"Who are the best in their fields that the heart must come before ability, honor and money... "
"The attitude should be wholehearted and truthful."
-Bae Yong Joon-

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

[Flash Back] Pricilla's Searching for Yong Joon - Love Greeting 4 : "Salut D'Amour"

source: soompi/dam-su (thanksss!!) ^__^
Photo credit as labeled

  
Love Greeting 4 : "Salut D'Amour"

Salut D'Amour: The Drama

Date: November 1st, 1994 - April 25th, 1995
Length: 25 EPISODES
Producers: Jeon Gisang, Yoon Sukho
Writer: Jeong Yookyung
Cast: Bae Yongjun (Kim Yungmin), Sung HyunAh (Haeyin), Kim Byungdoo, Kim KyungEun, Lee Eujung (Minah), Kim Jiho, Kim Kwayun, Park Joonhee, Kwon Ohjoong (Heedong), Lee Yoonsoo, Kim Minhee, Yoon Sonha...

OST: LOVE GREETING; Ob La Di Ob La Da; Beatles; He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother: The Hollies; Love Hurts: Nazareth; Second Romance: Yuhki Kuramoto

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"Salut D'Amour" is the story of love and friendship of today's talented and bright young adults. Their struggles seem simple at first glance, but are warmly and seriously portrayed. Born in 1975, both Yungmin and Haeyin are childhood friends who grew up together. Coincidentally, both entered the same college and took the same major. It's about the challenge of entering university, and all its expectations and anxieties. Through Yungmin and Haeyin's friendship, many other diverse and warm relationships are developed, revealing the unripe love and hopes of the youth.

The straightforward Bongkwan and the funny Heedong befriended Yungmin while the aloof Minah befriended Haeyin. That involved the self reflection and challenges of the college campus and adventures of these five friends. Pure love, blossoming friendship, and the picture of youth!!

With experience, these young adults learn to love more, and they come to age before the very eyes of the audience.

Translated into English from: http://www.crezio.com/drama/series/love.htm
PERSONAL REVIEW: * * 1/2

This is your chance to watch a very young, innocent looking and unpolished Bae Yong Jun. If you are his fan, this is worth watching for that alone. I watched this only recently, around July, and I must confess I used the fast-forwarding button... Luckily, BYJ is the main character, so I didn't have to use it too often. I recently tried to re-watch this, but they closed the site... That means I have to rely on my poor memory. If any of you had watched this (though I doubt it), please help me in this Quest. I don't think it's on sale anywhere, but I wouldn't recommend you to buy this anyway.

I translated the above description from KBS-crezio site. I think their initial plot was supposed to turn around Yungmin's love/friendship with Haeyin... But I witnessed a different plot. For me, "Love Greeting" is about Yungmin and his 2 house mates. It's about their warm friendship and how each of them mature and learn to love... in their unique ways.
BYJ acted as Kim Yungmin. His house mates were BongKwan and Heedong. Since I don't remember many other character's names, I will use their real names instead, or letters identifying them.

To watch FLASH of Love Greeting: http://www.papajun.com/drama1.html
 
The following is a SPOILER ALERT!!!
Three friends stay in the same apartment. Yungmin's older sister owns the place and she occupies one of the bedrooms. Yungmin has his own bedroom. The third room is shared by both BongKwan and Heedong. These 2 roommates are really different.

Heedong is funny, laid-back and doesn't like to study. He'd rather play and hang out. He likes to go on blind-dates. The problem is, at many times, he ended up liking the girl but that feeling is unreciprocated.

BongKwan is serious, hard working and very studious. His family owns a small farm, which is not doing well. He feels the economical burden and tries to live sensibly. One one hand, he is thankful to Yungmin for the apartment. On the other hand, he feels sorry, but he's too proud to say it out loud. Hhows no interest for women... Or maybe he just doesn't have the time for it.

Yungmin is a mixture of those two. More like Heedong in the outside, he hangs out more with his funny friend. But in the inside, he shares similar values with BongKwan. Sometimes, their unspoken similarities become a source of rivalry. What about his relationship with women? He is the personification of innocence, so he wouldn't openly go after them... and yet... things would happen.

Heedong went out to a blind date, met girl A and it was love at first sight. Since then, he went after her, trying to please her in everything. Girl A took advantage of that, even though she was interested in someone else. She uses him, making him do all kinds of work for her. But one day (around episode 20), she fell sick and is hospitalized. Heedong nurses her overnight. That's when girl A starts to really appreciate him... But soon after, she left school.

BongKwan would be the last person to go out or have a girl friend. But Park Junhee, a girl who appears later on in the drama, recognizes his hidden qualities and introduces him to her friend, Yoon Sonha. They meet without pressure, without any pretenses, and they both like each other's honest approach in life: what you see is what you get. Both down to earth, this relationship grows steadily, without hindrances.

When it comes to Yungmin, things get more complicated...
Kim Yungmin is a nice little brother to his sister. While studious and thoughtful, he is a generous and playful guy too. He is everyone's best friend. Professors like him too. One professor in particular who was dying of cancer, gave him a hard time in order to test him... because he saw hope in this young man.
The drama begins with Yungmin's voice narrating his childhood, and describing his friendship with Sung HyunAh (Haeyin). They went to school together, played together, constantly argued and made up easily... on and on... and by some funny twist of Destiny, they went to college together. Then, the camera focuses on a happy looking college student, wearing thick eye-glasses. He's listening to HyunAh talk as a radio DJ, looking at her through the window glasses, admiring her beauty.

She's very feminine and pretty. But once they start talking to each other, nothing of his admiration is revealed. Instead, he calls her "ugly" and "fat." She doesn't seem to mind him... as if she is used to it. He wants to do nice things to her, but he just can't do it right. A birthday gift that he has wrapped and personally delivered to her, under the rain, she mistook that it's a gift from his sister. He can't tell her the truth. He bought movie ticket to watch with her... but he can't ask her out. It's hard for him to show affection to his best friend. In a way, it seemed that she likes him too, but he wouldn't make that first move... During the first quarter of the drama, someone asks HyunAe out. After some hesitation... she accepted. Soon after, she transferred out of school. 

Kim Jiho is the most outspoken girl in their class. She is a very smart feminist. In the same study group, Guy A is a driven and ambitious guy. But at times, he seems to be concerned about his grades. He skips meetings and doesn't socialize much. Jiho tells him that's wrong... In the process, guy A starts to like her.

Yungmin and his friends belong to the same study group. Out of the blue, Yungmin was nominated to be the leader this semester. Jiho recented that. She would oppose many of his ideas and provoke him. Most of the time, he just ignored her. The truth was that Jiho liked him.

One day, she offers Yungmin a tutoring position at a private house. While he's tutoring, he found the little boy had a Playboy magazine. Yungmin took that away from the boy. Later that day, he was meeting with his friends, and he went to the restroom. While he is away, that magazine fell out... to the ashtonishment of everyone there!

His guy friends find this amusing. The girls look disappointed. (This was after HyunAh left.) Jiho is fuming mad, thinking to herself, "You can't trust any man, they're all the same!" When Yungmin comes back, he doesn't understand why everyone is acting so strange towards him. Jiho takes the tutoring position away from him... It is only sometime later that the truth comes out, and he makes up with Jiho. But soon, she left the school.

Kim Minhee is borrowing books from the school's library. But when she shows the Student ID, it's girl A's ID... Yungmin is working there part-time. When he sees the ID, he suspected Minhee has stolen that. So he ran after her. But then, he learns that she is actually girl A's cousin (this was before girl A became sick), who came from America. Minhee is a nice and shy girl who found America too intimidating for her. 

When Minhee's father came to Seoul looking for his runaway daughter. He found her with Yungmin. So he scolded him, "You are the cause of my daughter's plight, I see! Why don't you admit it like a man! So tell me... how did you meet her?" Yungmin is caught by surprised... but soon, he recovers. Then and there, he creates a story on how he fell in love with Minhee. The old man left for the States, assured that his daughter is OK. That's how a new friendship begins. Minhee likes him... but it is hard to tell how he feels about her. He treats her well for sure...

On a side note, Guy A was always tried to get away after stabbing people from their backs. For example one day, as they were preparing for an exam, someone got hold of last year's test, and it was supposed to be basically the same test this year. So the entire study group was glad that they just had to go over that exam paper, and they asked Yungmin to make copies for everyone. After dropping them in their respective mailboxes, Yungmin told Guy A to get his copy. Guy A went... and suddenly, he grabbed everyone elses' copies and destroyed them. Since it was a few hours before the test, the rest flunk... They trusted Yungmin's words, that he had dropped them at the right spot, but they couldn't figure out what happened. The irony was that Guy A, in his zeal to get good grades without competition, fell asleep and missed the test! Yungmin suspected something... and confronted him silently. This same Guy A, just like he liked Jiho before, would go after someone else...

Kim Minhee has a new roommate, Park Junhee. She comes home late, hardly talks, not even to say "hello." Does she have an attitude problem or what? Yungmin sees someone harassing her. He defended her but was beaten. She didn't thank him... she seems annoyed at him for intervening.

People talked about her, that she was expelled from school, and that she got into many fights. She didn't explain. Let them talk all they want. She doesn't care. Behind that mask, she carried some deep wounds of rejection. She is the daughter of a rich man's mistress. Her half-siblings made her life miserable, afraid that she would go after their inheritance. Because of them, she stopped college for a while. But they would continue harrasing her. Yungmin, through one accident after another, found pieces of her past. He wanted to protect her but she doesn't let him to.

Through her nice roommate, Junhee gets to know the "circle of friends." Cold as she is, but guys find her attractive. The more she tries to avoid them, the more guys follow her. Guy A also finds her attractive, even though he knows nothing about her. He starts hanging out with her a lot, and she lets him... Is she trying to make a statement to Yungmin? Yungmin struggles to see that. He had lost HyunAe before, because of his indecisive ways... It is here that he comes to his senses... and really learns to love.
He finally became a real man...
Afterthought:

The drama had ended. It is time to say good-bye. This group of unknown had bonded really well, and the producers finally gave a sigh of relief. It had been quite a challenge, especially since these kids didn't have much experience.

A few years later, Yoon Sonha worked with BYJ at HWRL, and is presently very active in Japan. Lee Eujung is a top comidian/actress right now, Kwon Ohjoong came out in many light dramas and is the main character at a current KBS sitcom, "Hello! Balbary," with Jang Narah. Kim Minhee came out in super hit dramas such as "Fox and Cotton Candy" and "Women's Republic." This year, she starred in "5 siblings." Among them, Kim Jiho's popularity continued to rise. This year alone, he starred at dramas such as "Glass Shoes" and "Jung."

Bae Yong Jun... "Love Greeting" is his drama... the story of how he became who he is now... In spite of being a small scale drama, within a 4 months period, BYJ has already became a teen idol. Before this drama is over, Jeon PD pulled strings to get him to play a role in "A Sunny Place of the Young." That was going to be a Hughe production, with many Super-Stars. That was going to be a bigger challenge for the new actor... and a new chapter begins.

to be continued....

oh! here's an old video of our man singing on "Love's Greeting".

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