Three years ago, during my last semester at Montevallo, I inadvertently discovered the joys of Asian dramas and promptly became obsessed. It was during the height of my Death Note obsession, which led to an obsession with Matsuyama Kenichi, which led to an internet search for more of his TV shows and movies. During my search, I stumbled across a Korean television show called My Love Patzzi, which was described as a modern-day adaptation of Cinderella. How could I not say no to that? And thus my love for Kim Rae Won was born.
Seriously...just look at that face.
Last year my obsession with Korean and Japanese dramas subsided somewhat, mostly due to practical reasons. My thesis was taking up more and more of my time, and my limited amount of spare time had to be devoted to my first love, the obscure British actors. Thus, I'm still working my way through Kim Rae Won's backlog of TV shows and never saw Love Story in Harvard (a 2004 drama) until now.
One thing that has to be admitted up front is that Asian dramas aren't for everyone. Japanese dramas have a different style from Korean ones, and both are very different from American shows. I've seen my fair share of both, though, and I always genuinely enjoy them...until this one. I'm very sad to report that after suffering through 17 hours of this show, I feel that I have to justify the waste of time with a blog post.
One problem with Love Story in Harvard is that it tries to be too many things and condense too many stories into one TV show. At its heart, it's meant to be a love triangle set at Harvard, but the girl never really considers dating the "other guy," so any dramatic tension is lost. The second major theme is overcoming adversity, which comes in the form of two stories. The first half is set at Harvard, where the main love interest (Kim Rae Won) is a law student in another country. There's some really painful scenes where he has to attend class and study sessions (and give speeches in English), but for the most part, he completely ignores class to woo the girl.
Half-way through the show, there's an abrupt jump from his first semester to three years later, when he's back in Korea. Now he's overcoming adversity as the prosecuting attorney against a multi-national corporation accused of polluting the water and air so badly that people are dying (because obviously you give that to a newbie). And who just happens to be the defending attorney? The "other guy"! Too bad the girl has firmly made her choice and he has no chance (but at least we're spared more ambivalent attempts at a love triangle). This storyline was a lot more interesting than the Harvard one, but it was completely predictable. The two men hate each other, which turns to grudging admiration and respect before they finally work together to take down the corporation.
Any list of the show's flaws is not complete without mentioning the soundtrack. Most of it sounded like bad elevator music, and the only decent music was the stuff playing over the intercom in stores and cafes. In the Harvard scenes, it was American alternative rock from the early 2000s, and in the Korea scenes, it was Christmas music (which was really weird because there was no mention of Christmas in the story). However, there was one glorious moment in Episode 15 when a crucial moment occurred to the soundtrack of Busted, the boy band that inadvertently led to the creation of my favorite band in the whole world, McFly. I legitimately started freaking out when I heard my favorite Busted song playing, and I completely missed the conversation taking place and had to watch the scene again (oh darn). That was unquestionably the best moment of the whole show.
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