Lee Min Ho’s star rating has skyrocketed, thanks to the successful Boys Over Flowers. Personal Taste or Personal Preference (which ever you prefer) is his follow-up drama series where he plays Jeon Jin Ho, an architect who pretended to be gay in order to move in with a female roommate, Park Gae In (Son Ye Jin).
I don’t know why Koreans are interested with homosexuality with all the dramas about implied gayness and cross dressing. Jin Ho is straight but the way he interacted with his colleague Sang Joon (Jeong Seong Hwa) would make you think otherwise. Even Gae In was convinced that they were a gay couple.
Personal Taste brings nothing new to the table. We’ve all seen it before. Guy meets girl with an agenda but this changes when he falls in love with her. In a way it reminded me about The Ugly Truth. Min Ho’s character advises Ye Jin on how to handle her ex-boyfriend (Kim Ji-seok) but in the end he falls for her. Will she fall for him too or will she despise him if she knew the truth? Actually the answer to both is yes.
Somewhere in the middle the humor of Personal Taste was lost and the drama became too heavy for me to bear. It became interesting when Yoon Eun Hye made a cameo an episode as Min Ho’s former girlfriend. Too bad her role was just for that one episode.
One thing I love about Personal Taste is the house, Sanggojae. I love its design and simplicity and yet complicated enough to incorporate a hidden basement. This is a type of house I used to imagine growing up. It’s a plus that a girl like Ye Jin lives in it.
Personal Taste is a generic Korean romance drama series with good enough performance from the leads and the supporting casts. I just hope that it was lighter with more funny scenes, just like in the last episode. It was as if the writers found their lost funny bones. I was never a fan of Lee Min Ho and this doesn’t change it. Ye Jin is a good eye-candy for me but at some point the drama is just too heavy for me to handle. Good thing it had a happy ending.
