Spring Waltz (2006) - An Old Kdrama Review

-May contain major spoilers- 

Photo source: KBS

Spring Waltz (봄의 왈츠) is a 20-episode romantic melodrama that aired on KBS in 2006 starring Seo Do-Young and Han Hyo-Joo as the main leads and Daniel Henney and Lee So-Yeon as the second leads.

Summary Ep. 1-5ish

Park Eun-Young (Han Hyo-Joo) is a young woman who is traveling to Austria to visit a Crystal Museum (I suppose this one) after winning an art competition. On the plane, Eun-Young meets a very nervous woman who tells her that she is on her way to meet her childhood friend whom she made a marriage promise but has not seen in 15 years and has lost contact with him.

After landing a man confuses her for the nervous lady and tries to carry her bag and due to the language barrier she thinks he is trying to kidnap her. That man is Phillip (Daniel Henney), who is there to pick up Eun-Young's seatmate, Song Lee-Na (Lee So-Yeon) so she can meet her childhood friend, the pianist Yoon Jae-Ha (Seo Do-Young), whose English name is Chris Y.

Lee-Na lies to Jae-Ha and tells him that she is there to interview him and starts to become agitated when Jae-Ha doesn't answer personal questions. Jae-Ha doesn't remember Lee-Na at all, but he remembers his own childhood friend, Seo Eun-Young, although he says he has no one like that.

While driving Jae-Ha and Lee-Na, Phillip (who is Jae-Ha's manager and only friend) spots Eun-Young trying to cross a street, so he stops the car and makes Jae-Ha drive. Phillip offers to be Eun-Young's guide and at the end of the day when she tells him that the next day she is going to Salzburg he gifts her two tickets to a concert in that city. 

When Eun-Young is traveling by train to Salzburg, she meets Jae-Ha, who ignores her attempts to strike up a conversation until her bag drips a red sauce on Jae-Ha, so she lends him a red sweater with a smiling bear and he says it's too childish but ends up wearing it anyway (how cute). She thinks he is a street musician and gives him one of the tickets to the concert in replacement of the laundry fee and asks his name, he says his name is Chris (like it says on the ticket) and she introduces herself as Alice, Alice in Wonderland. When Jae-Ha sees Eun-Young drawing a smiley face on the window he remembers Seo Eun-Young again and this time gets happy. 

To her anger, Jae-Ha leaves Eun-Young alone at the train station after she offers to go together to the concert, but not without turning around before leaving and smiling at Eun-Young without her seeing it. Jae-Ha seems excited to have met "Alice" and when he is rehearsing he looks for where "Alice" is going to sit.

At the concert, Jae-Ha plays the song "Clementine" dedicated to his childhood friend and that makes Eun-Young remember her own childhood friend in a flashback that is 2 and a half episodes long.

Photo source: KBS

Childhood friends...

A young (Seo) Eun-Young meets a boy named Lee Soo-Ho after his crook dad, Lee Jong-Tae (Lee Han-Wi), moves back to Cheongsan Island, where he grew up.

Jong-Tae abandons Soo-Ho at the island leaving him at the care of Eun-Young's mom, Jo Hye-Sun (Yoon Yoo-Sun). Eun-Young has a heart problem that needs expensive surgery, so her mom is saving up to pay for it.

Lee Jong-Tae comes back and makes Soo-Ho believe that he is never abandoning him again and they start to make Soo-Ho's grandfather's house liveable, but one day when the kids are at school and Hye-Sun is at work, he ransacks Eun-Young's house, steals the money for the surgery, and flees to Seoul.

Hye-Su goes to Seoul looking for Jong-Tae and dies in an accident and the children, without knowing anything, travel secretly to Seoul. 

Eun-Young gets hospitalized after fainting and needs her surgery urgently, but Soo-Ho -obviously- is just a kid and can't afford it.

While eavesdropping, he learns at the hospital from Hye-Su's friend and neighbor Kim Bong-Hae (Kim Mi-Kyung), about Hye-Su's death. Bong-Hae catches Soo-Ho, who runs away and enters a room at the hospital where a woman confuses him with her son Jae-Ha.

Needing to pay for the surgery, Soo-Ho decides to steal a woman's purse and gets caught. While the security guard that detained Soo-Ho is talking to the police he gets stopped by a man who says that he is Soo-Ho's father and invites him to eat, that man is Yoon Myung-Hoon (Jung Dong-Hwan) who says that Soo-Ho looks exactly like his dead son Jae-Ha he invites Soo-Ho to move with them to Canada and guilty trips him by saying that his wife Hyun Ji-Sook (Geum Bo-Ra) is mentally unstable and will die if he doesn't because she already tried to take her own life. Soo-Ho leaves the table but Myung-Hoon follows him and gives him some money so he can eat. Soo-Ho asks him if he has a lot of money and they make a deal Myung-Hoon pays for Eun-Young's surgery and Soo-Ho moves with them (for a short period) to Canada. 

Soo-Ho promises Eun-Young to be there for her before the surgery but he has to leave early with his "parents". Before the surgery, Eun-Young learns that her mother died and her friend is nowhere to be found, so she refuses to do the surgery but ends up going anyway. Soo-Ho runs away and goes back to the hospital, but Eun-Young was already at the operation table so he leaves for Canada.

In Canada Soo-Ho asks to go see his friend and his "parents" tell him that she died at the operation table.

Photo source: KBS

After the trip down memory lane...

When Jae-Ha stops playing Eun-Young snaps out of her memories and is ready to leave but Phillip invites her to an elegant after-party. At the party, Phillip introduces Eun-Young in English as his new girlfriend and that seems to make Jae-Ha jealous, who becomes cold and rude towards poor Eun-Young. When Eun-Young tries to leave the party, Jae-Ha stops her by throwing the red sweater she gave him and when she tries to give the sweater back, she says it's bad luck (and that becomes Jae-Ha's nickname) and he tells her that if it is bad luck she has to throw it, so he throws it down the stairwell. 

Outside the party, Eun-Young meets with Phillip and twists her ankle, so Phillip carries her to his car and takes her to the inn where he is staying with Jae-Ha. Eun-Young sleeps in her own room and Jae-Ha and Phillip share the other room.

In the morning, Eun-Young leaves the inn and leaves Phillip a note saying she is going to the Crystal Museum and a handmade gift (a decorated seashell). Phillip shows Jae-Ha and Lee-Na the seashell and when Jae-Ha sees the seashell, he remembers the one Eun-Young gave him when they were young when Phillip explains that it's a gift from her and that prompts Lee-Na to ask what is her name, Phillip says her name is Eun-Young and when Jae-Ha hears that, he rides the car and goes to the Crystal Museum alone looking for Eun-Young.

Jae-Ha arrives at the museum late and he can't find Eun-Young anywhere, so he goes to South Korea with Phillip to work with Lee-Na on a Korean CD.

In Korea, Jae-Ha goes to the hospital to ask for information on Eun-Young, but the man working at the reception can't confirm if she is dead or alive.

Jae-Ha looks everywhere for Eun-Young and so does Phillip and they all meet again...

Thoughts

Spring Waltz is a very romantic drama that relies on the typical childhood friend/lost love trope and even if that trope is very cliche, in this case, it works well with the plot. What is truly outstanding in this drama is the cinematography. I think that the location manager of this drama is a genius, every place that appears in this drama has a lot of charm

I decide to watch this drama after seeing Han Hyo-Joo in Moving (Review). Spring Waltz is Hyo-Joo's first lead role and there is a great contrast between the characters she plays. Hyo-Joo does a great job for being a rookie portraying Eun-Young, who is a little bit ditzy but after all her misfortunes stays positive.

This is also Seo Do-Young's first leading role who does great showing both the cold and later on the lovable sides of Jae-Ha. The scene where Jae-Ha learns the truth about Eun-Young but can't tell her made me feel so sad for him. 

The leads may have some silly moments, but they are easily forgivable.

The second leads, on the other hand, are somehow annoying with Lee-Na being low-key, the biggest "villain" in this drama that can't take a no for an answer. Phillip also can't seem to understand that Eun-Young doesn't like him romantically and if Daniel Hanney wasn't so handsome, Phillip would have been considered a creep.

The child actors were really good with Soo-Ho playing convincingly a boy with a rough childhood and considering this is young Eun-Young's only drama she did great.

The soundtrack is great with Teardrop Waltz and One Love - Loveholic being standouts and I also love that the CD is the same one that appears in the drama (as seen here).

Beware if you don't like to see people getting hit in a romantic drama because Jae-Ha gets slapped twice and punched one time. 

I 100% recommend this drama if you like to watch stunning landscapes and like classical music.

Rating

Acting - 8/10

Plot - 8/10

Romance - 9/10

OST - 10/10

Cinematography - 10/10

Overall Rating - 9/10

Extended Drama Info.

Quantity of Episodes: 20.

Run Time: 70min/each.

Release Date: March 6, 2006.

Network: KBS.

Directed by: Yoon Seok-Ho.

Written by: Kim Ji-Yeon, Hwang Da-Eun, Gu Ji-Won, Ha Mi-Seon.

Starring: Seo Do-Young, Han Hyo-Joo, Daniel Henney and Lee So-Yeon.

By the way, when I was writing this review I found that they cut scenes out of the ending. You can see them here, they are really lovely, but I guess they were cut due to time constraints.