[Endless Love Drama Series II]
KBS, 2002, 20 episodes
Genre: romantic drama
Written by Kim Eun-hee, Yoon Eun-kyung, Oh soo-yeon
Directed by Lee Hyeong-min, Yoon Seok-ho
More information: Wikipedia / HanCinema
Winter Sonata:
A Milestone of the Hallyu Wave
It is a fundamental piece of knowledge in the history of the Hallyu wave that the television series Winter Sonata was the catalyst for the second cultural wave. The drama was originally the second installment of the four-part Endless Love series, consisting of 20 episodes, and premiered on KBS2 in 2002. Starting in 2004, this drama took Japan and Southeast Asia by storm, creating a fashion out of the "Korean lifestyle." It also brought immense commercial success, generating over $27 billion USD, including tourism revenue. It sold 330,000 DVDs and 1.2 million copies of the novel adaptation. Nami Island, the filming location, became a major tourist destination, with annual visitor numbers increasing from an average of 250,000 to 650,000. On the island, a statue commemorates the first kiss shared in the drama. It has been adapted into an anime, a musical, and even a computer game. The series' music and main characters took on lives of their own, with the latter moving into feature films and film parodies.
However, twenty years is a long time, and today the series cannot be viewed through the same lens as it was at the time of its release. It is a general experience that our sense of time has changed, and in our increasingly fast-paced world, we perceive older works as very leisurely and overly slow. This is true for Winter Sonata as well, though it is likely that for contemporary viewers, this pace was natural. However, twenty episodes now seem very long, filled with repetition and filler.
The fundamental steps of the story, however, are brilliant strokes of writing. We meet the characters in high school, two of whom fall in love. The girl’s friend becomes the "second lead," who stands no chance against the cool protagonist, and there is also a girl in the circle of friends who hopelessly tries to ensnare the boy. However, an accident puts a tragic end to the romance, and it appears the protagonist boy is lost.
A great twist follows: ten years later, our heroes are working professionals, and a new director arrives from America with his girlfriend. The latter is none other than the pretty but unsuccessful member of the former student group. Now, she happily possesses her love, who is the spitting image of the boy lost in the accident. This, naturally, comes as a shock to the unhappy girl who is unable to let go of her late love. She is forced to work with the boy who is similar only in appearance—having a different name, a completely different character, and no memory—while also enduring the taunts of the triumphant girlfriend. Meanwhile, the second-lead boy has stepped up to a solo role: thanks to his persistent support, he can plan a marriage with the girl.
However, after only a few months, the ice begins to melt, and the former lovers test each other until the girl eventually falls in love with the alter ego of her former sweetheart, and the man returns her feelings. From this point on, the story's focus shifts to relationship difficulties, the machinations of the abandoned partners in their threatened positions, and the battle fought with parents who oppose the relationship. It is another brilliant invention that the parents' hidden backstories deeply influence contemporary events, creating overlaps between time periods and generations. For the outcome, the drama itself outlines various alternatives in succession, ranging from a tragic possibility to a somewhat happier ending.
Despite the great story, the screenplay leaves something to be desired. Unfortunately, the writers do not focus on the drama's momentum but rather on inducing tears. Consequently, we must endure countless, endlessly protracted scenes in which they attempt to show from every angle, repeatedly, exactly how sad we should be. In the later parts of the series, they increasingly shamelessly force viewers to empathize with the characters and attune to the tragedy. There is nothing wrong with overflowing melodramatic emotions if they are triggered by truly relatable human dramas. However, the none-too-skillful cinematic manipulation turns into its opposite, triggering resentment instead of sympathy in more discerning viewers. These situations constantly disrupt the enjoyment of the drama. Furthermore, the later episodes contain extremely long, 4-5 minute introductions that repeat the drama’s previous major turns—even occurring in the middle of some episodes, quite unnecessarily. A sudden idea occurred to me: by weeding all this out, this series would deserve a re-edited version, or in the worst case, a more tasteful remake.
The first two episodes of the drama, however, are truly magnificent, depicting the high school period with sincere, pure emotions, playfulness, and a lot of kindness. Moving forward, we see beautifully photographed scenes where, in accordance with the drama’s title, winter is the leitmotif, with all its manifestations from the first snowfall, snowy trees, and frozen landscapes to snowstorms, snowball fights, and charming snowmen. This natural element is used beautifully to express emerging emotions and mutual trust—for example, stepping into each other’s footprints in deep snow. Alongside the visual world, the drama's heavily sentimental music helps create a unified atmosphere and a consistent mood in which immersion is not unpleasant.
However, the strengths of the drama are the characters and the actors who portray them. Among the supporting cast, there are many healthy, humorous characters who add various flavors to the drama. The main characters have sufficient depth—the lovers are drawn with stronger positive strokes, while the intriguers are more negative. Yet, it is true for the latter that despite committing selected atrocities, they are able to show their vulnerability, which occasionally even evokes our pity. Nevertheless, it is an extremely contrived solution that the drama provides several opportunities for the male second lead to "reactivate" himself, with the creators forgiving and forgetting everything he has done up to that point. By doing so, they treat not only the two main characters but also the viewers as highly infantile, which is extremely annoying. The same applies to the unjustifiable and increasingly illogical actions of the basically well-developed characters, which we must endure as the story progresses. Suddenly, everyone is tormented by doubts due to the most transparent tricks of the intriguers, immediately wavering from their original intentions, with only enough strength left to stare gloomily ahead. Suspicions arise that all this happens merely to stall for time, resulting in completely unnecessary circles in the story that thoroughly exhaust the viewers. It is felt that the creators did not want to end the drama in a tragedy, yet they did not dare to commit to a clean happy ending either, so they sought a bittersweet middle ground. But until then, they do everything to satisfy the needs of viewers who just want a good cry.
The strongest character is the male protagonist played by Bae Yong-joon. Or rather, both of them, as the personalities of the young and the adult man differ greatly. Again, looking back from a distance of twenty years, this character is very interesting and completely different from today’s average protagonists. He has a powerfully masculine appearance, even if styled somewhat romantically in accordance with the "emotional man" cliché, but he is a total stranger to the thick, blemish-concealing, deceptively beautifying, and age-defying makeup of today. Special mention must be made of the actor’s extremely pleasant voice, which he uses skillfully with his deep register. He does not use overly sophisticated tools but can be cool and distant, as well as playful and emotional. Although very handsome, his beauty lies not primarily in his appearance but in his aura, which may belong to the actor himself rather than the character. He has a great presence and a beautifully radiant smile. It is no coincidence that he became the first Korean actor to trigger international hysteria and be loved to the point of adoration; during his first visit to Japan, 3,000 women gathered at the airport, requiring 350 police officers to control them. There is also a well-known anecdote that the Japanese Prime Minister at the time, Junichiro Koizumi, joked that Bae was more popular than he was.
Although all the actors seem significantly overage in the high school scenes at the beginning of the series, Bae still believably plays the cool, exceptionally smart, and slightly mysterious student from the capital. While maintaining these qualities as an adult man, he shows them through different means alongside decisiveness, determination, and occasional emotional wavering. He is also captivating in expressing loneliness, inner struggle, and deep feelings. Naturally, even the tears flow beautifully down his face.
A much more one-dimensional role falls to his partner, Choi Ji-woo, who plays Yoo-jin. The colorfulness and charm of her character are primarily enjoyable during the still cloudless school days. Yoo-jin is not one of the most beautiful girls, but she is lively and inventive—someone very easy to love. It is a pity that the story later condemns her almost exclusively to expressing the sorrow within her, with her eyes constantly bathed in tears, whether necessary or not.
The handsome but not entirely honest character of the story is Kim Sang-hyuk, portrayed by the tragically short-lived actor and singer Park Yong-ha. His aura is not as charismatic as the protagonist’s, but his character allows him much more room to maneuver, and he fills every nuance with life. He can be a disgusting worm, an impulsive man, or a purely longing one. I have already mentioned the cyclical repetition associated with the character; however, this does not cause Park Yong-ha to repeat himself; he always manages to add a new color to his performance.
In the role of Oh Chae-rin, another negative character with some positive shades, Park Sol-mi is far from being as striking. She is dim-witted and hysterical; even her attempts to interfere are quite poor. The creators' intention to evoke pity for the fact that she always remains lonely does not really work, as she should look for the cause within herself rather than in the strokes of fate. Furthermore, the girl, who was truly beautiful as a schoolgirl, is later styled with such "Americanized" aesthetic features that any man would run away from her, let alone fall in love.
The most thought-provoking aspect of the story lies in the relationship between the protagonists and their parents. Although the desire for genre compliance in contemporary stories can significantly shift characters toward clichés, the ideas about the characters' life situations and actions inevitably contain the characteristics of the "present" in which the story was written. In Winter Sonata, this manifests in the fact that the characters, whether male or female, are independent adults capable of building their own existence and making their own decisions, yet as young adults, they still live under the complete emotional influence of their parents, from which they cannot free themselves. The parents, in turn, treat their children's lives as their own hereditary estate. Some of the aforementioned illogical steps can be interpreted as clashes between personal intentions and the compulsion to conform, even if they are difficult to accept.
The portrayal of parents raises many questions, primarily whether there was a hidden critical intent on the part of the creators or if they simply presented the phenomena in all their naturalness, without any questioning. I cannot answer this clearly because the judgment of what is seen is influenced by the two-decade perspective and, even more so, by cultural differences. Obviously, the latter influences everything I will write next.
The protagonist boy is a child born out of wedlock who harbors hatred toward his mother, as he owes to her his exclusion from a society that preaches the sanctity of families, and the constant humiliation he must endure despite all his great individual qualities and abilities. Furthermore, his mother refuses to reveal his father's identity, leading the boy to conduct a determined investigation to discover the truth. After the accident occurs, the mother makes an astounding decision that rewrites the 18-year-old young man’s life: moving to America, she gains a family and a new name for her son through marriage, and has all his previous memories related to Korea erased through a psychological intervention—thus, the man returning to our story is unaware that the intervention even took place. The justification for the act is to free the son from the bitter memories of his childhood, but an even stronger motive is to change his emotional relationship with her and thus acquire a son who loves his mother. Throughout the drama, the woman stubbornly persists in secrecy and even lying, thereby endangering her son's happiness. Although all this becomes obvious to the boy, he still ends every meeting with a loving, understanding hug, thereby accepting and sanctifying the maternal right to the crimes committed against him.
The female protagonist lives in a single-parent home, as her mother raised her and her sister alone after her father's death. This family model and the accompanying modest economic status constantly drive the mother to seek a "good match" for her daughter, even accepting humiliations from the family offering the solution. She is perfectly aware that she is condemning her daughter to unhappiness, yet nothing prevents her from producing physical ailments at the right moments to block her daughter’s steps that she deems inappropriate. We could view this emotional blackmailer as a true ham actor if the drama did not portray her throughout as a self-sacrificing, loving, and somewhat helpless mother to whom her daughter constantly returns for maternal love and support.
The boy who forms the third member of the love triangle lives in a complete family where loving, understanding relationships prevail. The girl chosen for marriage does blow a fuse for his mother, who becomes a stubborn and grumpy opponent, but the closing of ranks among the men always defuses her resistance, as the father is constantly understanding and supportive toward his son.
However, the late father of the female protagonist and the father of the "spare tire" boy were once tied by the same friendly and romantic relationships to a girl—who happens to be the male protagonist’s mother—as the main characters of our contemporary story are to each other. Or rather, not exactly the same, because the parents played for truly high stakes, being much more promiscuous than their children, as the clues lead to both men being potential fathers of the woman's child.
The woman identifies the deceased man as the father, which consequently portrays the lovers in our story as being in an incestuous sibling relationship. What kind of mother-image does the drama portray with this? Once again, one worthy of a Greek tragedy, which is not unusual for melodramas, as coping with such an extreme situation can contain catharsis. However, the boy’s infantile relationship with this mother is already unprocessable—especially since we know that Korean television dramas contain or suggest existing or desirable social patterns for the audience. Does the omnipotence of maternal authority apply to this situation as well?
The other possible father candidate, however, displays unexpected human greatness in a critical situation, offering a reassuring answer to everyone about the reality, even if it generates a serious conflict in his own family life. However, there is no talk of a brave stand; first, he only reveals the truth to the protagonist boy, relieving him of the burden of the forbidden relationship. But even though all the means were given to him to prevent the unfolding tragedy, he suddenly becomes completely inactive. In a fumbling way, he only wrings his hands; he doesn't rush with the information to the girl who needs saving; he even forgets that he could simply make a phone call. Instead, he only gives orders to his son. In the most critical moments, he wipes the forehead of his wife, who is performing a major collapse scene, while young people's lives and fates are at stake, including those of both his sons. Of course, it is obviously difficult for him to decide which son’s side to take suddenly, but the solution itself—this otherwise sympathetic man burying his head in the sand—is quite telling.
Just as it is telling that the protagonist boy, now in possession of the truth, does not rush to save his love but hurries to his mother, hoping for heaven knows what from her. After the son's reproach and a brief, hypocritical apology, the "dear mama" gets into the car and leaves for her next performance abroad. But strictly only after receiving an understanding hug from her son, whose entire life she has ruined. The story even makes our unfortunate protagonist play the part where, while every viewer has already screamed at the screen "but then they are siblings!", he still wanders around the world as if unable to recognize this unpleasant but trivial consequence.
Is it the usual melodramatic inaction of a TV series, leading to tragedy through stupid silences, or is it the manifestation of current moral public thinking that is visible when the couple—who just a step earlier were ready to go against their parents' will—does exactly the opposite now that they have the proof that grants them exemption? Because the drama ties up the final threads in a way that lacks all human sense, especially logic. I repeat, I haven't forgotten that we are in a melodrama, but still... While we spend hours weeping over the painful farewell from love and our beloved, we do not talk about why we still do not embrace the happiness that has now become possible, why we foolishly hide the truth from our love, and why we do not fight for our own lives instead of endangering them, even if a terrifying illness shadows the prospects.
Perhaps because these series, despite all their initial momentum, mostly target viewers with the emotional world of "polka-dot books" (girly novels), which is not necessarily associated with a young age.
And it is the secret of the Asian soul why exactly this story started its world-conquering journey. Although there are explanations for this too, they are not for this entry.
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