^Anonymous, I totally agree with your assessment of Sang Woo. To me, he has a bit of a sleazy side, and is rather cowardly. Episodes three and four also highlight the fact that he's rather stuck-up and foolish. (Am I the only one who's sort of half-hoping for In Soon and the teacher to get together?)

And it doesn't help that I think that Kim Min Joon's acting is very awkward. He has a weird sort of rhythm in his delivery, and has this weird pattern of overacting, then underacting, and overacting again. Sorry to all the fans out there, but to me, he's just not selling the character of Sang Woo very well at all. Thank goodness the writer and director are pitching in wherever he needs help.

As for episode two...I rather liked it, although yes, it wasn't as good as episode one. I think it was because it isn't focusing purely on In Soon anymore, and is delving more into the other characters. It was really the final scene in episode two that made me cry and touched me the most, with In Soon's reflection on wanting someone to call her name. Maybe I liked episode two merely because of that one scene...I don't know.

For me, it was episodes three and four that were rather more lackluster than episode two...although they do introduce some interesting developments in the older characters. Maybe episode five will get things really rolling...I guess we'll see.

I don't really understand all the fuss around Yoo Seung Ho... Honestly he's good but I was not really drawn to his performance...

I prefered the acting of Baek Sung Hyun as Young Jang Bo Go in Emperor of the Sea. It was the only time I really apreciated looking at the childhood of the main characters in a drama. He was awesome, for a 15 years old boy at the time, he certainly had one hell of a charisma.

Coming back to your comment that's also something that's been bothering me. I already can't bear singers and actresses wearing overly revealing clothes and exposing themselves almost naked, I feel sick seeing they put so much make-up on these girls and make them act like they're not their age.
Talent is good yes but living your childhood to the fullest is also important.

When I was 12/13 years old, girls putting make up like that where seen, excuse me for the word, as "slut". Now it's like it's become the norm and young girls acting simply their age and not disguising themselves as adult are laughed at by the others. And who can blame them? With this kind of images on TV, there's no way young girls who are at an influential age can't be badly influence.

I'm also in awe when I see young children's excellent acting ( I've taken a linking to Shim Eun Kyung, seen her in several dramas she's just too cute. Must be the dimples, I'm week against them) but they should not rush in turning them into adults. There's a limit.

Worst case must be Park Shin Hye. They do so much stuff to make her look older and act old character, please give her a role her age or around it. Can't believe she's 4 years younger than me, feels like the opposite.

Dunno If somebody has already pointed this out, but I just noticed that the song "Cleaning" by Kirots in the first pack is actually the korean version of the opening song of the anime Mahou Sensei Negima: "Happy Material" .

Personnally I have a preference to the japanese ver, much more "punchy", it has also been declined in several versions. For the curious you can always download it on irc://irc.rizon.net/nipponsei or by Bittorrent on their tracker here :http://nipponsei.minglong.org/index.php?section=Tracker&search=Mahou+sensei+Happy+material
[easier on the archive bot on IRC as the files are old]

It's a bit late but I downloaded all the Coffee Prince packs without listening to them...
Hope this post doesn't get unnoticed

can't believe the girls in the girl groups are my age! i know girls generally mature faster but still... i agree with u javabeans

I think this "acty" thing is a valid enough perception, but it's leading to some short-circuited judgments. I mean, come on: lead players, PD and scriptwriter are some of the most experienced pros in the KDrama business. Do you really think they've suddenly lost the knack and turned "soapy"? And do you think Kim Hyun Joo could give a performance like that if she was interacting with colleagues who were working at a lower level than she is? Especially if their timing really was that bad: it would throw hers off as well.

Coming at this from another angle: Everybody in this drama so far, with the exception of little Eun Seok (and maybe also of Insoon's friend from inside), has something to hide (and that includes Teacher Seo, Good Guy though he doubtless is). And most of them, apart from Insoon, are really intent on hiding it. Which means they are putting on an act.

This is especially true of Insoon's Mom. Her career is over the hill and she knows it, the brilliant marriage to the celebrated medic she was enabled to pull off by allowing the child of her first marriage to "disappear" from her life has recently ended, after maybe 20 years, in a divorce that left her with a good financial settlement, but which has blared out to the gossip-loving world the fact that hubby left her for a much younger woman. So in front of the TV cameras, her own younger daughter, the PD she tries so transparently to butter up at the audition, Insoon's aunt and, except for a few moments in the night outside the hospital and away from any sort of public gaze, Insoon herself, she acts like crazy. And not at all well. That is, the character of Insoon's Mom doesn't act well. The actress playing her acts very well indeed. To play someone who is unsuccessfully acting takes a whole lot of acting skill. Just like professional musicians have to sweat if for some reason or another they are required to play or sing out of tune.

And Sang Woo. I fear, ladies, that you are perhaps being over-influenced by Kim Min Joon's looks into falling over backwards to be kind about Sang Woo as a character. He was a wimp as a boy, now he's a toad as an "adult". No wonder his Mom wonders when he's going to get a girlfriend. OK let's forget for a moment the cowardly and hypocritical way he backs off when he finds out about Insoon's record (made all the more disturbing by the way that Insoon is reassured, indeed encouraged by his oily platitudes, taking his sudden outpouring of patronising socially enlightened OK sentiments to be genuine and a proof that he's changed since he was a boy (!!) when in fact all the things he says to "reassure" her that he's not fazed by her past are just blather while he's thinking how he can get away fast enough).

Let's forget all that and just consider the cheescake. Yes that hunk of cheesecake which triggers Insoon's admission of her record and how she got it.

Sang Woo, still palpably reeling from the first revelation that Insoon isn't really a teacher, brings the cheesecake over and offers her a mouthful with his man-about-town swagger of someone who knows all the best things and places to eat in the Big City. He's clearly expecting her to say "Wow, Sang-Woo, now you really are My Hero! Not only do you find it in that Great Heart of yours to look with fondness on a degenerate like me, but you have introduced me to the most heavenly-tasting cheesecake on the planet. How can I ever thank you enough?" Instead, Insoon being Insoon, and knowing her bakery goods, says it's old.

Watch his reaction, and especially the direction of his eyes, at that moment. It's as if a guest he'd taken to a posh reception had suddenly come out with a four-letter word at the top of her voice. He ducks slightly, then darts a glance towards the serving counter from where he's just fetched the offending item, then takes a quick sweep around the room to see if any of the other diners, including the younger colleague who so ill-advisedly has him in her sights, have overheard this massive faux pas. And does he then try a forkful himself, to see if Insoon's right? No, of course not, he launches into a sotto voce lecture about how uniquely magnificent the cheescake is, made by a specially imported master patissier etc etc. And all the time he's thinking "Hell, I'm out with a bumpkin who not only didn't go to College but who doesn't even know what good cheescake is like, I really hope no-one heard, because then I'll never dare to show my face here again." So it's no surprise that the bit of extra background which she now supplies about where she got her cheescake appraisal skills has him gasping for air.

The actor may have good looks, but the character he's playing (superbly, in my assessment) is bad news. He isn't the long-lost childhood sweetheart entering the downcast heroine's life to raise her up from despondency. He's playing that role in his own imagination, though he's fluffed his lines on finding that maybe the raising up bit might mean him getting his lily-white little hands dirty. Again, this is well-acted acting of someone putting on an act. (I think that's what I mean. I should have resisted hitting the pre-Sunday supper gin and tonic before finishing this. Ah well, too late now...)

And of course, they weren't childhood sweethearts. Look past the soft focus in the flashbacks, and look at the body language, and, above all again, the looks in the eyes of the two of them. Plainly the other kids gave little Insoon a hard time, so maybe she hung out with him mainly because he didn't. But in her voiceover after they've left the eatery, she overestimates him now (that naivety of hers: she's a better judge of cakes than people) and reflects on how he's been transformed from the feeble boy she once knew -- and, we might add, she almost completely forgot. Because on the platform, though he recognises her beyond any doubt, she can't for a moment either recognise his face or attach a memory to his name. Even more tellingly (from the point of view of the role he's never played in her emotional past): even though she's been duly impressed by his business card the previous day and knows he's a broadcast journalist, it isn't till she recognises his junior colleague at the nearby table as someone she's seen on TV that she suddenly thinks she's maybe seen him there too. Not, for once, memory loss, but memory absence, thanks to the absence of anything (for her) truly memorable.

Oh dear. I think I'm about to crash the live preview feature. You've all been saved from even more, not by the bell, but by a limited text buffer size.

@Suzziee: awesome! i'd appreciate it if u and javabeans could post the translated lyrics :) thanx!

do u know where i can find ost of this film, thanks so much

i started using this series as "filler" for "the funky four" (evasive intelligence agency) - something to watch while waiting for new eppies of the funksters -
i think it might have some hidden depths - so i'll keep watching - though the biggest bug i have is with Kim Min Joon's hair - which means (to me) that i am seeing the actor with bad hair not the character - which further means (to me) that i don't believe him as sangwoo- that .... (dot , dot, dot...) as has been previously mentioned - i see him acting - not as sangwoo.
(i laughed javabeans, when you commented that ep.2 was a "hair too act-y"
and i thought - yes, she's right, literally!!)
and the mother - i can't get her role as psychotic mother-in-law in Queen of the Game out of my head - which means i see the actress acting - not her character...
but in soon - i find that she is worth the effort - and i will stick with it.
the flashbacks of them as adolescents are fabulous - those two kids - and the teacher's son - are worth watching - after the magic show when the teacher's son is taking a call from his dad, and
walks away from In soon and said "this is a conversation between men.."
hahahaha - i fell out of my chair - too cute!

Thanks finally found "Across the Ocean"
Good Job!