually hogwash as well: in the modern world people freely choose their sexual partners -nobody in the show was in an arranged marriage, afaik- with or without femininity, case in point FL doing so while pretending to be a man. Bottom line, she made her way in the world (male dominated or not -frankly, as a solo artist one struggles to understand why the artistic circle would be more horrible in that respect than a lot of other places, and she just needs to produce good art, not to convince anyone to hire her or not suppress her on the job... and the implication that she would have slept with DK to get ahead makes this take insulting, not an example of female empowerment, so I am baffled at the idea of it being presented in that light, when it would have been the exact opposite: surely, the correct take and the most respectful one of her as a person and a female artist, is to believe that she used her talent and rather than bank on her femininity and sexuality to get ahead) through her talent.

As for "maturity", we are talking about someone that freely admitted to being unfair and selfish but did nothing to change her behavior, that drunk while pregnant, and showed no consideration for the feelings of someone she ghosted for two years after a year long affair, flirting, talking with and having 1-to-1 with her ex she had cheated on her bf with, etc., while doing absolutely nothing to rebuild the trust she had so completely broken. She used her ex, who still had feelings for her, to tease and make jealous, and hurt, the bf she had cheated on with said ex, talking about the house they shared in NY and threatening to leave him for DK and that he loved her and she might start to love him back again. Mature? I think not.

Another person said that artistic circles, particularly public facing ones, make it inevitable YJ cheating and running off while HS was a hermit living outside of town while she was a famous artist in the spotlight. I think that this generalization of artists being unfaithful and untrustworthy, or even particularly promiscuous, doesn't hold water (as any generalization about any group of people, gender, race, religion, etc.). It's in any case not a rockstar with groupies situation, and in SK afaik public figures are expected to be pretty spotless. In addition to that, it's simply false that she was famous when she begun the affair: as her lover said, she was pretty unknown at the time. Plus nobody else in the field seems particularly disloyal or even promiscuous, and if anything it's her bf, not her, that worked with other people (she also does, but she is mainly a solo artist), and he does work in the city -like many rich and famous people who are not hermits, he lives outside of town, a perfectly normal thing to do and not an indication of being socially isolated: he has a car-. And she herself said that she run off with DK because she loved him, not because she was a small girl in a bigger world and thought she could upgrade her bf with a rich fop. HS also had plenty of occasions to cheat -not a hermit-, he simply was in love with her and didn't even drink coffee with any of them-.

Someone said that she was the most self aware and admitted her flaws... that's not really correct, she gaslighted and pressured her bf and gave him no space, leaving and making it seem as if it was to give him freedom, while as she later admitted she just wanted to have her pride hurt if he left her. And in any case, admitting that her bf was selfless and forgave her more than year long cheating, and took her back after she dropped him like a pair of old shoes and then came back demanding to be his gf again, and to be selfish and inconsiderate herself, but doing nothing at all to change or even attempt to rebuild the trust she shattered.

She literally just had to show up and not to abandon him again despite his begging, and only when she was at the airport she realized that she was seeing the mote in one's brother's eye but not the beam in one's own, and that if we were keeping score in terms of the damage she did they were at a billion to one. In general, if you acknowledge you are an a-hole and don't do anything to change, you are still an a-hole. I cannot even say "at least she is not a hypocrite" with confidence. I mean, in one sense she was not, but in another sense, she held her bf to a much, much higher standard than she held herself, and was not willing to extend him the same grace: a blatant double standard. She could take him to task about FL before he even kissed her, but he couldn't be confident to talk to her about DK and had to pretend everything was fine?

She also doesn't get any props for not being jealous of FL, because the latter was not interested in her boyfriend and she was never a threat, while she had a more than year long affair with DK and abandoned her begging bf for him, only to come back two years later when that relationship didn't pan out. The situation with the FL is exactly the same as the bit with his cousin, in that they are not a threat (and the flirting with the cousin and leading him on was something that went on for years).

I found the banter at the end disturbing: the way she minimized and talked flippantly about him being the victim of her betrayal (which lasted more than one year, after which she ran away for two, and came buck asking to be his gf while keeping contact with her ex lover she had cheated on her bf with, talking with him on the phone and meeting up one-on-one while letting some quite creepy/ambiguous touching happen: in some way worse than indulging/flirting with the cousin, given that the latter would never come between them, but DK did come between her and her bf and she cheated on and abandoned the latter with him), and about being self conscious about DK and having his pride hurt (legitimate, among other things... also the broken trust and relationship... let's not forget she threatened to leave him for DK because her pride wouldn't take him leaving her). Considering the fact that he knew of the more than year long affair and she run away from him while he begged her to stay, leaving for two years, and she is still in contact with him, talking and meeting up one-on-one when DK still had feelings for her, and he was not comfortable telling her about it, but had to pretend that he was okay with it... are we sure he should be mocked for opening up about the fact he hates the guy? Particularly considering the pain he expressed just recently when he brought up the cheating at the side of the road to the airport, and the fact that she used DK to make him jealous and threatened to leave with him, saying he had feelings for her and she might also start to reciprocate again. It's clear that this is "joking" like the joking they did about his budding feelings for FL, meaning that it's not really joking, but she treats her past betrayal, and almost-leaving with DK, in a completely flippant manner.

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For all those saying that it's insane for her to have been mistaken for a guy by everyone, I disagree. Unless someone is actively looking to see a particular gender, I completely believe that anyone looking would assume she's a guy. Unlike most dramas where a female lead is trying to pass for male, she didn't do the whole awkward "Look at me, dude, man, bro, I'm totally a guy, just... look at my... Um... I can spit far and fart! See? I'm a guy!"
Instead she just kind of lived life. Like, other than binding, she didn't exactly go out of her way to convince anyone of anything. She didn't change her speech, behavior, or anything like that. She held herself in a way which girls get called out for all the time for being too boyish, and she had a haircut that didn't just look like a girl wearing a bad wig. Do I think the ML wasn't straight? Yes, I don't think he would conceivably have fallen for her as a guy otherwise, especially considering he was wholly attracted to her and wanted to go farther while under the impression she was male. Buuut sexuality's a spectrum and I applaud the character for coming to terms with his attraction to a guy in the first place, and for the side characters being supportive and all that jazz.
I have rewatched this multiple times and will likely watch it multiple more times. I genuinely love the acting in this and how for once in a drama the FL doesn't go over the top dramatic in her "I'm Totally a Dude" shtick and instead just continues to act naturally as just a bit of a rough girl. Anyone who says she's obviously a girl is only saying that because they know her, because I guarantee if you saw her looking like that in public you'd either assume she's a guy or at least stop to question her gender. It's only obvious she's female to the viewers who know or know the actress from other works where she presents as more feminine.

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One of the more famous kdramas, lots of adaptations

Overall, the drama was well crafted for the times. I feel that many aspects would have been dealt with more in depth in more recent productions (and probably there was more than enough material for each couple to warrant its own series).

Regarding YJ took much more than she gave back. She was incredibly possessive by comparison and blew her fuse over his one sided mini-clush and one small unreciprocated kiss (no tongue), considering it an incredible affront that he would ever even look at another girl with affection or read her messages (which were really just platonic) when she wasn't looking. Which I could have accepted and taken seriously had she been a paragon of virtue, but in the context of her having deceived HS by telling him she was working while she had been seeing DK behind his back for more than a year, only to later run away with the guy for two years without another word, not to mention continuing to talk with DK on the phone and see DK one on one and have lunch with him still being smitten with her and trying to hit on her, and HS having just taken her back. Not sure in what universe HS should count himself lucky to have YJ around: someone so self entitled and self absorbed that she repeatedly reduces someone she claims to love to a groveling, begging mess. Is she proud to have "won" that way, to have spared her pride the potential bruised ego of having him leave her?

She was factually speaking, and by her own admission, utterly manipulative. If the husband in World of the Married had tried to be half as manipulative as to threaten the spouse she cheated on with running back to his lover absolutely nobody would be justifying that behaviour or rooting for him: there is nuance, and then there is sociopathic callousness and cruelty that frankly goes beyond simply being self serving. I do have to agree with her assessment that she is not a particularly good or nice person (to use a euphemism), and hopefully HS's cousing doesn't know the whole story of the more than year long lies and deception, or of her using DK, the man she had cheated with for more than one year, to make HS jealous -I can't recall if she explicitly told HS's cousing that she was going back to DK, maybe she only mentioned leaving HS again to go to NY, since she also had a job there, so not sure if he was up to date with all the details, not that her getting back together with DK would have stayed hidden from him had she actually gone through with it, as she almost did, given that she is famous and the press would have reported it-, but even with just what he knew, it's safe to say that he would have to be either blind or an idiot to form that opinion. The dynamic of the betrayed wife taking the husband back in, say, World of the Married and other dramas, is truly repulsive. If the parts are inverted, it does not get any less repulsive. For that matter, I feel the same way about FL's sister's cheating boyfriend, he too was pure scum, if he didn't like her behaviour he ought to have either talked to her or left her, not two timed her, since she didn't do it to him. She should never have stayed with him. Meanwhile, ML can be a playboy and hit on YJ half the drama, and the snowflake can supposedly not take his gf having been given a little kiss by HS, without reciprocating, before they were even in a relationship? I mean, what is the standard here? True fact: if FL had put him through a fraction of a billionth of what YJ put HS through, ML wouldn't be with her now. So I wouldn't exactly call HS being with YJ a success.

YJ brought up the fact that his begging didn't stop her leaving the first time, and wouldn't stop her now... could she be any more hurtful? How could one believe her previous half uttered apology when HS took her back when she then treats the matter with such flippancy, mocks and makes light of his insecurities, only to exploit them when convenient, by parading DK in front of him and reminding him that she had lived with the guy for two years in NY after leaving HS after more than a year of seeing DK behind his back. The more I think about it, the more sociopathic and messed up YJ's behavior appears... and I must admit that I have difficulty reconciling her current image with someone that would. I starting thinking about what would be enough to convince HS to leave YJ... I must say that I couldn't come up with an answer, and I don't think that this is a good sign. At that point, one's relationship cannot be any more unequal, given what her reaction was, and her factually speaking much more pronounced inclination to just pick up and leave... Frankly, I kind of wish she is right in guessing that he might have left her (the reason she almost chose to pre-empt this by leaving him again for DK), because otherwise this level of dependence where he will pine on her no matter what she does -waiting for her for years... what would have happened had her and DK not broken up? He would still be waiting, and telling himself some fatalistic lie about the special nature of a relationship in which he had been deceived for more than a year, before she run away with her lover and he never heard from her again for two years, and she always treated him as a doormat that would always be there at her back and call if she needed him, taking him absolutely for granted and blowing the fuse when he gave any indication he might possible love someone else other than her, while admitting that loved DK at the time... but let's not enumerate her flaws because we would be still her by the time the Sun dies-.

On the topic of YJ almost running back to the man she had cheated with, DK, and the reasoning she gave for why she didn't, while I appreciated the fact that she came back because she realized how messed up leaving and getting back together with DK would have been given how much worse HS had endured for her sake, I must say that I wished she had also given the reason that she didn't love DK and loved HS instead. Because she did say that she was starting to love DK back, but it was, I suppose, a lie to hurt HS, but then she talked to DK on the phone and they met up alone and had lunch together and there was certainly some tension/banter/ambiguous vibe, not helped by the fact that he was trying to get back with her, and she didn't really put a stop to it in a strong manner, but rather indulged him and gave clever little replies. So I really, really would have liked some clarification on whether she would have really ended up with the man she had cheated on HS with had she gone back to NY for the job, and what it means in terms of her feelings for DK -because he seemed aware of the fact that she was using him and loved HS... what does that mean? That they would have been getting together despite her not loving him and loving HS? Again, I would have liked much more clarity about DK, and I guess HS would have as well: she said she loved him when she run away with him, what about now? She said he loved her and she was starting to reciprocate, but the context made one think that it was said to egg HS on, and after all she had used DK by putting them in the same room and bringing up the topic of their house in NY where she had lived with DK for two years after the more than year long period where she was seeing him behind HS's back when she was still with HS, and on the other hand the fact that HS seemed unavailable seemed to mean she loved him more than before-.

On DK, I don't know if it's anthipathy or new sensibilities, but the conflict of interest in him being her patron and sleeping with her does make him feel a bit sleazy. But maybe it's something that was considered more normal in 2007, and in any case I am probably nitpiking because I don't really like the guy. Obviously, I am not giving him all the fault of the affair, because ultimately YJ is her own woman, responsible for her actions, and she was the one that chose to lie to HS for more than a year instead than treating him with a shred of respect and honesty, breaking things off clearly. She was the one that knew fully well how much he loved and trusted her, and that should have been honest with him about the situation instead of deceiving him, either not seeing DK behind his back if had it not been a serious interest, or, if she loved DK at the time like she claimed was the case, breaking up cleanly with HS instead of deceiving him for more than a year. So I am not claiming that she was "stolen" as if she was someone's car, with no say in the matter: she is solely responsible for her actions and choices. But DK did make the decision to put himself in the middle of an established couple, basically not caring that he would end up hurting someone he didn't knew and that never did anything to him (or at least not caring enough not to do it: with him as with YJ what matters in what, when push came to shove, they ended up doing and choosing, which clearly reveal their priorities, priorities that, let's keep it real, in either case being entirely self serving).

Again, the issue here is the fact that he participated in the more than year long deception, not that YJ fell in love with him and chose to break up with HS. That would have been the decent thing to do from the beginning, lying to him and treating him like a fool for more than a year was a deliberate choice they did, so he was the kind of scumbag that would walk all over people he didn't even know, and that had done him nothing wrong, in order to get what he wanted. In the end, the "what ifs", the "if he had not been there it would have been someone else", the "it's not me that had been in a nine years long relationship with the guy", are all excuses: for any bad thing one might do in the world, from over-polluting because "everyone does it" (not really, in any case it doesn't mean you should do it) to a vegan never being unable to bring themselves to be a butcher despite the fact that somebody would do it if they didn't (okay, but it matters, should matter to you anyway, that you are the one doing it, at the end of the day, if it's hurting something or someone you care about, in the case of pollution the environment, in the case of the vegan animals, in the case of DK a guy that never did anything to him), bottom line, *he* was the one that YJ ended up meeting behind HS's back for more than a year, he knew he was deceiving someone that had never done anything wrong to him, and didn't care at all, or certainly not enough not to do it. Bottom line, and coming back to the golden rule, it comes back to treating others like you would like to be treated: DK wouldn't want someone to think about the situation like he does if he was on the receiving end, and neither would YJ (as we later saw, she blew her fuse for much, much, muuuuuch less). So he shouldn't really complain when the poetic justice of YJ using his feelings to make HS jealous comes around. Toxic, the both of them.

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Nice view, would have appreciated some more detail ond 2nd couple

Overall I liked the story.

I accept it's a trope and I wasn't bothered, but ML got much less flack than SML probably on account of being hot, despite being the kind of overbearing and brash rich playboy that ought to have driven such ire, even flirting with his cousin's gf, plus the whole thing with the kiss, where he can be a player but it's expected that his gf having been kissed (indeed, she is a virgin, antother trope) -and not even reciprocating- before they got together would have bothered him. Frankly, no need to bring it up if he doesn't ask, just as his previous experiences, but not something he should be lied about if he does ask -now, if this was cheating during the relationship then she should bring it up, but it's another case-.

I believe in general that "doing it for the other person" is utterly self serving and blatantly untrue -the person in question is the only one with the right to decide what's good for them, and you cannot pretend to care while carrying on an affair and lying to their faces, you are doing this for you, and at the end of the day whatever your motivation, it matters more to you than giving your partner a modicum of loyalty, respect and honesty, and breaking things off without deceiving them-.

Again, I got the feeling that it was reflective of HS's, the SML's, pain at the betrayal he had to suffer through for more than a year, but in reality imho he is better off knowing, and ultimately only the person him/herself can decide what's good for them, it's not a call the one that did wrong is entitled to make -with the excuse of "wanting to protect" and "doing for your own good", oftentimes it's self serving, and you even get to feel noble to keep the secret rather than reveal it to unburden yourself... outta here with that hogwash-.

Overall I would have liked more details on the background of the second lead's relationship and cheating/running off/running back again (why? what prompted the change of heart, then and now?). The cheating was hidden until the end (and not shown in flashbacks, conveniently and somewhat unbelievably focusing only on happy moments without thinking about her with DK during the tormenting more than year long betrayal, etc.). I felt kind of manipulated by the cheating reveal happening late (I assumed that she had just dumped him), but it was probably done for shock value -though it's then kind of swept under the rug- and possibly so that it would be late enough in the game that the viewer is already committed to the pairing.

I found YJ entirely self entitled and with no sense of perspective, and entirely focused on her feelings while ignoring her bf's. He confesses to knowing of her more than year long betrayal and demeaning himself to uselessly beg her to stay, and she ignores the show-stopping fact that he knew of her lies and proceed to ask how could she love someone else after all that (the question should be the exact opposite: how could he love *her* after all that, and in what universe does she think she is even remotely worth it, let alone entitled to, as she seems to believe, him giving her a second chance and wanting to be with her, given her past -and present, for that matter- behavior), and talk about her feeling pathetic for him watching a message when she was not looking? After lying to him for more than a year and him forgiving her, and demeaning himself to beg her to stay, then and now, when she used the man she cheated with to threaten him and make him jealous, saying he loves her still and she might start to reciprocate again? She has the gall to talk about broken trust after lying to his face for more than a year, and leaving for two, then coming back expecting everything to be the same and for him to still be in love with her and only her, without doing anything to rebuild the trust *she* had broken, and worst yet, she was basically right, i.e. he took her back, begged her to stay a second time, and all she did to get his love and trust was just stay there and not leave? Even in the end, the admission that she left because her pride wouldn't allow her to tolerate him leaving her... after he swallowed his pride to ignore her year long deception and cheating, her leaving with another man for two years, and continuing to talk with and meet up with the man she cheated with, and him pretending he was okay with it and shaking the guy's hand as if nothing had happened, and having to play along as she mocks him with hurt pride, mocks his understandable insecurities she just recently exploited, intentionally, to make him jealous... she knew very well the effect the man had on him, and didn't care to extend any consideration even when she was the one that was supposedly trying to get back together with the ex she had betrayed and was supposed to act to rebuild trust, which she never did.

Frankly, him staying around and waiting for her, and having no other experience other than the aborted unrequited mini-crush that he got so much grief on (utterly unfairly, considering the context -they are about a billion to one-) was unrealistic, as is him having flashbacks only of the good times when he carries this much pain about her more than year long betrayal: we are not show those memories, which realistically he should have had, because then we would have had to consider the fact that he really has no reason whatsoever to pine after her, when basically anyone else (or nobody: better alone than in bad company) would have been a better choice, having never betrayed him in such a manner. Her threatening to leave him with DK, who still loved her, and using the latter to make him jealous, only staying when she realized the absurd unfairness of her behavior, but even then not waiting for him and giving him space as he did, but turning back when he begged her to stay -so still pressuring him into compliance rather than giving him space-, as well as her attitude of considering him having a mini crush on the same level as her more than year long betrayal and running away for two year, only coming back when he broke up with DK, and having the gall to talk about trust and feeling pitiful and pride, when he was so humiliated and was basically lacking any self respect and self dignity, debasing himself to beg, at the time and now... to use DK to make him jealous and threaten to leave with him to force a decision was sociopathically self entitled.

Frankly I am flabbergasted by Yoo-joo’s attitude. She seems to truly believe she can cheat on, neglect, and mistreat Han-sung and he will always be there for her. Unfortunately for him, he got so much flack for this unrequited mini-crush (especially when you consider that all he did was send a few charming smiles her way and sneak one teeny tiny kiss), despite having forgiven his girlfriend's more than a year long betrayal still being not only willing, but begging, to stay with her at the end of it... he has to beg and grovel for her to get over his momentary interest in someone else, begging her to not leave for DK once again.

The more than a year of cheating changed everything for me, the flirting, the cousin, and keeping in contact with the man she dumped HS, as well as the lack of any consideration for HS's feelings and his lack of comfort sharing what he felt wrt DK (with good reason, given she is impatient and mocks him, which he plays along with, playing it cool, while still feeling disturbed... it's not good he cannot open up, and they didn't talk about her cheating and then running off at all, or the reason for the breakup, all things that should have realistically been part of rebuilding trust, and yet it seems that the fact he pines after her and her not leaving should fix everything she had broken in and of themselves... no, broken trust and psychological damage is not fixed like that, otherwise people would choose to flip a switch and be okay, and nobody would need therapy)... they turned from HS' insecurities for being dumped and her sassy attitude within the limits, to something much more sinister, considering she *did* cheat for a year and lie to his face, so he knows she is capable of not being honest with him and backstab him. I feel that the writers put off the reveal to such a later date because then people would be "invested" enough to ignore it, which was largely the case.

All in all, I must say YJ and HS's relationship did seem unequal, with him not even drinking coffee with other girls while she flirted and talked on the phone and met up with the man she cheated on him with, with plenty of rather inappropriate touching with cousin and DK, both of which were in love with her, and one of which did come between her and her boyfriend, leading to more than a year of cheating and her running off with him for two years. Also, two different standards, where she is not willing to give even a fraction of what HS did, and is triggered and complains of trust and pride and pathetic when he was put through a billion times worse (while he was not even reciprocated after his small kiss). They were not equal in their actions, nor in what they were willing to give the other. Verbally she says she loves him more than him does her, and that she is equally triggered by his mini-crush, both claims leaving someone somewhat in disbelief, because she didn't really do anything to show it (nor did he really require her to... when he asked for space, she threatened to leave him for DK, again, and then she almost did -in any case abandoning him for a few days-, then he was beaten into submission and asked her not to go), and because even if true, it's on one hand nice to see her jealous and finally not taking HS for granted, because it means she cares, but on the other hand it's similar to the sexist, unequal situation where you have a philandering husband having plenty of affairs, and when his wife looks at another man he divorces her on the spot. He was willing to wait for her, she was not.

I particularly hated the bit about her cooking kimchi and doing house chores (which they are both more than rich enough to delegate), because like in This Week My Wife Is Having An Affair this seemed to be missing the point: this is like a nice car without engine, if you are dealing with someone lacking loyalty, honesty and that betrayed your trust, the fact that they cook for you is both besides the point and an insulting notion (are you really telling me that I am supposed to be "won over" by such a cheap tactic). It's not a substitute for loyalty, respect and honesty. I would have very much preferred to see her do something to rebuild trust (not that I think it would be possible in reality, and not that it is necessary in the drama: she just shows up and he takes her back, but it would have been nice to see her at least try, while she does absolutely nothing to rebuild trust or address his very valid fears, concerns, insecurities, resentments, which swept under the rugs or made the object of ridicule -insultingly comparing more than a year of lies and running off for two without another word, even after he begged him, to a one sided mini-crush that ended before it even begun, and a small one sided kiss-, and he has to play along), or refraining from doing something that further destroyed it (like flirting or talking to/meeting up with one one one with a still smitten ex-lover that she had cheated with, and that despite protestations to the contrary HS clearly had issues with and for good reason -and she knows it, otherwise she wouldn't have used him to make him jealous, nor she would have bothered to ask if he had an issue: she knows, and she knows she cheated with him for more than a year and run away for two, and that the guy is still holding a candle for her, and not only is she aware of this fact, but exploits it, and indulges his flirting/touching which was not really appropriate given the context of the cheating... again, before I could chalk it up to being sassy and her being inconsiderate or naive, but the "make him jealous" part and the way she teases HS clearly shows she knows he has an issue with DK and for good reason ("strange to hear you say something nice about DK", etc.-). Hard to see care or a desire to rebuild trust.

In terms of that part, I was kind of disappointed to see HS object to the working overnight and drinking, but not to the cooking and housework, while she was pregnant. The bit about him working and drinking was nonsensical, really, because there is a clear difference: he is not pregnant. Sure, it woulad be nice for him to abstain as well in solidarity, but particularly the drinking is something that she does not need to do, professionally, and that is obviously hurtful to the child (I don't know if this is something about the time period or place, but in the drama they do mention that the doctor made that clear to them, and there was a scene were she was about to drink and refrained, prior to the night of drinking with the coworkers). It made the miscarriage all the more horrible, because one couldn't help but wonder.

Wish I had more context about her affair with DK, why she left and why she is now back. She claimed to love DH. Did she love him more than HS? Did she stop loving HS? How could she deceive him? Why has she suddenly chosen to come back to him? What changed? If she jumped back in my life after not seeing her for two years (plus more than a year of betrayal) I would have been very curious to get some answers to those questions, they should have certainly discussed the DK elephant in the room more. And she should have tried to rebuild trust or done anything to convey that she cared that was not about her (as running away was), but rather about fighting to have HS in her life because it mattered to her (as he did by taking her back and begging her twice). But he did not require any convincing, and he was "scared straight" by the threat of her leaving him for DK, the man she had cheated with (something that ought to have given her pause and elicit some sort of guilt, but she barely apologized, and it's not clear to me whether it was for running off or for the affair, and whether she knew he knew at the beginning of the drama... she does not comment on it, but it's really not something that should be treated as her just dumping him, because lying to someone for over a year, systematically, has very different implication about basic respect, honesty, etc. and changes things). Why did she come back? Was it because DK cheated with the "underwear model"? But he still loves her? Was she the one that realized she didn't love him and loved HS? But she did say that she did love DK when she run off with him. This is something that not only I want to know, but that HS should have wanted to know as well, to understand what is going on.

The actors claimed that at the time they didn't get YJ and HS's relationship (from what I have seen they don't say that they get it now, but I might be mistaken). At 34, I would say that I don't really "get" it in terms of "look at this enlightment and wishdom I get because I am so mature", but I do get what is going on, and frankly this was the emotional abuse equivalent of a wife beating drunk persuading/gaslighting the battered housewife with stockholm syndrome to get back together. It's not realistic for him to pine after her for years and not ever pursue anything besides a still born romance, and take her back with such minimal attention to pain, physchological damage, insecurities, broken trust -it's brought up in episodes, as in This Week My Wife Is Having An Affair, and frankly even less, given that he takes her back immediately and when she threatens to leave him for DK again, impossibly he begs her to stay and it erases his thoughts about other women, rather than reaffirm them given the sociopathic cruelty of such an ultimatum to manipulate him and make him jealous, in light of the affair... again, nice that she was jealous, because she cares, but also chilling that she would do such a move to twist his arm-. I wish they had made her simply dump him. The fact that she lied to his face for more than a year when she was seeing DK behind his back is frankly the hardest part to square with the claim that she loves him more than he loves her..

I mean, how could she not see how much she had hurt and humiliated him, how miraculous him being willing to give her another chance was, and how she has not felt even a billionth of a fraction of what she had put him through, over more than a year of lying and then abandoning him for two years and coming back and upending his life, expecting him to have waited and take her back, when she was not willing to do even a fraction of that for him... and yet, the flirting she didn't stop, the ambiguity with DK, etc., which all take a very different meaning and light considering she didn't just dump HS, but cheated on him for more than a year. The intimacy and caresses from someone than loved her, and contrary to HS's cousin, had an affair with her while they were still together for more than a year, before YJ run off to NY for two.

When she mentions trust, pathetic, pride, etc.. over him reading a message? How could she not also think about the billions of times worse humiliations he had endured, his suffering over more than a year of affair and lying, her running off for two years and disappearing from his life despite his begging... Without a sociopathic level of shamelessness and self entitlement/self centeredness, it's impossible to understand how she could say this with a straight face, and while it's good that she feels jealous because at least she cares, it's also unjust and completely insane that she has no sense of perspective and does not acknowledge, or even think of, how much worse he must have felt given what she had subjected him to, and for how long.

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To orchestrate such a well-rounded drama back in the days is unbelievable

Hats off to the drama's soundtrack compilation which I give at least 40% of the credit this drama is my all-time fav. With an excellent OST album full of k-indies, there is no denying that (yes, the storyline and staff did their job well but) the music sets the mood ready to dine in the quirky, upbeat and heartfelt human interactions of the whole drama. The decision to utilize indie bands as extensively as it did is still not a common choice in kdramas. I love (love) that this drama introduces a lot of concepts that were neglected in asian series back then(can you believe it's 13 years ago)! It portrays romance that surpasses gender and also independent and career-oriented women from a medium that everyone can enjoy. Believe me, as much as I would like to write a 2000 word essay of the good points of this drama, I'll just leave it here by saying Coffee prince just ages like a fine wine! I've watched it at least 3 times throughout the years and found the characters still relevant (some characters like Han YooJoo even more so now than ever). I for one easily put coffee prince in my top 5 kdramas out of thousands of dramas I've watched.

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