Is anyone thinking what I’m thinking?

But recently, for want of other kdramas to watch, I decided to give Goong S a second chance. And boy, I don’t regret this! I think it stands among my favourites – up there with the original Goong, Delightful Girl Choon Hyang, Full House, SamSoon and Coffee Prince.

The series got better and better as it went. I liked Hoo’s development and while he did seem very much over-the-top in the first couple of episodes, he got A LOT better as time went by. For me, Seven held the character together and really made Goong S worth watching.

I did comment to my daughters that the actress playing Soon Yi looked a lot like Gu Hye Sun in BOF and would have made a better Geum Jan Di. So it was interesting to read one of the posts here that Seven was rumoured to be dating Gu Hye Sun!

Overall, I think Goong S was highly under-rated and suffered because people like me could not look past the Goong comparisons. Yet, having watched Goong S now, I think it even surpassed the original in several ways – better costumes (loved the court ladie’s uniforms and thank God, no pink jackets on the men – my eyes popped at Shin’s fancy-dandy duds in Goong but I loved the quieter, understated elegance of the prince’s suits in Goong S – that, to me, was more like how royalty would dress.) and equally, if not better, set design and art direction.

Thanks for the recaps JB! Excellently written and great insight! I enjoyed reading them, as I do all your recaps – they bring the series to life and bring back nice memories as I read them after watching the episodes. Only wished you had recapped every single episode instead of the last four or five!

I stumbled on ur site via popseoul.

One thing that kind of “blemishes” the happy ending – did the queen mother eventually relent and accept soon-yi ? I’m sure the queen will readily do so but i am not sure about her mum. That woman seems to have a vengeance agst soon-yi. It wld be perfect if they had addressed that.

So yeah, they predictably redeemed sae ryung’s initially meanie and detestable character by making her give lee hoo up and walk away. There were times i wished i could wring her neck for the mean and condescending things she said to soon yi when they were alone. It reminds me of the kang hye-won character in full house. If she didnt give rain up ( i mean young-jae up) he and ji-eun may not have worked out> Kudos on that!

For me the best summarised sentence of the review has got to be this one, it’s so apt and easy to understand but summarises the love between soon-yi and lee hoo perfectly

it worked for me because Hoo and Soon-yi needed time to grow up, to experience life, and find themselves before coming back together. Life experience and struggle makes you stronger, and Hoo matured nicely in the intervening time. Also, Soon-yi has always been buffeted around by the whims of people more powerful than her — she needed to take charge of her life and realize her own potential. She’s become the capable, intelligent woman of the world she promised Hoo she’d become in Episode 19. And now, no one can accuse them of being thoughtless teenagers operating on fleeting feelings, because their connection goes so much deeper.”

Congrats on a great job !!

I am such a big fan of goong, super juniro and dong bang shingi………
kim young woong jae joong as hero, he’s soooooooooooo cute!!!!!!!!!!!!
we are gonna look so cute together, of course he doesn’t know me, but i have his posters on my bedroom wall all the time.

JAE JOONG’S MY HOE!!!!!

i was currently hooked up to your site because of coffee prince. and was entirely thankful for you have a lot of blogs to most of the korean drama series — in ENGLISH!

i was jst wondering.. you have been part of the fansubber team for goong s (i believe.. not sure though), but for the first ‘goong’ drama i couldn’t find any post about it.. just curious..

do u go to korea often to visit? u mentioned that your of korean origin but born,raised, & living in US but still u get a hold of your korean language pretty firm..

amazinggg..