Official Synopsis:
This drama draws on Hisaya Nakajo‘s manga series “Hana Kimi“ that was published by Hakusensha from 1996 to 2004. The Korean interpretation centers on Goo Jae Hee (Sulli), a Korean girl who live in the States, but transfers to an all-boys school in Korea.
Jae Hee decides on the transfer after watching a track and field competition on TV, and becomes inspired by high-jump athlete, Kang Tae Joon (Minho). She begins to idolize the young athlete and eventually transfers to Korea to go to the same school after he experiences an injury that may potentially end his athletic career.
However, as Tae Joon attends an all-boys high school, Jae Hee must disguise herself as a boy to enter.
Ratings:
MBC‘s ‘Arang and the Magistrate‘ (starring Lee Jun Ki and Shin Min Ah) made another significant drop in ratings, from 13.1% to 11.7%, while KBS‘s ‘Nice Guy‘ (starring Song Joong Ki, Moon Chae Won, and Park Si Yeon) rose from 13.3% to 14.0%. SBS‘s ‘To the Beautiful You‘ (starring SHINee‘s Minho and f(x)‘s Sulli) dropped slightly from 4.26% to 4.4%, remaining in last place.
Recap of Ep. 13:
Episode 13 is a mess.
I’ll start with Han Na‘s role in this episode, because it’s very small – she informs the media that she intends to go back to gymnastics and (despite Director Jang‘s protests) goes on to say that she’s dumped Tae Joon because he was too boring. We see her look sadly at Jae Hee‘s note of encouragement and her own bad ankle. Later, Seung Ri approaches her on the patio and tells his own story- he was in a terrible car accident a few years ago, but was able to go back to sports. Before leaving, he promises to make her laugh at least once a day, and she says she’ll see him as a “cheap magazine” to entertain her.
Early in the episode, Tae Joon decides he’s going to explain that he knows everything and reveal his feelings to Jae Hee - Eun Gyeol interrupted his earlier attempt, but this time he thinks he can do it. A suspicious Dr. Jang sends a warning text to Jae Hee - only to find out a moment later that Tae Joon was the recipient. Dr. Jang meets with Tae Joon, convincing him to keep everything a secret so that Jae Hee won’t have to go back to the U.S. just yet. In the dorm, Tae Joon explains to Jae Hee that when he told her he wouldn’t let her leave his side, it was because he doesn’t want to look for a new roommate. He says he’s selfish and wants to keep her by his side, and she promises to stick to him “like gum”.
Tae Joon’s jumping better and better each day, while Hyeon Jae continues to get worse. We find out that not only is Hyeon Jae’s sponsorship riding on this upcoming competition, but his spot on the Olympic team is, too. Desperate, he tries to sabotage Tae Joon- first, he tries to drop a heavy flowerpot on his head (and almost succeeds), and then he damages the brake line on Tae Joon’s bike. Tae Joon doesn’t believe Jae Hee when she suggests that Hyeon Jae was behind the flower pot. She has a bad feeling about the bike as well, so she steals the bike out from Tae Joon and rides off with it.
Out of Tae Joon’s line of sight, the brake line snaps and she careens out of control (how that happened so quickly is a mystery, because she wasn’t going very fast to begin with.). Eun Gyeol sees her and manages to save her, injuring his ankle in the process (what is the deal with this show and ankles?). Dr. Jang says Eun Gyeol can’t play in the National Sports Festival. Jae Hee blames herself, but Eun Gyeol says she would have done the same for him and it’s not her fault. He also says it has nothing to do with his feelings for her, but no one asked, so it just makes things awkward. He says he heals fast and he’s sure he’ll be fine, but when she walks away we see him wince in pain.
At some point, Hyeon Jae’s little sister appears at the school, demanding that Eun Gyeol show her where Tae Joon is. She’s not allowed to be there, but Eun Gyeol doesn’t want her to get in trouble, so he and Jae Hee hide her until Hyeon Jae gets back. She says she misses him and wants to know where his best friend and roommate Tae Joon is – uh-oh. He squirms at the lies he’s fed her, but Eun Gyeol and Jae Hee cover for him, saying Tae Joon really is Hyeon Jae’s roommate and best friend, and that he would love to meet her but he’s super busy with training. Hyeon Jae takes his sister home, where we find out that their family doesn’t have a lot of money and their mom has to work a lot. His sister asks when he’ll win the medal like he promised so that their mom won’t have to work and they can all live together – he pinky promises it will be soon.
Jae Hee shows up while Tae Joon is practicing alone in the gym. She compliments his hard work. He asks if Hyeon Jae damaged the bike, and she won’t answer. He points out that she rode the bike even though she knew it was tampered with – she gets embarrassed and walks past him. He hugs her from behind, thanking her for saving him and saying that he just keeps getting more and more indebted to her. She stiffens and tries to say it’s not that big of a deal, but he just says that she shouldn’t put herself in harm’s way for him again, because he’d be more upset if she got hurt than if he did. He lets her go and jokes that she’s awfully uncomfortable with hugging for an American. When he leaves the gym, Hyeon Jae catches him outside, admits to what he did, and tries to apologize. He says he doesn’t want to quit track, but he will if Tae Joon asks him to. Tae Joon acts like nothing happened and just scolds Hyeon Jae for skipping practice, using the same words Hyeon Jae used when he used to berate Tae Joon for not working hard enough, but turning it around as an encouragement instead.
Back at his dorm, Tae Joon gets a call from his dad, which he ignores. Jae Hee encourages him to mend his relationship with his father, which is when he finds out that she met with Mr. Kang earlier in the episode. Not wanting to discuss his father, Tae Joon leaves the dorm to go sit with Sangchu (the school dog), where he admits that he knows this isn’t Jae Hee’s fault. He flashes back to all the times his mom showed signs of being seriously ill, and his dad seemingly ignoring her and not getting her the treatment she needs. He remembers the funeral, and he remembers blaming his dad afterwards.
As he walks home, he runs into Jae Hee. She hands him his phone, saying that he needs to leave right now – his father collapsed.
contagion’s Thoughts:
[ Note : This post reflects the opinions of the author, not necessarily those of allkpop ]
In fiction, there’s this term- “suspension of disbelief”, which refers to how much non-believable stuff the audience will put up with for the sake of the story. For example, in gender-swap dramas, we generally ignore the fact that the girls pretending to be boys never look very believably boyish. However, we’re willing to pretend we don’t notice (suspend our disbelief) for the sake of the story.
While there are certain times that a character withholding information makes at least some amount of sense and is semi-believable, this episode is not one of them. There was no good reason for Jae Hee to take that bike like she did. She saw exactly what Hyeonjae did to it- she could have just shown Tae Joon the damage. If Tae Joon had even one functioning brain cell, he wouldn’t have ridden a bike with a cut brake line. Then we’re to believe that she kept riding the damaged bike when she didn’t have to. She goes from riding slowly to speeding out of control way too quickly – when the brake line snapped, she should have been able to stop the bike with her feet with no trouble.
Then there’s Hyeon Jae. Let’s do a quick recap of all the joy he brought to this episode:
- He could have killed Tae Joon with the flower pot
- He could have seriously injured Tae Joon with the bike
- He indirectly injured Eun Gyeol with the bike
- This injury could get Eun Gyeol removed from the National Soccer Team
- He very nearly injured Jae Hee with the bike
Don’t forget, Jae Hee knows that Hyeon Jae leaked the photo and medical record to the press a while back, yet she doesn’t tell Tae Joon or Director Jang, even though Tae Joon’s safety is at risk. Nobody knows about Hyeon Jae’s home situation or his sponsorship (not that any of that is a good excuse for the stuff he’s pulled). Tae Joon knows that the upcoming competition is important to Olympic team selection, but that’s it. Why is everyone magically forgiving Hyeon Jae for no good reason? Then again, nobody called Jong Min for intentionally slamming into Jae Hee at that soccer match and screwing up her ankle, and I don’t think the guy who hurt her at the marathon got punished either, so maybe our secondary characters are just beyond reproach.
At this point, I’m really only watching because I’ve gotten too far not to finish the show, but I’ve lost hope that things will improve in the last few episodes, and I’m definitely losing interest in SM C&C as a production company. C’mon, drama, prove me wrong…
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