As it was my first experience watching a Korean drama from beginning to end, I don't have much to compare it to. I've seen parts of other dramas, but it's not the same watching random episodes when you're not familiar with or invested in what's happening. From what I can find through the internet, Lovers in Paris was one of Korea's most popular dramas, and many fans seem to consider it one of the better ones out there. I hope this doesn't mean the bar's been set too high for any I decide to watch in the future.
I guess I might as well break this post up into various segments to discuss the various elements I find discussion-worthy.
Plot
I'll preface this section with the standard spoiler warning, because if you plan to watch this drama someday, you might want not want certain things to be given away beforehand. Of course, there are so many twists and turns to the story that it'd take forever to reveal everything. In the interest of space I'll try to set up the main plotlines only without giving away all the details that make it interesting.
Even though she's not the first one billed, the main character is a young Korean woman named Kang Tae-Young who's in Paris studying to be a filmmaker. She has a hard time keeping a job while in Paris, but then she hears about a wealthy auto industry executive (named Han Ki-Joo) who needs a housekeeper. Since Ki-Joo also happens to be Korean, he wants a housekeeper who can prepare Korean meals for him. Given her unusual qualifications for the job (not many Koreans in Paris, you know), Tae-Young jumps on the opportunity as soon as she hears about it.Tae-Young has a creative spirit, so she quickly takes it upon herself to add her personal touch to Ki-Joo's household. She buys brands of food he doesn't like, redecorates, reorganizes, and leaves cute messages on post-it notes around the house. Ki-Joo finds all this annoying and fires her.
Since Ki-Joo is a shrewd businessman, he does research on all his prospective business associates before meeting them. When examining the file on a French executive he's planning to meet, he discovers that the man's wife is Korean, and from Tae-Young's hometown! Suddenly, he realizes he has an opportunity. He tracks down Tae-Young and asks her to accompany him to a social meeting with this French executive. Tae-Young agrees to go with him in exchange for her job back. When they meet the French executive and his wife, they pretend that Tae-Young is Ki-Joo's fiancee. As planned, Tae-Young and the Korean wife hit it off due to their shared hometown and experiences growing up there (albeit in different generations).
Tae-Young later meets a young Korean man named Soo-Hyuk who helps her out when she gets caught in a difficult situation at a store. It turns out that Soo-Hyuk is Ki-Joo's nephew, and something of a drifter. Ki-Joo was a late child, so he's only six years older than Soo-Hyuk. Even though they're an uncle and nephew, they were more like brothers growing up. The reason Soo-Hyuk is able to travel to other countries and live a fairly carefree lifestyle is because his rich uncle has always been there to give him money when he needed it. When Soo-Hyuk first meets Tae-Young he's smitten with her.
Tae-Young agrees to accompany Ki-Joo to a second social meeting with the French executive, but this one is marred by an embarrassing altercation that starts when one of the other guests accuses Tae-Young of being a prostitute (which he believes to be true from a misunderstood previous encounter). Ki-Joo ends up having to confess that Tae-Young isn't actually his fiancee, and resigns himself to the fact that his company just lost a potential business contract. After Ki-Joo and Tae-Young have a heated argument over the situation they go their separate ways. Unbeknownst to Ki-Joo, Tae-Young writes a letter of apology to the French executive's wife, which smooths things over and allows his company to get the contract.
Despite his poker-faced exterior, Ki-Joo is strangely captivated by Tae-Young, and after he learns that his company got the contract, he wants to reconcile with her. However, he's unable to get in contact with her. Independently, both decide to return to Korea (and we're only on the third episode here!). Ki-Joo's return is meant to be permanent, and Tae-Young's only temporary, but she ends up having to stay longer when family problems arise.
The drama doesn't return to Paris until the very end, so despite the title, over 80% of the series takes place in Korea. As you can probably guess, Tae-Young and Ki-Joo find each other again in Seoul, and things progress from there. Ki-Joo wants a relationship with Tae-Young, but of course, in true drama fashion, it gets complicated.
Ki-Joo's father (who heads the car company) is trying to arrange a marriage for him with the daughter of a congressman. This daughter is your typical haughty rich girl that you can't help but hate. Ki-Joo has no interest in marrying her, but what he doesn't realize is that the congressman is blackmailing his father about a family secret that could ruin the company, and this marriage is what he wants in exchange for keeping quiet. Not only that, but Soo-Hyuk returns to Korea with his eye on Tae-Young, unaware that his uncle is already pursuing her. You can bet some tension arises out of that situation.
What happens? Well, I think this is a good point to say "watch it and find out!" If you're really lazy though, you can probably find a full summary somewhere on the internet.
Ending
My grandmother has told me she isn't always happy with the way these dramas end, and I've seen comments on the internet that suggest other people feel the same way. Does this one have a happy ending? Well, without giving too much away, I will say that yes, it does, though it may not be exactly what you were expecting for most of the series.
What's really interesting is that after the main story concludes you get sort of a second ending which confused me when I first saw it. It's one of those things that makes you question whether everything that came before it was real or not. I actually had to go on the internet to read people's interpretations of it before it made perfect sense to me. It's kind of funny that the ending of LOST was easier for me to understand at first than the ending of a Korean drama.
According to something else I read on the internet, the original ending had one of the characters committing suicide. I'm glad they changed it (oops, did I give away the fact that nobody commits suicide?).
Writing and Acting
It's hard to gauge the acting perfectly when I don't speak Korean, since I don't have a mental reference point of how certain words should be inflected. From what I sensed though, I thought the acting was pretty good. There were times when I felt the characters' emotions, and I doubt I could've cared about this drama if the actors couldn't adequately portray the necessary feelings.
I would also say that this drama was well-written. Of course, there were some melodramatic moments, but the story was engaging, the twists were interesting and the characters were likable. Even when the "good" characters did bad things, I understood why, because they were well-developed. There were times when I was hoping Tae-Young would end up with Soo-Hyuk (who was less dependable but more romantic), and other times when I was hoping it'd be Ki-Joo (who was more dependable but less romantic). Corny, yes, but that's a drama for you.
By the end even some of the "bad guys" were sympathetic figures, and the last time you see them you get the sense that there may be hope for them to change their ways. While a good drama needs an antagonist, the act of hating someone isn't especially fun. I thought it added some positivity to the story that we saw a human side to a few villains.
Music
I'm not exactly sure if this is par for the course, but Lovers in Paris used a lot of recurring musical themes. One was "Moon River," which frequently found its way into the score, and in one scene it was even played diegetically. There were several pop songs that were used for various situations, sometimes with only the music or the melody as part of the score. There was one song that seemed to be used during the fallout from intense moments and another that seemed to be used in heartbreaking moments. I especially liked the one used for the whimsical romantic moments, called "Romantic Love."
My favorite musical selection though, may have been the quiet music playing in the background in one scene. I doubt many people are familiar with this song, but I recognized it as soon as the characters stopped talking for a moment and I got to hear it clearly. It was Extreme's "When I First Kissed You." It's a great album track from a hair metal band who decided to go lounge jazz for a few minutes. I don't know whether it was randomly chosen from some list of songs or whether someone knew the song and suggested it, but either way, I applaud its inclusion.
Other Observations
I found it interesting that this series aired from June to August of 2004 and there was a reference to Marlon Brando's death in one of the episodes. Marlon Brando died on July 1, 2004, so that would suggest to me that these dramas are still being filmed while the series is airing. I guess that makes sense, since I can recall hearing of low-rated dramas being cancelled before they were done with the story. Still, I wonder how close to Marlon Brando's death that particular episode aired, because you'd think they'd want to be several weeks ahead in case there was some sort of holdup during production.
The videos on MySoju.com were generally pretty good, but there were a few episodes here and there with technical issues. In two of them the audio and video got out of sync (not too badly, but just enough to annoy me), and in two others the subtitles would disappear from time to time. Perhaps the subtitler had decided to go back to those scenes later and forgot?
It was also pretty obvious to me that English was the subtitler's second language, as the wording was occasionally awkward. I could usually tell what was intended, though. I frequently saw the word "wish" used when "hope" would've been the proper choice. When the characters say things like "I wish you do well" you know what they mean. I'd frequently "hope" I could've been there to help out the subtitler.
I can't complain too much, as the final product was satisfactory, and it was better than not being able to enjoy the drama at all.
Final Thoughts
Would I recommend Lovers in Paris? If you're the type of person who enjoys a romantic Cinderella story and can handle the roller coaster ride that comes with each new development, then yes, definitely. After having seen the first few episodes months back, I'm glad I can now say I've seen this series in its entirety.
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