Hana Yori Dango Version 3.0

While reading the excellent Dramabeans blog, I was delighted to see that there's going to be a K-drama adaptation of the cheese-tastic shojo manga Hana Yori Dango. I enjoyed the recent Japanese version*, and I tried to watch the Taiwanese version, but I prefer Korean dramas. (Japanese dramas are too short, and Taiwanese ones are too long. K-dramas are just right.)


Hana Yori Dango, for the six or so manga fans out there who've never heard of it, is the story of Makino Tsukushi, a poor, hardworking girl who gets into an ultra-elite school on scholarship. She does her best to lay low, but when she angers an insanely wealthy, powerful classmate, she becomes the target of a school-wide attack. It doesn't take too long for her chief tormentor to forgive her (and--shocker!--fall in love with her), but poor Makino still spends the next zillion volumes surviving physical attacks, thwarted admirers, and evil plots to steal her boyfriend/social position/maidenly virtue. The series is the soapiest story on God's green earth, and I'm totally excited to see what Korean TV will do with it.

*Well, I enjoyed the first season. I tried watching the second, but I was really turned off by the scene where the heroine is threatened by a group of black guys in NYC.