Secret Garden is a 2010 South Korean drama starring Ha Ji-won, Hyun-bin, Yoon Sang-hyun, and Kim Sa-rang.  The drama followed the life of Gil Ra-im, a girl who has made her life into a stunt double for movies and television shows.  She is infatuated by Hallyu star, Oska.  Her life slowly and confusingly gets entangled with that of Kim Joo-won, the heir of the notorious wealthy Moon family.  He is a perfectionist that has a seeming fear of elevators.
 
*****SPOILERS*****

Gil Ra-im is working hard at her job as a stunt double, when she gets injured on the job.  Kim Joo-won, who is there for actress Park Chae-rin, sees Ra-im get injured and takes her to the hospital.  Kim Joo-won tries to get back into Ra-im’s life again through various means.  When Ra-im wins a trip with Oska, a famous Hallyu star, and her crush, Joo-won decides to tag along.  During the trip, they decide to do a bike relay and Ra-im gets lost with Joo-won in a mysterious jungle.  They stumble upon a house and eat food from the secretive lady that runs the place.  The lady offers them alcohol bottle, made by herself.  As they return to their lodging, the two can’t seem to fall asleep, so they both drink the alcohol.  The next day, they wake up with their bodies switched.  He is the CEO in his families business and she is a stunt double actor and to see them switch places is funny.  She signs his documents with hearts and cutesy stuff while he rejects her fighting scenes.

There is always a mother who gets in the way, and this drama is no exception.  Kim Joo-won’s mother hates the idea of him getting close to a poor girl and tries to intervene.  Later on his mother finds out that Gil Ra-im’s father is the fireman that saved Kim Joo-won’s life years earlier in an elevator fire.  The ending is very strange.  Kim Joo-won and Gil Ra-im hold each other in the mortuary where her father’s ashes are. 

Sorry, it’s been a while since I’ve actually seen this drama so if I got any of my facts wrong, please do correct them.  I enjoyed this drama, but more towards the end because it became more intense near the end.  The beginning took me months to watch for some reason.  It’s not my favorite drama, but it is definitely one that every k-drama fan should watch.  Thanks for reading this again.

You’re Beautiful is a 2009 South Korean drama starring Park Shin Hye, Jang Keun Suk, Lee Hong Gi and Jung Yong Hwa.  Two of the cast members are part of k-pop bands CNBlue and FT Island.  The story follows Go Minyeo, a nun-in-training that covers for her twin brother Go Minam, who is in the hospital in America.  She has to pretend to be her brother and play in the legendary band, A.N.Jell. 
 
*****SPOILERS*****

Go Minyeo, also known as Gemma, is taken from her nunnery when Mr. Ma and Miss Wang recruit her to play the role of her twin brother, Go Minam, until he recovers in the hospital.  Reluctantly, she agrees and cuts her hair and puts on boy clothes to convince the members of the band A.N.Jell that she is in fact Go Minam.  She passes the first test and becomes welcome into the group by all the member except the cold Hwang Taekyung.  As time goes on, Kang Shinwoo discovers she is a woman as does Hwang Taekyung.  The two develop feelings throughout the show for Go Minyeo and end up fighting for her.  Jeremy, the fourth member of the band, seems oblivious to the fact that Minam is in fact a girl, but rather thinks he is becoming gay and falling in love with a guy. 

As the plot goes on, Yoo He Yi, a famous and beautiful actress, finds herself falling for Hwang Taekyung more and more.  She eventually finds out that Minam is a girl and blackmails Taekyung into dating her to hide the group’s secret.  Towards the end, their manager wants to have an exclusive interview with both Go Minam and Go Minyeo, so to distract from that, the director sends Go Minam, Kang Shinwoo, and Jeremy to Japan to pretend like they are involved with a press conference.  Go Minyeo, at this point, decides that she is going to go to Africa to help a fellow nun.  The group returns to Korea and meets up with the real Go Minam. 

A reporter who has been following Go Minyeo and accusing her of being a girl, walks up to Go Minam, convinced that he is Minyeo and is embarrassed when he is not a girl.  Hwang Taekyung goes to Japan to try to convince Go Minyeo to stay, but she refuses.  Throughout all of this, Hwang Taekyung’s mother had stolen songs from Lee Sujin, Go Minyeo’s mother and lied that her father had abandoned Lee Sujin to be with her, but the truth was that Go Minyeo’s father never loved Taekyung’s mother.  Go Minyeo returns to Korea and runs into Mr. Ma again who needs Minyeo to pose as her brother for one more time.  Taekyung and Shinwoo discover her identity straight away.  She tells Taekyung that she is leaving but shows up for their concert before deciding to leave for good.  Taekyung sings a song for Minyeo and asks her to come out of the darkness and into the light so that he can see her.  Shinwoo then turns off the stage lights and turns the house lights on so that Taekyung can see Minyeo.  They embrace and he tells her “I will only say this every day for the rest of my life, so listen carefully.  I love you.”  This is an alteration on a phrase he said earlier in the drama, “I will only say this once, so listen carefully.  I like you.”  The drama ends with them standing on the roof together in the dark of night talking about her plans to go to Africa and how he will wait for her and be her brightest star.

I really liked this drama a lot.  It’s definitely not my favorite, but it’s a good one.  I highly suggest anyone to watch this drama because it has a good story that is slightly different than that of “Coffee Prince”.  They both share a similar feature, a girl posing as a boy, but this is a good one.  My next drama review will either be “Secret Garden” or “Love Rain”, which I’m currently watching.  Thanks for bearing with me and reading all the way to the end.