KDrama Rec: Secret Love Affair
Maybe not the best timing for a rec, seeing as The Lost Tomb Reboot will start airing on Thursday, but maybe I can still catch your eye with this quick little rec:
Several people were watching Sungkyunkwan Scandal lately, and I followed the rec and started watching it. I like it, but overall, the historical setting and the over-the-top antics weren't to my taste, so I got a little bored (after about 15 eps) and started shopping around. My fave actor from SKK Scandal is Yoo Ah In, who impressed me with his acting and his beauty. He has several other dramas on viki, and this one immediately sucked me in (to the point that I tore through it in a week and forgot about SKK Scandal) :
Yoo Ah In and Kim Hee Ae in Secret Love Affair (2014)
It only has 16 episodes (of 1 hour each), and it's about a 40-year-old (ex-)music teacher who falls in love with a 20-year-old piano genius. I loved her character (the actress is really good!). She's a very strong woman with a complicated life: she is in a strategic marriage with a piano professor, and she manages the money of both bosses of her "music school and art foundation". Which, as becomes more and more clear as the show goes on, is a very dirty and corrupt business.
The piano prodigy, on the other hand, is a pure and idealistic and honest heart. The show is all about what his arrival does to her life. Or what she is willing to let it do to her life.
And it's about music. Lots and lots of music. Yoo Ah In is amazing at the piano playing (i.e. he fakes it really well), and it's a joy to watch him play. I don't know all that much about classical composers, so I have no idea whether the pieces they chose have any kind of significance, or whether the performances are any good. All I can say is that the playing looked realistic, which is something I care a lot about, because it throws me out of the story if it's too fake, and that worked really well for me here.
The drama takes its time. Which is a good thing at only 16 episodes. It doesn't drag, I really liked the pacing. It has a wonderfully quiet mood, lots of long scenes of people standing in corridors, having terse discussions in which more is left out than said, leaning on walls, sighing, crying, and staring into the distance, all accompanied by piano (and other classical music). This makes it sound pretentious, I guess, but damn is it wonderful. I enjoyed every single minute.
It's understated and quiet, and it gives you time to think.
what is my life?
weekend getaway
It also has secret meetings of the happy (and sometimes sad) couple, featuring long motorbike and car rides in the night, chat conversations and desperate decisions. And lots of piano playing.
The other side of the coin is all the family drama of the corrupt bosses, and the approaching investigation into their finances. It's all about lies and money and power, about who holds the best cards and when to play them, and who can bluff the best, and it's constantly scary. Almost everyone has to face the possibility of having to go to jail over it. That side, too, involves some pretty desperate decisions.
Both parts were absolutely fascinating to watch, and I never managed to guess how it would end. (Fwiw, I loved the ending.)
There are no explicit sex scenes, which is regrettable :), but I think it might be some kind of meta about the fact that everyone is trying to catch them in the act, and they keep failing. :)
But there are some very sweet kisses.
Last but not least: I constantly expected cheap tricks, like psychotic ex-girlfriends or psychotic daughters-in-law, or dub-con *anything*, but none of it ever happened. The worst that happens is her husband getting angrier and angrier about what her decisions might mean for his financial security. And I don't think that was overplayed. It was as harrowing as the rest of it, but never over the top. All those characters are real people with real hopes and dreams and desires, and they are laid bare layer by layer.
So if you're into that kind of thing, and have a weakness for piano music, maybe check it out. It's on viki, and the subs are A+. (I don't know any Korean, but they are perfectly understandable and I like that they often explain idioms and forms of address. They left a very competent impression on me.)
https://www.viki.com/tv/23235c-secret-love-affair
sad together
happy together
x-posted from dw (comments:
)
Several people were watching Sungkyunkwan Scandal lately, and I followed the rec and started watching it. I like it, but overall, the historical setting and the over-the-top antics weren't to my taste, so I got a little bored (after about 15 eps) and started shopping around. My fave actor from SKK Scandal is Yoo Ah In, who impressed me with his acting and his beauty. He has several other dramas on viki, and this one immediately sucked me in (to the point that I tore through it in a week and forgot about SKK Scandal) :
Yoo Ah In and Kim Hee Ae in Secret Love Affair (2014)
It only has 16 episodes (of 1 hour each), and it's about a 40-year-old (ex-)music teacher who falls in love with a 20-year-old piano genius. I loved her character (the actress is really good!). She's a very strong woman with a complicated life: she is in a strategic marriage with a piano professor, and she manages the money of both bosses of her "music school and art foundation". Which, as becomes more and more clear as the show goes on, is a very dirty and corrupt business.
The piano prodigy, on the other hand, is a pure and idealistic and honest heart. The show is all about what his arrival does to her life. Or what she is willing to let it do to her life.
And it's about music. Lots and lots of music. Yoo Ah In is amazing at the piano playing (i.e. he fakes it really well), and it's a joy to watch him play. I don't know all that much about classical composers, so I have no idea whether the pieces they chose have any kind of significance, or whether the performances are any good. All I can say is that the playing looked realistic, which is something I care a lot about, because it throws me out of the story if it's too fake, and that worked really well for me here.
The drama takes its time. Which is a good thing at only 16 episodes. It doesn't drag, I really liked the pacing. It has a wonderfully quiet mood, lots of long scenes of people standing in corridors, having terse discussions in which more is left out than said, leaning on walls, sighing, crying, and staring into the distance, all accompanied by piano (and other classical music). This makes it sound pretentious, I guess, but damn is it wonderful. I enjoyed every single minute.
It's understated and quiet, and it gives you time to think.
what is my life?
weekend getaway
It also has secret meetings of the happy (and sometimes sad) couple, featuring long motorbike and car rides in the night, chat conversations and desperate decisions. And lots of piano playing.
The other side of the coin is all the family drama of the corrupt bosses, and the approaching investigation into their finances. It's all about lies and money and power, about who holds the best cards and when to play them, and who can bluff the best, and it's constantly scary. Almost everyone has to face the possibility of having to go to jail over it. That side, too, involves some pretty desperate decisions.
Both parts were absolutely fascinating to watch, and I never managed to guess how it would end. (Fwiw, I loved the ending.)
There are no explicit sex scenes, which is regrettable :), but I think it might be some kind of meta about the fact that everyone is trying to catch them in the act, and they keep failing. :)
But there are some very sweet kisses.
Last but not least: I constantly expected cheap tricks, like psychotic ex-girlfriends or psychotic daughters-in-law, or dub-con *anything*, but none of it ever happened. The worst that happens is her husband getting angrier and angrier about what her decisions might mean for his financial security. And I don't think that was overplayed. It was as harrowing as the rest of it, but never over the top. All those characters are real people with real hopes and dreams and desires, and they are laid bare layer by layer.
So if you're into that kind of thing, and have a weakness for piano music, maybe check it out. It's on viki, and the subs are A+. (I don't know any Korean, but they are perfectly understandable and I like that they often explain idioms and forms of address. They left a very competent impression on me.)
https://www.viki.com/tv/23235c-secret-love-affair
sad together
happy together
x-posted from dw (comments:
)