Personal Taste

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I am currently watching MBC’s drama, Personal Preference or Personal Taste.

The drama stars Sohn Ye Jin as Park Kae In, a furniture maker who is unable to find work or an employer willing to employ her. She only wants to please her father, who, throughout the drama, is a distant figure. She is an honest person. She always sees the good in everyone, and because of that, she is betrayed by her friend, In Hee. Also, her boyfriend leaves her because he thinks naiveté is a bad thing.

Lee Min Ho (of Boys Before Flowers fame) plays an architect, Jeon Jin Ho. He is suave, cool, and always collected. And the majority of the women in the drama want to be with him.

In the drama, Jin Ho comes to live in Kae In’s house, to get inspiration for a project he is bidding on, and the two of them gradually fall in love. If you like comedies, then this is the drama to watch. Because of misunderstandings, Kae In comes to believe that Jin Ho is gay. Because of this, she allows him to live in her home and opens her life and then, inadvertently, her heart to him. She walks around him in a towel, thinks nothing of seeing him naked, and sleeps in the same bed as him with no thought to possible consequences.

Even knowing that he is gay, Kae In begins to fall in love with him and is willing to live in a platonic relationship with him, so that he may hide his homosexuality from his mother and the public. Jin Ho comes to appreciate Kae In for her innocence, her eagerness, and her overall good personality. He tries to teach her to be more feminine, because that is what she wants to do to feel better about herself. I totally understand Kae In for doing this, because her boyfriend outright tells her that she wasn’t woman enough for him. One of the most hilarious moments in the drama is when Kae In asks Jin Ho to “make her a woman.” Jin Ho’s reaction is a sight to watch.

Both Sohn Ye Jin and Lee Min Ho are doing a great job of playing their characters. Although I have never had the chance to see Sohn Ye Jin in anything before, I am enjoying the verve and enthusiasm with which she approaches the character of Kae In. I appreciated Min Ho’s acting in Boys Before Flowers, and I am glad to see that his acting wasn’t a flash in the pan. Although there is a gap between the two actors in terms of age, that is something that is not highlighted in the drama, and something that I hardly notice as a viewer.

Besides the two main characters, there is a cast of enjoyable side characters. We have the ex-boyfriend, Chang Ryul, who now realizes what he lost. We slowly get to see him maturing, learning to appreciate Kae In’s innocent beauty over that of an in-your-face sensuality, and wanting to protect that innocence when he thinks that Jin Ho might be betraying her. We get Young Sun, Kae In’s friend, who stays with her through everything, supports her, and is the practical one. We get Sang Jun, who dives into playing a gay man; as a viewer, I enjoy his liveliness and his ability to laugh at himself and the funny things in drama life. I especially love the vibe between Young Sun and Sang Jun and hope that it goes somewhere (yeah, yeah, I know she’s married. But, you never know.). Finally, we get In Hee, the evil bitch of the west. She takes and takes from our heroine, and then takes the one thing that Kae In can’t forgive her for; she takes Kae In’s boyfriend.

I am enjoying both Kae In and Jin Ho, and cannot wait to watch how the drama ends. I hope the writers not only give us a good ending for our main characters, but that they nicely bring the side characters’ lives to a happy conclusion, as well (except for In Hee, of course).