Originally Posted by
JonDoe
Title : Snow Queen
Casting :
Han Dukgu - Hyun Bin
Kim Bora - Sung Yuri
Synopse : A mathematical genius who dropped out of highschool after the accidental death of his best friend, meets his first love, the little sister of his best friend, again 8 years later.
Impression : While not explicitly billed as a Winter Sonata spin-off, it is one as it is produced by Yun Suk Ho, written by same writers, and heavily burrows from the Winter Sonata plotline.
Han Dukgu is a highschool mathematical genius with a promising future. Kim Bora is a young wealthy girl with a life-long illness. She runs away from the hospital to avoid constant treatment and meets Han Dukgu on the street. They only meet twice as Han Dukgu's best friend(Bora's brother) died in an accident and Han Duksu failed to show up for their third date. So Han Dukgu and Kim Bora never see each other again for 8 years, not even knowing each other's name.
8 years has passed since. Han Dukgu is still haunted by the death of his best friend whose death he blamed himself for, and has run away from school and home to live as a boxer. Kim Bora is now a spoiled wealthy college girl with a bad personality who has a habit of making everyone's life miserable(Arrogrant wealthy girl and poor man couple is now the in-trend in Korean drama nowadays). Han Dukgu and Kim Bora meet again in hospital as Kim Bora is about to commit suicide, not realizing each other. Han Dukgu saves Kim Bora's life again in her second suicide attempt, and for this Han Dukgu befriends his best friend's family again.
During the course of the story they finally realize each other as the first love they never forgot, but their love is blocked by the death of Kim Bora's brother. When they finally overcome the past after many episodes, it is revealed that Kim Bora's illness is now terminal and has few days to live.
This drama has been criticized for poor acting of Sung Yuri, whose acting the critics complain never improves. But I beg to differ, as the critics are actually not liking Sung Yuri's evil arrogant character, not Sung Yuri's convincing acting. In the past, viewers would have laughed off Sung Yuri's evil character acting.
Overall plotline is similar to Winter Sonata, all the plot elements are there. So how do I like this spin-off? I actually like it.