70 minSeason 1 • Episode 15
LatestA withheld truth about the severity of an injury keeps Lee Shin and Lee Gye-won apart, even a year later.
Lee Gyu Won is the daughter of one of the top three maestros of pansori and is also a gayageum protégé herself. Following her grandfather’s wishes for her to study the gayageum, she enrolls as a major of gugak, or traditional Korean music. Lee Shin is unfriendly, yet a clever student in the Applied Music Department who also is the famed vocalist and talented guitarist of the handsome band named The Stupid. With charming looks equal to those of a handsome character in a romance comic and a cold, taciturn personality, he thinks gugak is boring and belittles it. As the vocalist Lee Shin and Gayageum Protégé Lee Gyu Won passionately confront each other to champion their respective music, they soon fall in love.
Score
Gayageum meets indie rock — actually gorgeous musical fusion
Acting
Park Shin-hye's stubborn warmth vs. Jung Yong-hwa's smoldering indifference
Production
Authentic gugak performances that respect the tradition it depicts
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Jung Yong-hwa and Kang Min-hyuk were already bandmates in CNBLUE, making their on-screen chemistry suspiciously authentic.
The series sparked renewed interest in gugak among young Koreans; some university traditional music departments saw enrollment bumps after airing.
KR
