Dream High

Another good drama series has come and gone. Saaaa---~d. But I have to say this: I <3 Dream High! A collaboration between Bae Yong Joon (Winter Sonata) and Park Jin Young a.ka. JYP actually works. The drama centers around six students of Kirin Arts High School and their journey towards achieving their dreams in music. Bae Yong Joon makes a short appearance in the first two episodes as the Chairman of the Kirin Arts HS while JYP almost pretty much stole the show in his every scene. His character cracked me up.



Five real-life idols namely 2PM's Taecyeon (Cinderella's Sister) and Wooyoung, Miss A's Suzy, T-ARA's Eun Jung (Coffee House), IU, and one awesome actor that is Kim Soo Hyun (Will It snow For Christmas?, Giant) were casted as the main characters. Uhm Ki Joon (Worlds Within) and Lee Yoon Ji (Goong) were both teachers at Kirin Arts High School and has a funny romantic storyline.

The drama started off in the future, 2018, where a Grammy Award winner Korean Singer, K, is preparing to take the stage. The identity of K was not immediately known to viewers, though it was shown that K was holding a picture that showed six friends in high school uniforms, which were our main characters, so K could be anyone of them. The K-pendant itself was a main object in the drama, where it was given by the Kirin Arts HS Chairman to one of the students during an open audition as a good luck charm, and throughout the series we saw it being passed from one character to another, so viewers were kept on guessing as who's the ultimate owner that was the singer K at the beginning of the story. 

 

Each of our main characters were faced with their own personal issues and we saw them overcame their problems and grew as a person and as a musician through the experience. And their relationships with each other were portrayed nicely, from friends to enemies to friends again, from secret admirers to true love, from mere schoolmates to buddies/frenemies. They might not all be together in the end, but the friendship remained and, in their own ways, they reached for their dreams and life went on. 

I was expecting a silly and fun drama (even though it actually turned out to be quite heartwarming and of substance, which what made it such a good drama overall) thus didn't care much the fact that most main characters are played by idols instead of some serious actors, and true enough, while they are not phenomenal, they make it work. However, I'm grateful they casted Kim Soo Hyun to play the character Song Sam Dong, as I thought his character was the one that required real acting talent, and Kim Soo Hyun didn't disappoint. Suzy as abrasive and expressionless Go Hye Mi was also pretty effective. Taecyeon and Eun Jung who had previous acting experience in full drama series weren't so bad themselves. IU and Wooyoung, while their acting was so-so, it didn't really matter. Besides, they were just too cute together.  

 
What matters most is that I got the ending I want for my favorite characters, which are Sam Dong and Hye Mi. Peace!

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There are two kinds of happiness in the world. One is a happiness that you realize after the fact. The other is a happiness that you feel in the moment. The happiness in the moment is so rare that they say you can live your whole life on the light that shines from remembering it. I think we’ll go on remembering this moment, today, like that kind of happiness…that we can remember for the rest of our lives, the moment when we shined. (Dream High - credit translation to girlfriday @ Dramabeans)