That was the theme of several articles I read after I finished this 2009 Korean drama. The drama was based on a Japanese manga that ran from 1992 to 2004.
Considering the manga has been adapted more than a dozen times (the most recent is 2018, I think), I'm doubting Boys Over Flowers is dated, especially considering "bullying" and "antibullying" are strong themes in both the drama and the manga.
Why I watched it
Rebekah introduced me to Asian dramas a couple years ago (we are currently watching a Chinese historical drama), and she hand-picks the ones she thinks are the best.
But we are also working our way backwards to some of the early ones she had watched in high school, dramas that hooked her, dramas she still loves. For instance, we watched First Shop of Coffee Prince last fall.
And if you check out that "Coffee Shop" clip, you should know that the grandmother in one of the scenes plays the best grandmothers.
She was also a grandmotherly type in Netflix's King Eternal Monarch (a drama of two parallel worlds where THIS GUY stole the show (embellishments on the clips are fan-made and not part of the drama) and the grandmother in Boys over Flowers.
That pretty much brings us to how I wound up watching Boys Over Flowers. The lead in that drama also played a very different lead in the King Eternal Monarch. He had also played the lead in Boys over Flowers, his breakout and critically acclaimed role.
And because Rebekah really liked the drama, I wanted to watch it, too.
Here's a quick synopsis:
The main female lead, Geum Jan-di, lives with her parents and younger brother above her father's dry cleaning business. Her mother definitely "wears the pants" in the family and dreams of being rich, the father is whacky and financially irresponsible, and the younger brother is just plain adorable.
One day, Geum Jan-di makes a dry cleaning delivery by bicycle to the prestigious Shinhwa High School, a school for the richest of the richest. It's owned by South Korea's biggest conglomerate, the Shinhwa Group.
Now a group called F4 terrorizes the school. The leader's parents own the Shinhwa group. His name is Gu Jun-pyo, and he is flanked by three friends: the slighty autistic, brooding musician; the playboy artist/potter, and a third who is part of an organized crime family.
If F4 decides they don't like someone, and that decision can be nearly random, they will incite the entire school to also terrorize that student until the student either leaves or commit suicide.
Well, our heroine talks a student out of jumping off the school's roof (he's been that traumatized by F4) when she brings him his dry cleaning. Because her actions hits the media, the Shinhwa Group, to "prove" it doesn't support bullying, offers her a full scholarship to the school.
Her family is ecstatic and, while Geum Jan-di is less so, it does give her a chance to participate in the school's swim team (she loves swimming, but even that will be taken away from her in this drama).
She winds up falling in love with the musician, who loves a famous model, who dumps him. But she is also terrorized in some really viscious and frightening ways when she stands up to F4's bullying of other students.
Eventually, Gu Jun-pyo becomes infatuated with her, except a mean, selfish young man doesn't make the best boyfriend. In short, he has a lot of growing to do. Fortunately, the drama gives him time to do that as the drama spans more than twenty episodes that take place over several years.
In the meantime, he and Geum Jan-di argue A LOT. By the time Geum Jan-di starts to like him, the musician starts to fall for her, too. Of course by now, her crush on him has died out. He winds up being the really nice guy friend who helps her out when she is down.
Yes, second lead syndrome where nice guys finish last.
But the chemistry is lacking between Geum Jan-di and the musician dude, and he has his own demons to vanquish, as does the playboy. The organized crime character doesn't appear to have any. If he does, they're not addressed in this drama.
Geum Jan-di's best friend, the really pretty Ga Eul, falls for the playboy, which brings her plenty of heartache, too.
If all this sounds sappy, it really isn't. The drama is full of very human subplots.
The playboy hits on the wrong woman, and one of that woman's protectors and his friends beat the living you know what out of him, crushing his hand and rendering it useless for making pottery, the one wholesome pasttime he has.
And the musician has been on the outs with his grandfather ever since the musician was a small child and his parents were killed in a car accident. The grandfather has a heart condition and runs a free clinic for low-income people. Geum Jan-di eventeually volunteers there and makes medicine her chosen career because the grandfather has inspired her so much.
The point of this post
What makes these dramas especially gratifying to watch is not "I can't wait to find out what happens next!" Knowing the next step doesn't erase the enjoyment of watching the story and watching the characters develop and mature.
So now I'll bring you to two clips and a third optional one.
One is a trailer (could not find one in English but you'll get the jist of it anyway), which gives a glimpse of the characters' personalities through a few select scenes.
A fun moment in that trailer is when Geum Jan-di's father takes her to the rich school for the first time. He dresses like a chaueffer and gets locked out of his own van.
The other clip is one the final scenes of the final episode. It was at this moment that I realized how satisying this drama had been to watch.
In the trailer, you'll see clips from when Gu Jun-pyo and the rest of F4 trick Geum Jan-di and Ga Eul into going with them to the very gorgeous New Caledonia: these episodes were really filmed on location, as were these.
During these clips, Gu Jun-pyo tires to bedazzle Geum Jan-di with romantic dinners on the beach, fireworks, and a gift of an ankle bracelet (which she accidentally loses), and she's not swayed by any of it (although she does enjoy the vacation overall).
This contrasts with the last scene when Geum Jan-di and the musician, both medical students, are working in an outdoor clinic at the fish market (with communal living for the workers) where her parents wound up after the congolmerate bulllied them out of their business and apartment.
If you think "love fixes all" that doesn't quite happen in this drama (alhough some might agree with me based on the ending).
Even though Gu Jun-pyo tries really hard to fit into Geum Jan-di's world (he even takes a shower with her father and brother in a public bathhouse), eating at her home (where her mother literally picks the fish off his plate and breaks it up with her fingers) and sleeping side by side on the floor with them, and even though he mends his narcisstic ways, Geum Jan-di realizes he will still always be heir to a conglomerate, and she will be who she is: someone who struggles at everything she does (she's even struggling with medical school, even though her heart is deeply into it).
So the pair wind up going on their separate ways for several years to work on themselves and their goals before deciding if they can really make a go of their relationship.
Playboy does something similar.
I should also mention these K-dramas comes with their original soundtracks. So a number of theme songs, in clips and in full, are played during some scenes. You become so accustomed to the music that you stop paying attention to it.
That's why I'm sharing one of the final scenes in the last episode.
It starts with the musician walking into an office and picking up a stethoscope, which is in front of a photograph of him with his grandfathre. The implication is that his grandfather has died, and the grandson has reunited with him and decided to study medicine to carry on the clinic.
All that is said in one movement. As a writer, I'm in awe.
Then you see Geum Jan-di running to catch a bus to the fish market as one of the songs starts to play. And that's the moment that I realized the depth to Boys Over Flowers.
Yes, it has its silly moments, and its whimsical moments, and it's "true love" moments, and it's tender and heartbreaking moments.
Yet it's all of these moments as a whole that bring visceral layers to a story that took its time to unfold in a very organic, honest way - even when the drama offers plenty of "fan girl" moments and the cliche shower scene.
Side note: in a rather sad twist of fate, one of the actresses who played one of the "mean girls" later committed suicide, due to abuse and exploitation.
For by the end of this drama, all of the flashy, exotic locations have fallen away. The movement of the breathtaking water scenes in magical locales are now movment to poor fish market scenes and a benevolent destiny that's bigger than each individual character's self-centered wants and desires.
But the ending also implies a future that may also fulfill the desires of their hearts, the desires that are good and true.
Watch the trailer first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMN2rtQ5cQY
Optional: Gu Jun-pyo pays a spontaneous visit to Geum Jan-di's apartment, where the family is making kimchi. This includes the bathhouse scene and eating fish cakes from a vendor. What's sweet about this clips is you see that families don't have to be perfect (and this family is far from it) to be a good family.
But do watch this final clip 54:55 to the end of the song clip - or to the end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiW0pOmjT5o&t=3270s
Don't worry about spoilers if you do watch it to the end. Because, again, the ending is not the point of watching. The point is to learn how the story gets there. Even as the drama was winding down, I was having a hard time seeing how the "happy ending" could be possible.
Now to circle back to his post's premise, maybe the absolute final scene of this drama feels a bit dated, and it definitely was cheesey.
But it showed the solidarity of a lifelong group of friends for good, now, instead of evil, before they scatter to their respective futures.
Above, Bertrand the Mouse enjoyed Boys Over Flowers with us.
