Are you excited for the new drama Friend, Our Legend?

If you’re not, that’s okay. I’m not, either, despite (or perhaps because of) all the hype. But there are a lot of dramas that I didn’t expect to like initially that I did in the end, so I won’t make a call until it’s aired. And that’ll be soon — with the weekend drama Strike Love meeting an ignominious end, Friend, Our Legend will be airing a little sooner than originally planned; it premieres on Saturday, June 27, on MBC.

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MBC’s much-awaited drama adaptation of the 2001 movie Friend, titled Friend, Our Legend [친구, 우리들의 전설], is set to premiere in a couple weeks, and the cast and crew held their drama production press conference on June 17 in Seoul.

The cast has some rather large shoes to fill, and none more so than Hyun Bin (The World They Live In), who takes the role originally played by Jang Dong-gun in the film that broke box office records at the time. Kim Min-joon (Tazza), Seo Do-young (Unstoppable Wedding), and Lee Shi-un fill out the quartet of friends.

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Hyun Bin, Kim Min-joon

(Cute.)

With baseball drama Strike Love winding down on MBC, its replacement series is getting ready to air: Friend, Our Legend [친구, 우리들의 전설], which is the television remake of the immensely successful 2001 film Friend.

The series stars Hyun Bin (The World They Live In) and Kim Min-joon (Tazza) as Dong-soo and Jun-seok, respectively. The roles were originated in the film by Jang Dong-gun and Yoo Oh-sung, who played the two leads in a group of four childhood friends.

This also marks the second time Hyun Bin and Kim Min-joon are acting together; their first experience was back in the 2004 drama Ireland, which went a long way to establishing their acting careers back before they were well-known.

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(Hyun Bin, is that really you?)

One of the buzzworthy dramas this year is the remake of the 2001 film Friend [친구], which is being adapted for television in MBC’s Friend, Our Legend [친구, 우리들의 전설]. Aside from the casting, the drama has a few things going for it that’s drumming up early interest: It’s being written and directed by the film’s director, Kwak Kyung-taek, and it’s just announced that it’ll get all 20 episodes in the can before premiere time.

The production company, ZinInSa Films (which also produced the film), stated on May 10 that filming is currently about 80% completed: “Filming and editing are being done together, so the entire production will be completed prior to broadcast.”

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Okay, I’m trying something new here, so please let me know what you think.

SBS’s Tazza ended its run today on episode 21, and to send it off, I’m kicking off an open thread. I can’t possibly cover all the dramas out there, but I know you all are watching a bunch of stuff and may have a few things to say about them, so run wild. If response is good, I’ll keep it up for future dramas.

I’ll start: You know, I had a generally positive reaction to episode 1, so I’m not quite sure why the drama fell off the radar for me. Who knows, maybe I’ll go back and give it another try. While Tazza wasn’t as successful (ratings-wise) a movie-to-drama adaptation as, say, Gourmet was, it performed well, particularly given how strong East of Eden has been. By all accounts, the acting was decent (despite initial criticism for Han Ye-seul, but that’s par for the course these days in dramas starring pretty starlets) and the story kept viewers compelled.

Taking over the Monday-Tuesday timeslot for SBS is Han Hye-jin’s wine-themed Terroir.

SONG OF THE DAY

Tazza OST SBS – “인생은 한방” (Life gives you one shot) [ Download ]

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• Kim Min-joon gets a leg up on Jang Hyuk
• Taking a gamble with Tazza

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