Hotelier

Main Characters:

Oh-so-hot Bae Yong Joon as Shin Dong Hyuk a.k.a. Frank Shin
Kim Seung Woo as Han Tae Jun
Song Yoon Ah as Suh Jin Yeoung
Song Hye Kyo as Kim Yoon Hee

Story:

The series, for obvious reasons, revolve around a hotel, Hotel Seoul. It's a pretty popular hotel. However, the hotel is trying to expand but apparently spent a lot of its liquid asset into the expansion project. Thus, there's a problem with the funding.

The hotel is owned by a certain President Choi who managed the hotel for 30 years until his end finally came. From the other side of the fence, we see another business tycoon, Kim Bok Man, who wanted to buy the hotel for the reason that if he acquires the hotel, he'll be getting a lot of money by reselling it, around 10 billion Won, I think.

Here's where the story starts, President dies, he has a carefree son (Young Jae) and an untrained wife (President Yoon) has to take over. So who'll take care of the hotel?

Han Tae Jun (Kim Seung Woo) was a former employee of Hotel Seoul. Because of a scandalous incident that forced him to resign 3 years back, he left for the U.S. to find his place there. Unfortunately, his stay there led him to stop working in a hotel despite his very competitive hotel management skills.

Suh Jin Yeoung (Song Yoon Ah) is the ex-girlfriend of Tae Jun who happens to work in Hotel Seoul. Tae Jun left her a few years back because of the incident mentioned earlier, despite the fact that Jin Yeoung proposed to him. Her mission now is to bring back Tae Jun to Hotel Seoul to manage the hotel in crisis, as this was the late President's last wish before he died.

Jin Yeoung travels to the other side of the world, to Las Vegas, to look for Tae Jun. In her visit, oh-so-hot Shin Dong Hyuk (Bae Yong Joon) sees her and gets attracted to her sassy ways. Anyway, going back to Jin Yeoung, she finds Tae Jun accidentally and tries to convince him to go back to Hotel Seoul as General Manager. However, Tae Jun refuses to accept the offer and wanted to remain washing dishes for Outback!

Now another character appears, Jenny. She lives with Tae Jun in Las Vegas who was adopted by a priest who was close to Tae Jun. The priest died and entrusted Jenny to Tae Jun. BUT, Jenny is the drug-addict-I-don't-care-about-my-life kind of person. In short, she's really hard to handle, until gangsters come after her for the money she owes them. She got scared. Tae Jun was concerned and since he's poor, he borrows money from Jin Yeoung, who convinces him again to come back to Seoul.

Jenny, Jin Yeoung and Tae Jun are now on their way to LA to escape. But Tae Jun still refuses to go back to Seoul. Jin Yeoung, whose character is the stubborn and impulsive type, walked out and stayed in the desert. But oh-so-hot Dong Hyuk (his English name is Frank) finds her in the middle of the desert. Ok, so they finally met each other formally. By the way, earlier in the drama, Dong Hyuk sends her a nice scarf via room service since her scarf got wet in the place that Dong Hyuk first saw her.

Ok, so what made Tae Jun go back to Seoul? It was Jenny. Jenny decided that she wants to go back to Korea to find her parents. Kind-hearted Tae Jun agrees. Tae Jun and Jenny find Jin Yeoung somewhere in LA and went back together to Seoul. Before that, Tae Jun and Jin Yeoung promised that they'll be good friends and they should forget the past. Of course, it's inevitable to remember the past.

Now who is Dong Hyuk? The debonair Dong Hyuk happens to be a very famous specialist who specializes in merging and acquiring hotels. Because of his flawless record, Kim Bok Man hires him to acquire Seoul Hotel from the untrained wife of late President Choi! When Jin Yeoung and Dong Hyuk meet in the desert, Dong Hyuk finds out that Jin Yeoung works in Hotel Seoul. Despite the fact that Dong Hyuk doesn't want to go back to Korea, he still accepts the project probably because of his attraction to Jin Yeoung. Dong Hyuk's identity remained sealed from Jin Yeoung.

Dong Hyuk flies to Korea with his partner and lawyer Leo to handle the case. Tae Jun goes back as General Manager. Jenny stays with Jin Yeoung's for awhile. So we?re back to the hotel again.

Before the action starts, I have to introduce Kim Yoon Hee (Song Hye Kyo), daughter of Kim Bok Man who catches the attention of Young Jae, the son of the owner of the hotel. However, Yoon Hee suffers the endless rules and regulations of her father.

Back to the hotel, Tae Jun resumes work and finds out that people have not forgotten the past. Apparently, he was accused of harassing the promiscuous wife of a congressman. There has hardly anyone who agreed to have him back as General Manager, until his first night. Strangely, there were a lot of problems in the hotel. Someone gets a heart attack, Tae Jun rushes to the rescue and saves the old man. It was his lucky day, he saved a famous journalist. So the journalist published a nice article about him. And with all the things that he did to help the other problems in the hotel on that night, he was accepted by the people and became the general manager.

Sly duo Dong Hyuk and Leo report to Bok Man and proposed that they stay at Hotel Seoul so they are in good contact with the enemy. Of course, there's Dong Hyuk's hidden agenda of finding Jin Yeoung.

Back to Yoon Hee, she became a bit close to Young Jae until his friends tried to rape her in Hotel Seoul! General manager Tae Jun comes to the rescue and saves Yoon Hee. But this part is a secret between them. This was one of the incidents during Tae Jun's first night back at the hotel.

Follow up on Jenny, she became one of the kitchen assistants at Hotel Seoul as she was good in cooking. She, by the way, vowed to change her life.

Now Dong Hyuk's character starts to unfold. With his kind of job, he should be notorious and vicious. But we see a different Dong Hyuk in the next scenes as these scenes are Jin Yeoung and Dong Hyuk scenes. The two get to know each other, go out to date and we discover the character of Dong Hyuk. We see that he's an incredibly intelligent man (which is kind of unfair considering the way he looks!!) in one of his dates where he shows off his photographic memory. We find out that he's a Harvard graduate who plays with stocks in the stock market.

We'll also be able to see why he refuses to go back to Korea. He was abandoned as a child and was sent to an orphanage in the U.S. He tries to find his father and discovers that his father is a homeless bum. He meets his father and asks him questions without revealing his identity. It would seem that the father was unaffected by the disappearance of his children (another daughter), which made Dong Hyuk furious. He walks out of the restaurant where he spotted his father and leaves a lot of money and his lighter (when his father asked for a smoke). His father realizes that it was his son, so he comes after him. Dong Hyuk ignores him completely, walks into his car and drives away with Leo. We see the father and son get emotional.

On the work side, when Leo and Dong Hyuk start working in the hotel, we'll see that he has a fascinating imagination which made him win a lot of stocks. He's also fast in understanding the minds of people that he's working with.

Back to Yoon Hee and Young Jae, Young Jae, feeling guilty about the incident, tries to woo Yoon Hee at the billiard bar by kneeling in front of her. However, a spy hired by her controlling father sees the incident, which led to Kim Bok Man's fury. Yoon Hee now has an argument with her father and runs away. She meets Tae Jun on the way and kind Tae Jun offers her to stay in the hotel. But then again, she needs to get a job since she ran away. So by sheer connections with the higher management, and Young Jae's persistence of Yoon Hee working in HIS hotel, she was able to get work at Hotel Seoul in the Food and Beverage department. Pretty princess Yoon Hee became waitress/pauper overnight.

At this point, we have three unacceptable relationships: Yoon Hee to Young Jae, Yoon Hee to Tae Jun and Dong Hyuk to Jin Yeoung.

Now at this point, we'll be seeing more of Yoon Hee. Although she grew up with a silver spoon on her mouth, we'll be able to see that she's a straight-forward, hardworking woman. She immediately expresses her interest to Tae Jun, and we'll be able to see that she practices all day and all night to get her job done properly. Until her father catches her working at Hotel Seoul. Kim Bok Man was in rage and forcefully brought Yoon Hee back to their mansion. Yoon Hee, smart as she is, threatens his father that she'll kill herself if he keeps on dictating her life. We'll discover that Yoon Hee's mother committed suicide because of misery cause by Bok Man's oppression.

Going back to Dong Hyuk and Jin Yeoung, during their dates, it would seem like Jin Yeoung is still in love with Tae Jun and Dong Hyuk is aware of it. Dong Hyuk tries his best to please her and even gave her 300 stalks of roses. Another important scene was their date in a church in which Dong Hyuk was supposed to tell Jin Yeoung everything. Unfortunately, Jin Yeoung fell asleep since their date was an early morning date. In one of their dates, Dong Hyuk also gave her a pretty necklace for her birthday. This was an interesting scene since the staff planned to give Jin Yeoung a nice surprise party. But when Dong Hyuk sends Jin Yeoung home, Jin Yeoung opens the door in which the people inside can see everything. Dong Hyuk attempts to kiss her but failed. Then Jin Yeoung enters and surprise!!

Conflict arises when two housekeeping ladies find a document near the trash can of Dong Hyuk's room. They started skimming the document and finds the name of Hotel Seoul there. The ladies escalated the matter to the General Manager immediately but another manager (Manager O, a senior manager who wants the general manager post) was able to get hold of the document. The nosy Manager O goes directly to President Yoon who called the attention of Tae Jun and Jin Yeoung. When the other side of Dong Hyuk's character was revealed to Jin Yeoung, Jin Yeoung was shocked and cannot believe that Dong Hyuk is capable of destroying the hotel that she loved the most.

Jin Yeoung confronts Dong Hyuk and found out the truth that he is trying to acquire the hotel. Disappointed that she is, she returns the pretty necklace, storms out and leaves gloomy Dong Hyuk in his hotel room.

The following days, Dong Hyuk tries his best to communicate with Jin Yeoung. This part is the most romantic part of the entire series that I would just watch these parts over and over. There's a scene in which Dong Hyuk grabs Jin Yeoung into a compartment in the kitchen, locks up the area, confesses his love for her and they kiss? this is the only kissing scene in the entire series. And of course, there's a window by the door and everybody saw what happened. Another scene was at the Casablanca bar, where Dong Hyuk was at the first floor and Jin Yeoung was at the second floor. When she was descending, they spot each other and Jin Yeoung runs back upstairs, trying to calm her heart. She steps backwards towards another stairs and we see dashing Dong Hyuk from behind the stairs. He grabs her hand to a hug, tells her to meet his at the church at 12 midnight, and that it will be the last chance that they talk uninterrupted. Sigh!!

The day comes in which the two should meet. Unfortunately, Yoon Hee meets a guest (yes, she's back, after threatening her father, but displeased a hotel staff member since her identity was discovered by everyone) who had an ex-girlfriend who looks exactly like her. But the guest was insane! He kidnaps Yoon Hee and threatened everyone that he'll jump off the hotel building with Yoon Hee. Unfortunately, the hotel cannot afford that. First of all, Dong Hyuk is after them. A bad story wouldn't help. Second, it's Yoon Hee, Young Jae's love interest. Young Jae walks up behind the attacker and saves Yoon Hee. BUT Yoon Hee hugged Tae Jun instead of Young Jae. Since everybody was panicking, Jin Yeoung was left at the front desk to work.

It was way beyond their meeting time so when she comes to the church to meet Dong Hyuk, he was already gone. She goes back to the hotel and meets Tae Jun. They talk. Unluckily, Dong Hyuk happened to pass by and saw the two lovey-doveys. Dong Hyuk was infuriated and said that he's determined to get the hotel no matter what the cost.

Tae Jun now works hard to find a way help out the hotel. However, it was hard since Dong Hyuk was a very difficult opponent. Dong Hyuk calls for Tae Jun and tells him that he will get both the hotel and Jin Yeoung. Tae Jun, who also wanted Jin Yeoung, also affirmed that he wants the same.

The problem became worse when Manager O chases out the duo. The incident enraged the duo and they plan to sue the hotel. Jin Yeoung was concerned so she gave Dong Hyuk a visit despite the fact that Tae Jun prohibited her to.

She visits Dong Hyuk and annoying does exactly what Dong Hyuk says. Dong Hyuk asks for a month from her for her to see him and his plans. He assures Jin Yeoung that the hotel will be safe.

Dong Hyuk plans to change his strategy. He plans to buy out all the shares of the hotel instead. However, there was a 3% share that he needs in order to change the ownership of the hotel. It was owned by a woman named Madam Song. When he discussed his new strategies with Bok Man, Yoon Hee was there. The next day, Yoon Hee immediately tells Tae Jun about the missing 3%.

Madam Song booked a room at the hotel and the duo found her immediately. However, we find out that Madam Song is actually the congressman's ex-wife, the lady who accused Tae Jun for harassment! The duo makes arrangements and conditions for Madam Song and left Madam Song to think about it. Tae Jun also discovered through rumors that Madam Song booked a room in the hotel. He went to visit her personally since she needed something. We see a sudden change in character for Madam Song. She offers a contract to Tae Jun, saying that she is giving her shares to him in exchange for the humiliation she caused him a few years back. At this point, the hotel is really safe from Dong Hyuk's strategies.

The ownership was retained but the funding problem did not change. Since Bok Man owned most of the banks, he is still able to control the situation. The banks imposed that before a loan can be granted, a consultant must be there to supervise the changes. The consultant is no other than Dong Hyuk! He mentions retrenchment is the way to solve their problems. Disappointed Tae Jun disagrees with the idea except Manager O.

Manager O was tasked by Dong Hyuk to make a retrenchment list in the event that Tae Jun could not create one. Manager O was impatient and picked randomly from the list of employees. He posted his results after which enraged Tae Jun. Tae Jun complained to Dong Hyuk and later that night, he gave him a resignation letter.

Dong Hyuk proceeds to Casablanca bar and finds Jin Yeoung again. They talk and he promises that in a month, he'll be done. He asks Jin Yeoung to wait for him and assures her that nothing will happen.

Meanwhile, resigned Tae Jun went to the villa in which the duo stays and finds out that it was empty. He went into the room like a thief and copied the documents in Dong Hyuk's laptop and photocopied documents that were found on his table. When the duo came back, he was already done.

He visits his old journalist friend to publish some information that he got that would be detrimental to Kim Bok Man. Kim Bok Man, powerful that he is, was able to anticipate Tae Jun's moves through some connections. The article was not published at all which made him go back as general manager.

Kim Bok Man got impatient with Dong Hyuk's strategies so he kidnaps Tae Jun and beats him up. Jin Yeoung discovers that Tae Jun is missing and got news from Yoon Hee that Tae Jun was in a driving range that her father owns. Dong Hyuk, Jin Yeoung and Yoon Hee rush to the driving range to find Tae Jun. Tae Jun was sent to the hospital.

Dong Hyuk finds new information on his family. He discovers that his sister is already in Korea who arrived recently from the US. It was Jenny! But by now, Jenny hates him since he's bent on acquiring the hotel.

Dong Hyuk convinces Jin Yeoung that he have a talk with Jenny. Jenny discovers that her brother is after the hotel that she loves. He also asks Jenny if she wants to meet their father. Dong Hyuk brings their father into the hotel and meets them both. Dong Hyuk was surprised to see that Jenny immediately forgave the father and hugged him tightly. He tried to conceal his sadness by running away form them.

Now that Dong Hyuk has a reason to visit the kitchen and meet the people once in a while, he begins to discover and know the people in the hotel. He developed a soft spot for them and realized that he's not willing to proceed with the project anymore.

Kim Bok Man proposed a new strategy. He wants to sell the hotel to foreign hotel chains. Dong Hyuk disagrees but Kim Bok Man asked for a proposal. Dong Hyuk refused the proposal and meets up with Kim Bok Man and tells him that he does not want to work with hooligans and he only works with bona fide businessmen. There was then a cancellation of contract.

It angered Kim Bok Man and he planned to frame Dong Hyuk instead and make separate engagements with Leo. However, Yoon Hee was able to get hold of the documents and gave them to Dong Hyuk. Dong Hyuk was safe. Leo, on the other hand, was on Dong Hyuk's side. Unknown to Kim Bok Man, the buyer was actually Dong Hyuk. Dong Hyuk used up her personal assets to buy Kim Bok Man's shares so the hotel won't be sold to foreign hotel chains. Dong Hyuk is almost penniless. This was the beginning of a new friendship between Dong Hyuk and Tae Jun.

Now that almost everything was in place, Dong Hyuk asked Jin Yeoung for a nice dinner. It was in a big room and there was no one else but them. The spotlight was directed towards them only and Dong Hyuk walked in. He was holding a box with a ring inside and proposed to Jin Yeoung. Jin Yeoung reached out her hand and smiled. Dong Hyuk put the ring on her finger.

To close his case, Dong Hyuk collaborated with the police to gather evidence against Kim Bok Man. He turned himself into bait that has been bugged. He gave Kim Bok Man a visit and just talked to him until he was able to admit some of his old mistakes that turned into evidence against him. The police caught him and he was help in prison for a few days. He was fined pretty heavily and was released.

Now there's a twist in the story. The reason behind the acquisition of the hotel can be traced to even before the hotel was built. President Choi and Kim Bok Man used to be friends from school, until they met the younger President Yoon. President Yoon fell in love with President Choi but Kim Bok Man also fell in love with her.

The series ended quite slowly with the expansion project being done and launched successfully, President Yoon gives all her shares to the employees, Kim Bok Man's character lightened up a bit and became interested in hooking up Young Jae and Yoon Hee, Yoon Hee going to Las Vegas to study, and President Yoon dies of lung cancer.

Dong Hyuk also proposed that he and Jin Yeoung would migrate to the US since he's an American citizen. With everything that happened, Jin Yeoung refuses to go. Dong Hyuk insists that she should come if she wants to and he'll be waiting.

Jin Yeoung didn't change her mind on her decision and stayed in the hotel while Dong Hyuk was on his way to the airport. In the hotel, she was browsing her email and found out that Dong Hyuk all this time was regularly sending her emails. She discovered that Dong Hyuk never cheated nor lied to her about a lot of matters. It was just that she never opened her email! She rushed to the airport and it was too late. Dong Hyuk boarded the plane.

Things change after sometime. Manager O becomes the new general manager and Tae Jun as the new president while Young Jae is still incapable of heading the hotel. Jin Yeoung still one of the managers of the hotel. One day, Tae Jun told him that he has a very important guest coming and he needs Jin Yeoung to take care of the guest since he has a conference to go to and he needs to ask Young Jae to go to Las Vegas. And surprise, it was the ever-handsome Shin Dong Hyuk! He said that he promises to never leave Jin Yeoung again.

The series ends with Yoon Hee by the airport, waiting for someone. We don't know who came. Was it Young Jae or Tae Jun?

Review:

Overall, the plot was good. There was action, a lot of emotions were involved, and very romantic scenes! If there's one thing this series should take credit for is their artistic way of making the audience feel the love between Dong Hyuk and Jin Yeoung. The characters were developed well. This is the only series that I?ve watched in which ALL characters are dynamic. They have good sides and bad sides. There was only one antagonist, and it was Kim Bok Man, although at the start of the series, I would think that there are a lot. But in the end, the characters change due to circumstances. Mystery is often the tool that they use in unfolding each character. Each character has a soft spot, which is true for all human beings. As usual, like most Korean soaps, the background music was perfect; it projects the emotions of the characters. Another thing is, the ending is open-ended, it gives more space for creativity from the viewers. Thus, there will be two schools of thought formed: one is for Tae Jun, the other is for Young Jae.

Now the bad side: how the ending progresses. It was a bit boring but I can still keep up because Bae Yong Joon is really hot! Another thing is that the series uses a lot of words to convey emotions. There are some scenes that would have been made better without words. Some of these series like "Winter Sonata" and "Autumn in My Heart", where they can convey feelings by the facial expression, or by non-verbal action (hugging from behind), or by the scenery (coldness of the snow to the feelings of Choi Ji Woo). The absence of non-verbal script was apparent at the end of the series. Earlier in the series, it was wonderful!! So there are a bit of inconsistencies in the acting or probably the style. Another thing, Dong Hyuk was supposed to grow up in the U.S., why is his English bad? Maybe it's because of the accent? I?m not sure. Jin Yeoung sounded better, I think. Good thing Bae Yong Joon is really cute and I have no intention of bashing him in my review!

Favorite scenes:
1. Jin Yeoung in the restaurant and she said that the glass is dangerous
2. father and son drama between Dong Hyuk and his father
3. the only kissing scene
4. Dong Hyuk grabbing Jin Yeoung's hand by the stairs
5. the romantic proposal with the lights