“You’ve fallen for me” – A Heartstrings Review

Originalname:	넌 내게 반했어 | Neon Naege Banhaesseo
Also known as:	You've Fallen for Me
Release Date:	29. June - 18. August 2011
Director:	Pyo Min-Soo
Writer:	Lee Myung-Sook
Cast:	Park Shin Hye, Jung Yong Hwa, Song Chang Ui, So E-Hyun, Woo Ri, Kang Min Hyuk

Plot

At the beginning we get to know our main characters Kyu Won and Lee Shin. Kyu Won is a bright girl and a highly skilled gayageum player. She lives with her grandfather and studies in the traditional music department. Lee Shin is the vocalist of the popular campus band “The Stupid”. He is a cold and refined young man, while being a highly skilled guitarist. He studies at the same university as Kyu Won but in the applied music department. The two haven’t much in common but because the teacher of the traditional music department lies sick in the hospital, Kyu Won decides to collect money for the hospital fee. To earn more money, she asks “The Stupid” if they could perform at this event. They agreed, but because of a family incident Lee Shin didn’t appear and Kyu Won had to sing instead of him. Of course the audience was disappointed because the handsome vocalist didn’t perform but it wasn’t all too bad. The event was a great success and Kyu Won caught the attention of a musical director who also majored at this university and was called back to plan something for the 100^th anniversary of the university. At the same evening Kyu Won wanted to bring the money to the sick professor but the professor already passed away. The next day, Lee Shin wants to apologize and to give back the money which she paid him to go on stage but she refuses and says that she isn’t that disappointed because she knew he would act that way and that he shouldn’t think too much of himself because he can’t catch her heart with his lyrics although he looks great. Of course he couldn’t leave it like that and so they bet: who can reach the audience’s heart can order the loser around for one month.

The big day has arrived. “The Stupid” performs without singing (this was a task) and then “Windflowers” where Kyu Won is the leader. For a moment it looks like she could win but a string of her gayageum breaks. So she loses.
So for thenext time, she will be his slave. One day Lee Shin calls her and orders her to attend a class for him because he’s busy. He goes to his father (who he never met) and takes guitar lessons. So, Kyu Won has to write an excuse for this class although she didn’t take it. After Lee Shin returns, he gives a “concert” and debuts his new song, which attaches Kyu Won in a way. After the performance Kyu Won tells Lee Shin about the homework, but the next day the professor isn’t satisfied and so they have to clean up the drama club’s dressing room. Of course Lee Shin teases her but suddenly the light goes off and when the light turns on again their faces are very close. To avoid to talk with her about this, he orders her again. Afterwards, when she wants to return the keys to Lee Shin, she meets the director and he tells her about an audition. (You remember? The university will celebrate soon its 100^th anniversary) So she decides to participate with her band there. At the end the “Windflowers” achieves to be in the performance group of the festival (but Kyu Won has to be an actress and not an musician) so are “The Stupid”, Hee Joo (she’s the chairman’s daughter and the love interest of “The Stupid”’s drummer; she achieved it only with their help) and Ki Young (a new guy who was brought by the director with an enormous voice). Lee Shin wants to decline to be part of the festival but when the professor o the dance department steps in, he stays. Kyu Won recognises this tension and concluded that he must be in love with her.

So the training begins and it doesn’t start well for Kyu Won because everyone believes Kyu Won got that place because she has a relationship with the director. After she got involved in a girl fight she considers resigning because she thinks she causes the troubles. The director doesn’t want her to leave so he tells Lee Shin (he found out that Kyu Won is Lee Shin’s slave) to bring her back. So Kyu Won (did she silently fell in love?) comes back but she lacks one trainings lesson so she gets again bullied. The director has enough. He shows the troublemaker what can happen in the showbiz although you have talent and that gives the girls to think about how they behaved and about their thoughts. Kyu Won decides to work harder and not to cause any problems. She gets also support from the dance professor and in the next lesson she could catch up. After training Kyu Won was about to go home but she is picked up by the director who saw her how pitiful she walked because of the aches. On the way home they see Lee Shin how he puts a necklace around the dance professor’s neck and kisses her. Kyu Won feels something that she never felt before and it hurts. (Oh, I don’t know… hmmm… MAYBE YOUR HEART, IDIOT!!)

The next day, Kyu Won wants to talk with Lee Shin about his feelings towards the professor, but he was already rejected so he becomes mad and fires her as a slave. But then, he recognizes that he somehow misses her and buys her coffee (she had always to buy him coffee and at the beginning she wrote notes like “with a lot of spit”) with a similar note and leaves it there where she has always to deliver to. So she thanks him and he orders her to clean up the messy band room and she gladly do it.

The next day Kyu Won sees how Lee Shin gets again rejected by the professor (he sees how the professor embraces the director) and she feels sorry for him. So she tries him to cheer him up but he doesn’t want to listen to her. Lee Shin is very heartbroken now. He decides he will no more like somebody and tells this also Kyu Won.

Days passes again (in the meantime, Kyu Won got almost kicked out of the performance) the last day of her slavery arrives and her last task is to find the necklace Lee Shin threw away to forget the professor. Kyu Won finds the lost necklace and wants to give it Lee Shin. She finds out that his father passed away and she can imagine how sad he is at the moment. She looks for him and when she finally finds him he is in the arms of the professor who found him a little bit before. In this moment, Kyu Won realizes that she has feelings for him and is really hurt, that he lies in the professor’s arms and not in her’s.

The next day, she doesn’t go to school, saying she is sick. She makes up her mind and decides to give up on Lee Shin. This she says the next day too Lee Shin when she gives him the necklace back. But unfortunately for Kyu Won she has to work with Lee Shin again because for the finale of festival Lee Shin should arrange a song modern and traditional music mixed.

At the same time Kyu Won is also practising for an audition for the lead female role of the musical. Anyway, one evening after practising with “The Stupid”, she goes out with them and her friends and comes home late (she ate, drunk, sang karaoke and puked) and her grandfather finds out about the audition. He locks her up in her room so that she can’t participate on this audition, but Lee Shin (with the help of his little sister) helps her to break out and she participates on the audition. Sadly, the role goes to Hee Joo, the daughter of the chairman. But the next day the journals were all covered up with Kyu Won’s performance. Hee Joo’s mother gets a little bit worried about her daughter’s role and wants that Kyu Won disappears.

Because Lee Shin has to learn a lot about traditional music he has to follow Kyu Won to a performance in an elderly house. After the performance Kyu Won gets drunk and on the way home she confesses that she still likes him and it isn’t easy for her to be around him.

The next day is Kyu Won’s birthday and “Windflowers” and “The Stupid” celebrate it after the practise. Lee Shin feels a little bit sorry because during the day he teased her about she got drunk and the work he gave her to do. When he wishes her “Happy Birthday” she trips, falls down the stairs and has to go to the hospital. Lee Shin goes visit her often. Suddenly her friends sneak her out and let some fireworks explode.  But a deputy appears and they have to run away. Lee Shin takes Kyu Won who sits in wheel chair and they lose the others. After a while Lee Shin orders her to not give up liking him. She asks him what this means. He didn’t know the answer and she leaves upset.

The director is planning a MT und luckily Kyu Won gets out of hospital in time so she can go with. In the bus Lee Shin sits next to Kyu Won. At the market (because both are very stubborn) they get separated. When he realises that she isn’t behind him, he starts to worry and is looking for her. He finds her then, buying a watermelon. When they come back, the evening program starts. When it’s about “Windflowers” to start, Lee Shin holds Kyu Won back because he doesn’t want that her injury gets worse. After the evening program Kyu Won should bring the watermelon and Lee Shin follows her. She tramps and hurts her ankle. Lee Shin helps her. In the night both can’t sleep. Lee Shin finds her in the stage room and they’re talking about wishing on shooting stars. He asks about her wish but Kyu Won won’t tell. But Lee Shin tells his wish: He hopes that Kyu Won can someday like him again.

Back home they’re giving it a try. At first secretly but they were seen by the three biggest gossip spreaders. So they decide to go official. Of course every woman is against. The three gossip spreaders start an action. Lee Shin firstly didn’t want to do against it but when Kyu Won goes away upset he tells them to stop it. Later he calls her to the club where he performs and sings her a song and afterwards he kisses her in front of his audience.

One day the musical crew has to perform suddenly  but the director couldn’t find Hee Joo. So Kyu Won has to step in because she is her understudy. The sponsors get really excited and Hee Joo’s mother gets more worried. With the help of Tae Joon (what’s his job anyway? Is he the vice president? Or only a president of a department? Who is this guy?) she spreads a rumour. Then they even manipulated both that they meet in a hotel where they get caught on picture. It looks like they have an affair.  The director sees it immediately through when she appears in the hotel and brings her back. Lee Shin sees the two and first he gets it wrong.

The next day when the pictures were spread out Lee Shin drags Kyu Won out for her sake. In the meantime the director tries to set things right. When even the chairman is against her, the director quits. The whole day Kyu Won couldn’t look on her phone but when Lee Shin has to go to toilet she calls her best friend and gets to know about the director’s quitting. She wants to go back and save the director but Lee Shin begs her not to go (he even threats her he would break up with her – WHAT?) She stays.

The next morning its official that the director resigned and Kyu Won realises that it is because of her. Also when she and Lee Shin are on the way to practise Tae Joon tells her that she won’t be an understudy anymore and kicks her out. She gets really sad and wants to be alone. Lee Shin who went at first to practise but then it was cancelled because Tae Joon changed and messed up the piece, sings a song for Kyu Won through the boxes to cheer her up.

Suddenly the sponsors want to withdraw and so the chairman wants the director back. The director comes only under conditions back – Kyu Won is understudy again. So the cast starts practising again.

But on the practise weekend the festival gets cancelled because Hee Joo won’t be able to sing because of an injury in her throat and her mother wants for god’s sake that her daughter is on stage and not Kyu Won. So the crew decides (after trying to convince the chairman again) to perform this show anyway. The performance day arrives and when the lead actress should come out everybody is surprised. Not Kyu Won is on the stage, Hee Joo is. Kyu Won called her before the performance to come over. Hee Joo is acting and dancing and when it comes to the singing part Kyu Won dubs her. (Did I mentioned that it’s finally out that Hee Joo has an injury in her throat and the director knows about it?)

After the performance “The Stupid” and “Windflowers” get the chance to make a studio album with Kyu Won singing. But her grandfather gets to know this and forbids her. She has to concentrate on gayageum playing. On the same day when she can make the album she has a competition. At first she decides to participate on the competition but Lee Shin appears before her performance and asks her again what she wants. Kyu Won then decides to make the album. At the studio Kyu Won sings pretty well but Lee Shin has problems with his wrist because Kyu Won tripped over her skirt and when Lee Shin tried do catch her, he fell on the ground. So the studio decides to not make the album but take Kyu Won under a contract. Lee Shin hides his injury but through his part time job he couldn’t hold his guitar because of the pain and Kyu Won suddenly realizes that this injury is more serious then Lee Shin told her. She wants to cancel her trip to UK. When Lee Shin gets to know about it he breaks up with her so she can go to UK to a musical school, but he says to her that he doesn’t want to wait for her.

A year passes, Lee Shin had his wrist surgery and can play guitar again; Kyu Won came back from UK and is a famous musical star; the director and the professor got married and are back from USA. For a new project the director wants to work again with Kyu Won and Lee Shin but Lee Shin doesn’t want. When Kyu Won asks him if it’s because of her, he denied and orders her not to call him anymore. She got drunk and her best friend calls Lee Shin to pick her up but he calls instead her father (nice try Eun Bo, best friend of Kyu Won).

Through the director Kyu Won gets to know that he had a surgery but didn’t want her to know. Upset she goes to Lee Shin and tells him that he is really a jerk and that she really tried to hate him the past year and now she can say that she hates him. He is really hurt. Both then go for a walk at the places they were together before and they are looking back. Suddenly they meet each other. Lee Shin goes towards her, embraces her; he says that he missed her and that he loves her and finally the kiss (of course Kyu Won responded with “Me too”).

Conclusion

 I have to say, I started to watch this drama half a year ago. After five episodes I stopped because it was really boring. I mean you know the story about the girl is at first the slave of the boy and suddenly the boy falls in love with the girl and so on and so on. But because I’m bored, I decided to watch it till the end and I was surprised. The story became more interesting. I mean all the intrigues at the school caused by Tae Joon and Hee Joo’s mother. It was really good. I liked it. And the story how they come together was also very good. Really cute. They’re sitting in the darkness and talking about shooting stars.

You may imagine why I started watching this drama. I looked for another drama with Jung Yonghwa and when I saw Park Shinhye was also starring, I thought: “Yay, finally a happy ending for Shinwoo and Go Minyeo!” In “You’re beautiful” I was cheering for this two.

For the rest of the cast I can say they did a good job. Especially I liked Minhyuk who played the drummer. He was really funny and cute. Who I didn’t like was Lee Shin’s little sister. She was just annoying.

The music was also really good. I liked it that they mixed traditional music with modern music. So I get to know a little bit of the Korean culture. And I have to say I liked it.

What I also didn’t like was the length of the drama. I don’t know why, but for this story 15 episodes are too long. I think 10 episodes would have been enough. There are a lot of side stories which were really short and didn’t help the main story at all like the story about Lee Shin’s mother and her relationships. I think it wasn’t necessary. Or the last thing with the wrist. This wasn’t necessary, too. Or the movement of Lee Shin’s family in Kyu Won’s neighbourhood, too.

But all in all I like this drama. I can recommend it. But at the beginning you have to fight it through, afterwards it will go easier.

I’m so sorry. I know the review is too long. I couldn’t shorten it anymore >.<