I first picked up Sweet 18 a long time ago through the recommendation of a friend. Sweet 18 is a Korean drama which aired from January 19, 2004 to March 9, 2004. It took me until 2009 to actually finish this drama. Nevertheless, it was a pretty good series, but there are a lot of parts that seem to drag on forever.

The story is actually pretty good – an eccentric high school girl named Yoon Jung-Sook (Han Ji Hye) has been engaged since birth to straight-laced Kwon Hyuk-Joon (Lee Dong Gun) in an arrangement by their grandfathers, who were friends. However, instead of fighting the engagement like Kwon Hyuk-Koon, Yoon Jung-Sook cannot wait to be married when she turns 18, though she thinks that her fiancee is boring and he thinks that she is too wild. In fact, Yoon Jung-Sook has a crush on a man wearing “traditional garb” whom she happened to see one day – unaware that the same man is her future husband. They get married anyway though, and the series revolves around their life together as newlyweds who really don’t care for each other.

Basically I watched this series for Lee Dong Gun, who was pretty funny throughout. Han Ji Hye also acted very well, especially seeing as though one of the selling points of her character is her many facial expressions. Lee Da Hae (who played the character Moon Ga-Young) did really well in her role of the hateful ex, because even I disliked her.

That being said, I think that the best actor in the entire series was probably Kwon Hyuk-Koon’s Grandfather, played by Lee Soon Jae. Especially when he was hanging out with the young people trying to be hip. However, outside of his awesomeness, the series is something that I would watch again and go through faster than the first time that I saw it. The main problem that I had with the series is this: I really don’t have patience for the whole overused storyline about a couple being tested by one person’s ex, more drama and so forth.