Boys over Flowers

Awful

Love the premise, but the female lead was awful. Honestly very insulting to poor-middle class people. Everything about the female lead was made to be so terrible. She has a bowl cut, eats with her mouth hanging open, is slovenly, practically dislocates her jaw making the most unattractive faces, and yells much of her dialogue. It seems like an intentional point from the director, poor people are unattractive all around. The popularity of the original manga and attractiveness of the main males is the only reason I can see this getting positive reviews from people.

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Over hyped - regret watching it

So I just finished watching Legend of the Blue Sea - A drama I loved a lot and also the male lead Lee Min Ho. My friend suggested me that this is a must watch drama if I liked Lee Min Ho and honestly I am so disappointed. First of all his hairstyle was so weird, did not suit him at all, secondly his character of spoiled rich brat who likes to bully others, Idk how can someone find that attractive. The first episode I remember was cringey af. I smh let it go and continued to patiently watch till episode 8. Honestly there were some very good scenes because of which I am rating it even this much. Acting is great too but the story is so off. I expected a lot from the female lead but her character was so disappointingly annoying. I read rest of the story from wikipedia and decided to drop the drama or my image of Lee Min Ho will be ruined. Honestly he was great actor but that was his first drama so I am not gonna think about this drama anymore but I wish I watched Legend of the Blue Sea after Boys over Flowers. I don't know if anyone would understand what I am trying to say lol but I really regret watching this drama. Now I am trying to find a good Lee Min Ho drama so that I can recover from this.

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old but still okay

i saw the Thai F4 first and I must say I like the Thai version alot more then this one. I may be because it's an old show or it just got annoying at a point and made me bored.

it's dragged out alot and felt abit hollow in the end, like you worker your self through so many episodes and the it's just meh in the end.

but I did still enjoy it, but it didnt capture my focus to binge it. it's more been a backgrounds show when I did other stuff.

the acting was alitke cringe attime, the female lead got me annoyed alot of the times, and was just too much

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First k-drama

Okay.. so i guess most of the watched this drama as their first k-drama.. this drama is reason i started watching k dramas. This drama released in 2009. So i guess for that time it was really nice drama. Its cast is superb.. but i really dont like ML and FML to be honest. I watched this drama again only because of ji hoo. He is my fav. And like other ppl i also wanted him to get a girl in the end. And 2nd thing i like most is their friendship. Specially yijung woo bin. Jun pyo is real bully and jan di even though she was courageous she was really stupid sometimes. And in whole series i guess she is just wearing two expressions. Either laughing stupidly or crying. She is female lead and also connecting part of all characters but her acting i really didn't like. This character and actor could have done much better. And after sometime time you will realize story is repeating. Like scene of jan di jun pyo the misunderstanding and ji hoo helping jan di and yijung and woo bin also try to resolve. And i really felt jan di really didn't like jun pyo from starting. She started liking him after he declared himself as her bf without asking her or considering her opinion or feeling and then started showing care and concern. its like guilty liking where girl feel when boys are doing so much for them and then start to like to them. I really like Story of yijung and ga eul is also cute i love the way their character shapes in the series. And felt sorry for jun pyo's fiancee. She was actually good.

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I know this is most people's first in drama world, so I understand why it has so many fans.
I'm afraid I don't share that love. In fact, I only started to more or less enjoy it for the last five episodes. I think one of its main faults is that it is too long.

I didn't like the plot. To me it's a bunch of stereotypes. I know that's what's intended somehow, but either way I didn't like it.

As for the cast, I was pleasantly surprised about Lee Min Ho. I'm not exactly a fan, but I think he did a great job as the spoiled chaebol and he proved he has a comedic side. I also liked Kim So Eun as the female lead's sidekick. The rest of the cast was just ok (I love Kim Bum, but he was nothing more than beautiful in here), I guess. I must admit that I don't particularly like Kim Hyun Joong, and I hated his character all along, unlike many BOF fans.

The soundtrack is definitely one of the series's strong points. I guess it remains a classic.

Lastly, I haven't seen Hana Yori Dango, so I can't compare, but I have the feeling that the Japanese series must be much better.

This one won't definitely remain as one of my favourite dramas and I seriously doubt that I rewatch it again, but you can enjoy some of it somehow if you don't take it too seriously.

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Don't mind the bad reviews give this a chance

This is not half as bad as most of make it out to be. Ofc there were some things that were unrealistic and things I didn't like, such as jihu never getting over jandi till the end even after having been rejected tons of times by her, the fact that the show focused a lot on jihu and jandi's relationship taking the focus out of the main couple at times. I feel there could have been more jandi and junpyo scenes although the ones there were, were good and they made up for it.

The love between the main couple is endearing, pure and unconditional and it will make you fall in love with their love.

The osts were good and I listen to them outside of the drama.

Overall this is a good, iconic, must watch show and I 100% rec it. It was entertaining until the end and that's what matters the most. I felt like it was worth my time.

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If you’ve never heard of “Boys over Flowers” before... you’re obviously a newbie because if you are a true die-hard Asian Drama fan, Boys over Flowers is a CLASSIC. Put it this way, it’s like the “BIG BANG/SNSD” of the Korean Drama world;)

Let’s Start. I actually found out about boys over Flowers due to my aunt who was watching it on her laptop and so I decided to join her in watching it ever since the first episode. Boys over flower is probably one of the most unique Koreans dramas I’ve ever watched, it has a newly type of plot that No one ever did before, and that’s great, since nowadays most drama plots are predictable and boring. But the plot was also extra confusing, the scene I hated the most was when *SCENE SPOILER ALERT* the school ganged up on the main character and threw eggs at her *sighs* and on top of that after they threw eggs at her I thunk they also put flower on top of her head, those scenes were so unessary.

And the F4 thing was hella funny AF, but I loved how this drama had so much plot twists and turning points of the story. I especially liked how they kept making the main character choose between two guys and making a complicated Love triangle.

What’s Negative?: Honestly the F4 was stupid but it was also what made the Drama poppin. I hated how the F4 was made up of Spoiled rich handsome arrogant guys that liked to play with girls hearts. I also hated the “School involvement thing” that was unessary, the whole school didn’t have to be involved for the story to stay entertaining it actually made the story more boring and sad.

Positive Outlooks: I think style of the story was really smooth, I liked how the writer created tension between Joon Pyo and Ji pyo and made them Love Rivals, I loved how the story showed flashbacks of How the F4 was made and why each of the guys are what they are now, the story also show the weaknesses of each character and using that weakness to create a better storyline

Side Couples: Is it just me or do the side characters in this drama are acually more interesting than the actual main characters, I love the relationship with Ga Eul and Yi Jung >~<. The whole time I was only fixed in the relationship between these two it was soooo cute <3 I lived how these two ended it was such a great ending.

Overall: 9.5/10 a great and classical drama. You should watch this first if you are a newbie:)

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Boys Over Flowers (2009): The Best Live-Action Adaptation of Hana Yori Dango

Having watched the different live-action versions from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, China, and Thailand, I still think the 2009 South Korean adaptation, Boys Over Flowers, is the best overall version. I first read the news on few websites on late 2008 that South Korea will have a live action of the manga and posted it on Friendster at that time.

I first watched Boys Over Flowers when it aired in its Tagalog-dubbed version on ABS-CBN in 2010. I still remember when Boys Over Flowers was airing on ABS-CBN. I would catch some of the earlier episodes on television and occasionally watch recorded Tagalog-dubbed episodes that had been uploaded to YouTube. Looking back, many of those clips were likely unofficial recordings from the TV broadcasts. Through these uploads, I was able to follow much of the story—from the beginning of the series up to the episodes involving Jan Di's kidnapping and Ji Hoo's haircut—before eventually completing the entire drama years later. The drama also reminds me of that particular period in my life. It was the rainy season in 2010, and I had just transferred back from my school in Cubao, Quezon City to my original college in Dasmariñas, Cavite, where I continued and completed my Mechanical Engineering studies. I can even remember watching the show around the same time as I went grocery trips to the supermarket while watching another drama series at the same time - 1 Litre of Tears (Tagalog dubbed) and aired on a rival TV network - GMA-7.

However, I did not fully complete the series at that time. A decade later, in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, I rewatched the drama on Netflix and finally finished all the episodes. Coincidentally, this was also during the period when I was serving as a volunteer helper at a barangay hall. Rewatching it gave me a greater appreciation of the characters, soundtrack, and production quality, which further cemented my view that it is the best live-action adaptation of Hana Yori Dango.

The F4 members had the right look, height, and fashion that made them feel like the elite group they were supposed to be. The soundtrack was also excellent. Some of the songs are still in my playlist today. While I also downloaded some of the background music from the Japanese drama Hana Yori Dango, I rarely listen to them anymore compared to the Korean OST.

One of the most interesting aspects of the series was how Lee Min Ho portrayed Goo Jun Pyo, the Korean counterpart of Doumyouji Tsukasa. Throughout the story, he went from being a dominant and confident alpha-type character to someone who is a complete simp to Geum Jan Di, despite her initially despising him. The series also incorporated some traits from Kazuya Aoike's more wimpy character, such as Jun Pyo's inability to swim.

Ku Hye Sun's portrayal of Geum Jan Di was cute, charming and endearing. She had a warm, dependable "older sister" aura about her, even though she is actually a year younger than me. While I liked her performance overall, there were moments when Jan Di became a little frustrating because she struggled to sort out her feelings despite everything that had happened around her. To be fair, this was faithful to the original manga and its character writing. However, I have always felt that this is one of the weaknesses of Hana Yori Dango as a story. The romantic dynamics can be so exaggerated and unrealistic that, when viewed from a real-world perspective, the relationship between the two leads sometimes feels unstable. While their chemistry works well as dramatic entertainment, it occasionally comes across as the kind of relationship that looks like a recipe for divorce if it existed in real life.

I especially enjoyed the overseas episodes. The Macau and Maldives scenes added a sense of scale and luxury that made the series feel grander than other adaptations.

The drama was based heavily on the Japanese live-action version, but I also noticed what seemed to be subtle anti-Japanese World War II sentiment and cultural jabs in a few parts of the series, such as the naming of Ji Hoo's horse as "Rui."

One of the darkest controversies connected to the series involved actress Jang Ja-yeon, who played Sunny, one of the members of the bully trio. She died by suicide in 2009. After her death, allegations emerged that she had been pressured and exploited by powerful figures in the entertainment industry and forced to provide sexual favors to influential executives and media personalities. The case sparked national outrage in South Korea and led to multiple investigations and reinvestigations over the years, becoming one of the most controversial scandals in the Korean entertainment industry.

Unlike the Taiwanese and Japanese live-action adaptations, which suffered from splitting into two seasons, Boys Over Flowers managed to tell the story in a single continuous run. This helped the pacing and made the experience feel more complete.

My favorite soundtrack from the series is "Wish Ur My Love" by T-Max. Whenever I hear its intro, it reminds me of those classic blushing moments when you're trying to ship two people together or teasing someone about a romantic interest with a playful "yihee" expression. It perfectly captures that youthful, romantic atmosphere that made the drama memorable.

My second favorite soundtrack from the series is the unreleased background track commonly known among fans as "Flowers Bloom", which can be found on YouTube. It is a beautiful piece that both have piano and violin versions and is oftenly used to introduce scenes and transition between important moments. Despite never being officially released as part of the soundtrack album, it remains one of the most memorable musical themes in the drama.

My third favorite is "Yearning Heart" by A'ST1, which was featured during the ice-skating scene. The catchy tune and energetic melody make it one of the most enjoyable songs in the series. Whenever I hear it, it immediately brings back memories of the drama's youthful romance and the excitement of the relationship between Jun Pyo and Jan Di. It is the kind of song that perfectly captures the optimism and emotional highs that made Boys Over Flowers so entertaining to watch.


Things I Like About This Drama:

1. The Geum family's dry-cleaning business. It gave the story a grounded, working-class perspective that contrasted well with the wealth and privilege of the F4.

2. The Namsan Tower date scene where Jun Pyo and Jan Di shared a simple, inexpensive cup of coffee. Despite all the luxury in the series, it showed that meaningful moments don't have to be expensive. In that date scene, Jun Pyo makes a remark about what many businessmen understand - the small cent increments added to the price of cheap coffee - which reflects how wealthy individuals often stay wealthy through attention to even the smallest details of spending. There is also a lighthearted moment where Jan Di talks about the stars, and Jun Pyo mistakenly refers to them as satellites instead. These scenes stand out as some of the funniest and most memorable moments in the entire series, balancing humor with their romantic development.

3. The cable car scene where the two leads became stranded during their date. I also liked how the final episode came full circle by ending there.

4. The restaurant scene where the Geum family took home leftovers. It was a realistic and relatable moment that reflected their frugal lifestyle.

5. The street-vending scenes involving the Geum family. These scenes highlighted their hard work and determination to make a living.

6. The chaotic sale-rush scene at the clothing store before Jun Pyo and Jan Di's date. It was both entertaining and a glimpse into Jan Di's everyday struggles.

7. The piggyback contest (eopgi) where Jun Pyo and Jan Di emerged as the winners. It was one of the most memorable and fun moments that showcased their growing chemistry as a couple.

Even years later, Boys Over Flowers (2009) remains my favorite live-action adaptation of Hana Yori Dango.

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