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It´s comparably less makjang, but more morals – and Schubert's Serenade, again and again
"Summer Scent" is one of those early classical KDramas, marking the emergence of the South Korean TVdrama genre as an export hit with all its quality features. In the early 2000s the Hallyu, the Korean Wave started creating a stir, first in Asia and at last throughout the rest of the world.Typically, the narration is so richly peppered with sometimes malicious, sometimes tragic twists - ´makjang´ at its best - that for some the emotionalism might be almost unbearable, if you are not ready open up for the deepest dramas of heart and soul. KDrama is in that context also a master of nasty, often enough quite malicious twists and turns. However, "Summer Scent" is comparably less makjang, but more morals. Nevertheless, with their decisions the protagonists truely can put a strain on your nerves. You should to be prepared to sympathy, suffering and compassion - even if you might struggle at times. This KDrama, too, with its twists and turns rocks the boat until the very end...
The plot juggles a heart transplant with the idea of cell memory. The whole story is poetically told, memorably filmed in front of a summery backdrop and played with a lot of heart. On top of that, the soundtrack eats its way mercilessly into the hearts of the audience: Schubert's Serenade, sometimes in German, sometimes in Korean, sometimes instrumental, but: the serenade again and again...
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The drama has a good story and the build-up is pretty great. In spite of the simplicity of the plot, I was amazed at the depth it possessed otherwise. The feelings in the drama are very tangible and they left me feeling warm- much like its name. This is the happiest and lightest of all melodramas I have seen in spite of its sad elements. The plot isn't too heavy and is very smooth flowing until the very end. Only emotions drive the drama and keep you invested in them. The characters are likable (minus the 2nd leads) and I loved the chemistry the main characters had.
The otherwise robotic Song Seung Hoon surprisingly did a good job here. I suppose his looks were an added advantage in spite of his terrible hairstyle but he very well managed to put across the emotions his character was going through. Although he doesn't have an impressive range, I forgive him for that. I am not a very big fan of Son Ye Jin but she was downright lovely in this drama and acted with great poise.
Lately I have been a fan of stories having to do with fate and destiny and this one has that majorly. This drama treats love like fate and serendipity. It's about the inevitable and how something will happen if it has to. I loved the tone of the entire drama and it uses summer in an appealing way. You can see the beautiful backdrops and they are always quite in sync with the theme of summer. I love the cinematography and often dreamy, melancholic moments in the drama.
Although it has its sad parts, it isn't heavy or depressing. Another great thing about it is that it is not too majkang-tastic which often ruins most melodramas. I would like to compare it to Love Rain and say they have a lot in common- in a good way except this drama is better. This drama isn't too romantic but the feelings with which it is driven is fantastic. I also love one song from the OST which I will put on repeat till I get bored. I couldn't connect with some parts in the last episode and the ending isn't really satisfying but I liked how they filmed it. It at least didn't leave out the main question unanswered.
I would recommend this drama to hopeless romantics or those who don't mind a slow drama. This now goes down in my favourites list and I can say this is the best Season drama hands down with a memorable cast.
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This was the first Korean drama I'd ever watched, and for the first handful of episodes (perhaps seven or so) it was interesting, and emotional, and worthwhile, and I was convinced Kdramas were the bees knees. But my goodness, did it drag on! After a while, for each step forward the main couple made, they were taking two or three steps back. I got so fed up that I stopped watching before the 14th episode, and didn't start anymore Kdramas until my manager (and friend) recommended some great ones. (You're Beautiful, Protect the Boss, Boys Over Flowers; those are great starter ones.) I finally sat down to watch the last three episodes this afternoon, and I admit, I skipped through them. I just couldn't handle the endless melancholy.
The most aggravating part was Hye Won's ridiculous excuse-making, and her perpetual need to play the victim. At first, it was understandable, but after a while it just got obnoxious. I don't believe she was being fair to her fiance. I don't care how the writers tried to make him seem like a bad guy; he had every right to be upset with her, and the bit where he flies off the handle and attacks her seemed thrown in to try to give us a better reason for her to behave the way she was. I'm not buying it. All she ever does is apologise, and as Jung Jae (her oppa/fiance) said at one point, "Stop apologising. Just don't do things to make me upset." So simple! This girl just couldn't ever make a decision, always playing the fence with her oppa, her love, and even her life, and once she did make a choice, it was always the WRONG one.
Jung Ah (Jung Jae's sister who's in love with the lead Min Woo) is a manipulative brat through most of the show, and I wanted to slap her. Yet, by the end, I was more infuriated with Hye Won, and how stupid she was. She kept insisting that Min Woo only loved her because he saw her as his first lost love, and she wasn't the warm, cheerful person he loved, so he must not love her, but just a memory of another girl. Whaaaat?! When you have a new heart that gives you a fresh start on life, of COURSE you're going to be different! Your quality of life improves. You're able to do things you've never done before. That would turn anyone from glum to cheerful! Your personality didn't change, stupid! You're ability to BE the happy, cheerful person you were meant to be was finally realised! Why do you WANT to insist that you're a miserable human being? She kept saying she did things to prevent Min Woo from suffering, but just like the most horrible of Kdrama leading ladies, she kept making it worse and worse for all parties involved. Get over yourself, girl. Maybe you're right, and you don't deserve to be happy. But stop making everyone around you miserable in the meantime!
So many slow scenes with close-ups of Min Woo's longing, tearful sighs--usually, I wouldn't complain about any close-ups of Song Seung Heon, but when it's totally unnecessary because of an idiot girl, I have a hard time sympathizing.
This had the least satisfying ending of any drama I've seen so far. Nothing to justify putting the audience through so much slowness and depression.
The music was good, until it became repetitive and I got tired of hearing the same depressing version of Schubert's Serenade over and over. I feel like I could have felt for the characters more if the music had been of a better arrangement.
Please, SSH. Find good dramas. You didn't learn your lesson with Summer Scent, and were the only likeable thing about When A Man Loves. Go back to great ones like My Princess. I want to see you in satisfying endings! Kthnx!
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Summer scent is the third installment of Endless Love Series, right next to Winter Sonata. As to why the director chose Song Seung-hun to act as the main lead again since he already acted in Autum Tale (first installment of Endless Love Series), I have no idea but the series was lighter than the preceding installments. Watching the drama was a bit refreshing due to the fact of a new setting, much lighter mood on the actors and an easier plot line.
Main man has a dead girl friend, dead girl friend’s heart was donated to the main woman in which the main man eventually falls for. It’s kind of a far fetched conflict, but whatever suits your taste. We all know that an internal organ has nothing to do with falling in love. If I donate my liver to someone, would my man fall for that someone just because that person had my liver? What if I donated my kidneys, lungs, heart and cornea… would my man fall in love to multiple people because they have a piece of me just because I’m dead and they are living? That’s just plain weird.
Setting my cynical comments aside, I still liked the drama. After bashing it, then I recommend??? WHY???
My reasons are very much quite simple:
Song Seung-heon is hot.
Son Ye-jin’s beauty and acting would take you in.
The story itself (never mind the main conflict) hooks you up with so many thoughts about real life that all you can do about it is relate and continue on watching, regardless if you’ve missed your bed time or not.
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The drama was not able to carry my emotions as the story proceeded. But the emotions I felt was annoyance and disappointment. I should have dropped it. For a melodrama, the story didnt moved me at all. Unlike the first season drama, Autumn In My Heart which gave me tears from the first episode down to the last one.
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If your heart beat don't be stupid
Well, the story could be real good but who wrote the FL role? What a stupid concept. The writer never thought that if her heart beat when she see him and knows that heart recognize is love why don't accept this? Ever the wtriter thgout that she falle in love, or at least was guide to ML because she had the heart of his lost lover?The ML is a great actor, I've also liked him in Autumn Tale and I start seeing this because of him but I fast foward from the 4 episode to the lasts ones.
It's annoying and slow so I'm not gonna rewatched this one as I don't rewatch Winter Sonata also. Now to complete the series I will see Spring Waltz.
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O Foolish Heart
‘Summer Scent’ is the story of Min Woo, a man, an architect who has lost his love, Eun Hye, who died in tragic circumstances on their wedding day; he is completely devastated and decides to give up everything and move to Italy, to try to forget, to try to get by.After three years, however, he decides to return, after all he is an architect and has a family in Korea, maybe through work he has overcome the trauma, maybe he has forgotten Eun Hye;
‘Did you meet any girls?’ his best friend and co-worker Dae Poong asks him, ‘No, no girls’ he replies, ‘I tried to stay alive’ or something like that, says Min Woo, who seems yet another desperate case of tele-filmic misogyny.
He's bound to be your first love and that's it, there's no other possibility of new love....
But since all this stress has to be relieved somehow, Min Woo decides to go to the mountains, to one of those beautiful peaks surrounding Seoul, and at the top of the mount he meets Hae-won, a beautiful florist who is there to document rare plants and species;
Hae-won is not only a florist, but also a girl who has also been ‘reborn’ because she has undergone a life-saving operation, a heart transplant that now allows her to live a ‘normal’ life; she has found love, at least she thinks so, with Park Jun Jae, who has been her rich boyfriend since her school days, she is full of vitality, she wants to make up for everything she lost in her youth, in hospital rooms and deprivation, only the moment she meets Min Woo, her heart begins to stir and send her messages... And what could it be! ?
Due to a minor injury suffered by Hae-won, the two are forced to spend the night together in a small cabin in the mountains, not in the biblical sense eh, it's still a drama, but as two travellers who will say goodbye to each other the next day; only in this short time Min woo detects a variety of particularities of Hae-won that remind him of his deceased beloved...
‘Sometimes I feel like there are two people living inside me,’ thinks Hae won often, who of course still doesn't know it, Min woo doesn't either, but the heart beating in his chest is that of Eun Hye, Min Woo's deceased love; sounds familiar!?
Of course it is, in a nutshell it's the premise behind Return To Me, the lovely movie starring Minnie Driver and Dave Duchovny, so there's a good basis for a nice love story, but of course this is a drama and here things get terribly complicated, because on the horizon there's also the intrusive Jung Ah, who loves Min Woo without being corresponded, she too has returned from Italy to follow her (desperate) love;
‘She's like a little sister to me,’ says Min Woo, and this is the final nail in the coffin for any chance of a relationship between the two in the Dramaverse; but Jung Ah also happens to be Hae-won's best friend and sister-in-law by extension, being also Jun Jae's sister...
What a mess! But it's a pretty good mess, indeed...And we're only at the beginning!
Greetings and goodbyes and everyone goes back to their homes, end of drama, right?
But of course not, because Park Jun Jae and his family have to restructure a resort and this will take them the whole summer; architects are needed for the restyling and guess who, out of 11 million Koreans living in Seoul, a city agglomeration of 25 million (practically half of Italy) and who knows how many thousands of professionals who will win the project?
Obviously Min Woo and his partner/friend Dae Poong who will find themselves working throughout the season with Jun Jae, Jung Ah, Hae-won and even Jang-mi, Hae-won's Unnie, a sort of bizarre ‘stalker’ who collects photos of good-looking men...
Min woo and Hae-won, after the initial surprise and embarrassment, become closer and closer...
Over the years, I have resumed watching ‘Summer Scent’ several times and with different moods, even having been busy to translate the subtitles, but to this day, this drama of the Seasons cycle is the one that gives me the most headache;
towards the last episodes of the drama, there is a scene during which Hae-won and Min woo get together and confront each other, bringing into focus what I think is the moral dilemma of the drama:
Hae-won states that her love is destined to remain hopeless, because she believes that Min woo continues to love the late Un-Hae, who is alive in her trasplanted heart...
‘Summer Scent’ is then the story of a man who continues to love his dead girlfriend through another woman who is a kind of empty shell, a ‘wrapper’ or ‘container’!?
From the very first encounter in the mountains (the sequence at the airport is only an introductory frame and indicative of the subsequent dynamics), one undoubtedly has the feeling that the authors want to ‘trick’ us into confronting the dilemma of ‘who’ or ‘what’ acts as the fulcrum of the attraction between the two younger.
Is it Un-Hae's heart that ‘plays’ with feelings through the calla flowers, Schubert's ‘Serenade’, the flower petals in the tea, the references to rain in the clear sky, the house with the glass roof, introducing a pure fantasy subtext, so as to increase the spectrum of eventualities!?
It is Min woo who, desperately, projects the image of his deceased beloved onto Hae-won, even going to the extreme of recreating with objects and soundtrack an eerie ‘ideal scenario’ in the proposal room at a dramatic moment in the story!?
Or perhaps, much more conventionally, ‘It's destiny... If love is predestined your heart will beat fast even at the slightest touch’, as the more mature Jang-mi argues in an exchange of views with her florist friend...
Perhaps the beauty of this drama lies specifically in its unresolved narrative linearity, in a sort of enveloping haze - as in the sequence, beautiful! at dawn, near the house of Min woo's mother, a sequence that generates one of the many ‘misunderstandings’ that will later provide the definitive ‘proof’ of ‘guilt’ - a haze that does not allow us to clarify all the sentimental implications of the two main characters, but personally, much more prosaically, I like to think of a circle -the classic circle of destiny, yes- that opens with that beautiful initial consideration of Eun Ha and, ideally, closes exactly on the very final sequence:
‘...If my heart still beats when I am older, I want to meet the love of my life on a rainy day...’
‘Summer Scent’ has various flaws, but also many virtues that make it really attractive still after all these years, starting with the easiness of small gestures and the essentiality in the pursuit of building memories by two sincere souls who, inevitably, find themselves alone against the world.
The encounter in the mountains, the beautiful hills with the endless tea fields, the proposal room, the football pitch with the scene of the silent dance, the flowers, Schubert and his ‘Serenade’ also in the beautiful version by Nana Mouskouri (it must be said that Schubert did not exactly lead a blameless life...), the ‘forced’ stop on the island, all those extraordinary little things that make life worth living, those objects, sort of love fetishes that take on a central role in their lives, as well as that ‘slow’ rhythm, apparently not much appreciated by many viewers, but essential for contemplating and getting in tune with the central role of nature that, once again, underlines the work's magical lyricism.
And then all those big walks; throughout the summer, Min Woo and Hae-won do nothing but go, alternately, to Un-hae's poor parents who have gone to bury their despair in the middle of the woods, to grow all kinds of tea and to get there, or to Un-hae's grave they are forced to constantly grind miles; how can one not love these two pure souls and their yearning in the midst of those landscapes! Does such dedication not deserve due repayment?
It is yet another classic premise - two people whose existences are conditioned, who are not allowed to live their love - based on a possibly implausible event, (but aren't all melodramas ‘extraordinarily implausible’!?) which nonetheless leads us to ask; ‘Who governs the feelings! The heart or reason!?’
Perhaps not the best of the four segments, for it certainly isn't, it pays a little for the lack of an introduction, the powerful and well-articulated preamble, which, at least for my personal taste, usually takes up a couple of episodes and serves as an ideal building block for pathos. But these are small details, and ‘Summer Scent’ has a great cast:
Son Ye Jin, so beautiful and moving both in her enthralling joie de vivre and in the heartbreak following the unveiling of the truth, with the relative and inevitable sense of guilt towards ‘her’ family, with a split personality (‘You know, after the surgery, my personality has changed’ she tends to repeat) that makes her doubt even herself ('Is it me or is it Un-hae who rules me! ?"), she has all these intense close-ups that as soon as her eyes begin to moisten you're already starting to cry, not because it's a drama and therefore plays the easy pathetic card, but because every time she puts her hand on her chest you're afraid it's going to break -yet- her sweet heart, absolutely stunning!
Ye Jin finds a perfect partner in Song Seung-heon who, possibly because of the summer look with tan and rebel hair, looks even younger than in Autumn In My Heart; he too is messed up badly (the subject matter, in itself, provides for this) and unable to give Hae-won the sincere reasons for his love, evidently tormented by doubt, for much of the drama, about the sincerity of his own feelings (‘At first I was attracted to you because you looked like Un-hae’) he really is a soul in pain.
I mean, Min Woo, do you love Hae won!? Or his simulacrum!?
I absolutely adore the scenes and dialogues between the two main characters; we move from an initial phase, where Min woo has an attitude of almost controlled superiority towards Hae-won, where the first skirmishes are mostly dictated by frivolous situations, to a sort of role reversal, as the story proceeds and the truth comes out, with the beautiful florist reaching a greater awareness and determination, compared to a Min woo sinking into the darkest depression, definitely worn out by his inner turmoil.
Remarkable Han Ji-hye, in a crabby and obnoxious character, that of Jung-ah, the hopeless lover, able to make herself even ‘ hateful’ in her behaviour towards her almost sister-in-law friend, but also capable of pissing off Min-woo several times with her petty tricks to try to win him over; As I often like to say, when an actor (woman, man is indifferent) makes me angry about his or her role, it means that he or she has done his or her job very well.
Ryu Jin's work as Jung Jae is also well articulated, I would say unpleasant as well, for much of the drama, with his arrogant feudal-like sense of possession and his unbelievable coercions towards Hae-won, at a distance he brings out unexpected aspects of his own personality.
Jo Eun Sook (Jang-mi) and Jung Hoon Ahn (Dae-poong) are likeable and skilfully functional in the plot, but special mention must be made of the always superb Kim Hae-suk and, especially, Ha Jae Yeong as the missed in-laws, absolutely perfect in their respective parental afflictions...
Truly outstanding is the soundtrack not only as an ideal accompaniment for the story but, as in the case of the aforementioned Schubert ‘Serenade’, functional to the development of the plot itself.
‘Summer Scent’ is a roller coaster of emotions that has undoubtedly aged as well as good wine, I was pleasantly surprised to see it again and I think it can be considered an evergreen, decidedly more articulated and complex than one might expect, perhaps initially tricky due to the themes and dilemmas addressed, in addition to that ‘placid slowness’ mentioned above -which for me is a great virtue- and a cast of excellent level at the service of a very fascinating story...
Essential - like all segments of the ‘Endless Love’ cycle - for understanding and loving the Korean Wave phenomenon, ‘Summer Scent’ is a classic genre drama to watch, (re)watch and be loved.
8/10
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O Perfume de Um Amor Imortal
"Summer Scent" é a terceira parte da famosa série "Four Seasons", e gira em torno do conceito de um amor renascido. Yoo Min-woo, ainda devastado pela morte de sua amada, encontra Shim Hye-won, uma mulher que recebeu o coração da falecida em um transplante. Sem saber dessa conexão, Min-woo e Hye-won sentem uma atração inexplicável e irresistível, como se seus corações estivessem destinados a se encontrar novamente.Este dorama é uma bela e poética exploração do amor, onde a natureza e as estações desempenham um papel simbólico na jornada emocional dos personagens. Com sua cinematografia deslumbrante, cenas de paisagens naturais exuberantes e uma trilha sonora envolvente, "Summer Scent" captura a sensação de um amor predestinado, entrelaçado com o mistério da memória e da perda. É um drama suave e comovente, ideal para aqueles que acreditam na força do destino e no renascimento do amor.
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