Shadow of first love ‘Winter Love Song’ syndrome

조회 수 17014 2002.02.14 16:55:10
ChanHee
[Appeals to 20~30-something female audiences…Even lead actors’ fashion now a huge trend]

Melancholic first love’s shadow is stretched, shading KBS2 Mon/Tues Mini-Series ‘Winter Love Song’ (Director Yun SukHo).  Previously, TV dramas lacked the ability to arouse audience’s sentimentality.  The explosive reaction towards ‘Winter Love Song’ is proof enough that the demand was and is strong.

According to TV ratings research institute TNSmedia, after the first episode broadcasted on January 14th, the ratings for first week 14.4%, second week 16.2%, third 21.1%, fourth week 24.0%, drawing a steep incline on graph.

Because of ‘Winter Love Song’, the 38% rated ‘Yuh_In_Chun_Ha’ dropped to 27.3%.  However, before Chinese New Year, on fourth this month, ‘Winter Love Song’ rated 27.2% (AC Nilsson standard), while ‘Yuh_In_Chun_Ha’ rated 24.3%.

Unable to forget her first love JunSang even after 10 years, YuJin(Choi JiWoo) meets MinHyung(Bae YongJun) who looks identical to JunsSang, right before the engagement ceremony with SangHyuk(Park YongHa).  Even after getting engaged with SangHyuk who always stood by her like a good friend, YuJin slowly falls for MinHyung.  Having triggered the emotion of ‘Ga_Ul_Dong_Hwa’(Fall Fairy Tale) fans, director Yun SukHo didn’t let us down.  He softly touches upon people’s memory of their first love, creating 20 ~ 30 year old female fan bases.

With male(7.6%) female(17.4%), ‘Winter Love Song’ has extended the viewer range of trendy style dramas from age 10~20’s to 30~40’s.  For female viewers, most were in their 30’s, (February 4~5th average) making up 23.5%, 20’s (20.1%), 10’s (18.8%), and 40’s (14.0%).

Unlike the usual trendy dramas that portrays super modern styling and relationship, ‘Winter Love Song’ uses the classic melodramatic theme, such as first love, as its core, which is the reason why it reached the hearts of so many thirty-something’s.

The unfolding love story and the characters in the drama all seem far from reality, but somehow it forces us to want to see how such a love could end.

Until now, both Bae YongJun and Choi JiWoo were mostly regarded for their ability to raise the ratings.  This time, Director Yun’s innocently beautiful cinematography is helping the actors.  Trying not to dominate the cinematography, the actors learned to act with subtlety, with a more controlled emotional expression, rather than the usual dominant performances which overpowered the scene.  In a way, the actors are helping balance the character roles and the aesthetic beauty the camera captures.

Compared with the stiff characters Bae YongJun portrayed in ‘First Love’ and ‘Hotelier’, the new looser and free character is refreshing.  As in ‘Mr. Duke’ and ‘Beautiful Days’, Choi JiWoo helps the opposite star shine more.

’Winter Love Song’ popularity can be better experienced at its homepage.  Daily hit rate has surpassed 10,000,000, and over 20 million messages are posted each day.  Posts consist of request to make the story a happy ending, and summaries of what could happen in later episodes are also posted.

It even got to a point where a screenplay of episode 10 was posted on the message board before it was broadcasted.  Bae YongJun and Choi JiWoo’s hairstyle and muffler wearing technique is already a trend.
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