Ah, Boys Over Flowers, the mother of pop culture. It was my first drama, and probably so for a lot of other people too, and of course back then it was new and glamorous and therefore good. But here's a secret for you: Boys Over Flowers is actually pretty bad. This classic Cinderella story is turned sour by a number of things. There's the overstuffed plot, that seeks to rob the best arcs from the manga and only occasionally succeeds in doing so. There's the fact that Gu Hye-sun really can't act and makes for an insufferable heroine. There's also the fact that the romance is toxic and is doomed to make our hero and heroine miserable in the future, but somehow convinces gullible teenage girls that this is what they deserve. So why haven't I rated it lower? Well, it's still Boys Over Flowers. But I would recommend the Japanese dramas over this adaptation any day of the week.