I’ll confess to being completely uninterested in the upcoming tvN drama Witch’s Romance, the remake of the popular TW-drama My Queen starring Ethan Ruan, Cheryl Yang, and James Wen. My Queen is one of those rare TW-dramas that was truly qualitatively excellent, though the usual extension to milk the stellar ratings ruined the second half momentum. But the acting and chemistry of the three leads were burning and the romance made sense any way you sliced it. Korea has done so many noona-dongsaeng romances I really don’t see the need to remake a TW-drama one, especially since there are tweaks to it that I really don’t like. The original was about a 33 year old workaholic emotionally closed off career woman and her unexpected romance with a 25 year old young man with uninspiring career aspirations. The remake goes overboard with the age different and throws in Uhm Jung Hwa playing a 39 year old old while Park Seo Joon remains 25 years old, making the age difference now 14 years rather than just 8 which was already quite big. Han Jae Suk takes on the role of the ex-fiancee to the leading lady, a role that made James Wen famous in his own right and chucked him over to leading man status after doing My Queen. The poster and first teaser is out and I can’t say I’m impressed other than hearing that Witch’s Romance will be directed by the PD who did Cruel City (Heartless City). The story is about a woman dumped on her wedding day by a no-show groom which closes her heart off to romance but years later it’s reawakened by a young man seemingly adrift in life but nursing his own emotional scars. I don’t have a problem with the cast, or the age difference, or even the umpteenth noona-dongsaeng romance in recent memory, but I just don’t see how this cast could out-do the near perfect original which was marred only by a writing blip. I’ll check out the first episode but worry I’ll end up sporting my “Not impressed” face by the end.
Teasers for Witch’s Romance:
[youtube id=”-Cg6-jpXbh0″ w=”625″ h=”445″]
[youtube id=”CG0DPhnUB6A” w=”625″ h=”445″]
just the mention of”Heartless City” is enough for me to check it out.
I’m waiting for this!
As soon as I heard about it,I was screaming noooo.
Because I really have a feeling that Korean ver can never outdo the main version but will ruin things instead and there really was not a need of a remake of the very original awesome drama anyway.
The original Tw version was really very good.One of my most fav tw drama is My Queen,the actors were awesome in their roles.
Don’t tell me the next remake would be of Autumn’s Concerto?
There have been rumours that apparently MBC want to remake Fated to Love You. Maybe Korea now has a thing for Ethan Ruan dramas?? But yes, I also wouldn’t be surprised at an Autumn’s Concerto remake somewhere down the line if Taiwanese shows are the thing to remake now.
I am usually OK with re-dos.
Heck! Almost every romcom since forever is based on Pride and Prejudice or Romeo and Juliet.
But why even mention a connection to My Queen if you change everything up including the ages? It simply becomes yet another noona-dongsang story.
I do like the PD, though, you may remember the fight scenes, the incredible tension, the BEST MAKE OUT, ETC scene ever. I think I will go rewatch that now…
Well I’m an Uhm Jung Hwa fan so I was watching for her but the Heartless City PD would have had me tuning in no matter what
What is it with K-drama obsession with noona romance? I swear every other new drama announcement in the last year seemed to be for a new noona romance.
Probably because the viewing audience is made up of middle aged women and the noons romance is their perfect fantasy.
Sorry, typo – “noona”
Park Seo Joon makes this a yes for me!!! He was wonderful in Words from a Warm Heart! Gorgeous and a fantastic actor!! Yay for us!!
I like both Uhm Jung Hwa and Park Seo Joon, but together, this pairing just doesn’t speak to me. It doesn’t have to do with the age differences or anything, I just don’t like them together, so I will not tune it.
And also I like My Queen too much, so I don’t think Korea should have re-made a drama that was already perfect.
On the other hand, I will tune to JTBC’s Secret Love Affair. Wonder which one will be more popular, since they are both noona-doonsaeng romance stories with huge age differences.
I’d love for a Kdrama remake of Frog Prince. All they need to find are two compatible actors with combustible chemistry (as was the case with MingEn and Roy-Tang Yan) and follow the original plot lines with some korean flavor added to it and they’re all set.
Prince Turns to Frog is often compared to the 2004 K-drama Save the Last Dance for Me for its similar storyline. The former is considered to be a comedic remake of the latter, it appears.
My Queen is one of my all time favorites! I even liked it more than FTLY and Autumn’s Concerto (wayy too melodramatic). Personally, I don’t think any other TW drama comes close to how much I enjoyed MQ. Ethan and Cheryl just had sizzling chemistry. Am I the only one that didn’t think the extension hurt the series? I actually liked how the series didn’t end with the leads got together but explored some of the troubles they faced.
My Queen was one of the best TW idol drama in recent years! I hope the k version lives up to it at least..
I agree. My Queen was the only Taiwanese drama till date that I love to bits! I still remembered I would run to an internet cafe while I was holidaying in NZ just so I could catch the episodes! Ethan, Cheryl and James were just fantastic in this show. I tried watching the others of their later dramas but all fell so far behind in terms on quality and chemistry. Quite disappointing. Im looking forward to this drama and hope it manage to bring back the magic of this drama. Man, this really bring back so much memories cos I was shipping 学长 ( james) so hard and my bestfriend was on the 草梅 ( ethan) ship. 🙂
I’m with you on this one. My Queen is probably on my top 10 fave dramas of all, maybe even top 5 bec of the 2 leads’ characters. They were both characters I liked, matched each other and complemented each others’ strengths. Ethan and Cheryl were awesome together and I cried quite a bit when he thought she died.
The only regret was that they didn’t show them marrying at the end. They could at least have shown one short scene just to make the fans happy LOL!
I really doubt this new version can match it and I wonder how many changes they’re going to make aside from changing her age. I’ll stay away from this one and just read your take on it 🙂