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COFFEE_PRINCE

                                                  June 25, 2019

The Korean drama "Coffee Prince" (2006) holds up
really well on a second viewing a decade later.

This is one about a young, working class girl            Female lead:
who needs money badly enough (she's supporting           Yoon Eun-Hye
her mother and younger sister) to pass for male          Male lead:
for the sake of a job.                                   Gong You

She ends up taking a job in a coffee house called               GOBLIN
the "Coffee Prince" where they play up the staff as
handsome men.  This show then does the bit where her       Director:
boss falls in love with her without understanding          Lee Yoon-jung
she's a girl, and so goes around feeling very
confused.                                                  Writers:
                                                           Lee Jung-ah
    One of their more impressive achievements              Jang Hyun-joo
    is they manage to keep these balls in the
    air for quite some time without it seeming
    *too* unnatural.  Why doesn't she just tell
    him?  Well, she starts to, a couple of times,
    but being seen as poor-girl golddigger has
    potential problems with it also, so she keeps
    letting it ride...

    Another thing I appreciate: the acting
    for *all* of the characters is very             One thing that does bother
    natural.  I much prefer comedies where          me: it's established early
    none of the characters understand that          on that the female lead is
    they're in a comedy, and no one,                a taekwando master.
    not even the minor figures, engage in           Nothing much is done with
    a hammy burlesque.                              this-- she doesn't suddenly
                                                    act as a bodyguard, she
      Then, there's the fact that                   doesn't need to act as a
      people don't just ignore                      bouncer at the cafe, etc.
      obvious issues because they're
      idealized innocents of                           She does, however,
      television land.  The young                      display an inability
      female lead may be a *bit*                       to master high heels,
      naive, but she's not stupid.                     which strikes me as
                                                       unlikely for a martial
                                                       arts expert.

                                                          Though it's common
                                                          for people in the
                                                          story to comment on
                                                          how she's stronger
                                                          than she looks when
                                                          she's lugging around
                                                          sacks of coffee.



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