Age is not even the biggest problem. I just don't see the Makino aura in GHS. She's sweet and earnest, yes. Loyal, yes. Spunky, resillient and tomboyish? Stubborn and cute? Er....not really. Not in Strongest Chilwoo, at least. But hey, maybe she'll surprise us all with her Makino......(if this was Vegas though, I won't be putting my money on her. Lol)

I like the cast, it will be weird to see Lee Yeon hee as Makino... She seems to be gentle and not that kind of sassy type. Go ara has that sassy feel but her yellings are annoying....

aww! I'm not disappointed! she's the reason I watch dramas! she was in the first drama I ever watched ,"Pure 19", she was so cute...after that drama I became addicted.

@ JadeS

You have to realize that guys tend to mature a little bit later than girls, so a 22-23 year old guy typically has the mentality of a 17-18 year old so they are still age appropriate for their characters.

k ... very disappointed...

i wanted a more vocal and strong willed looking girl ... doesn't she look kind of sickly? well, no matter what ... she's the one ... **aza aza**

I'll give her my mighty powers to help her be stronger ...

man ... now, i CAN wait to see it ... before i couldn't wait ...

I love her but when I think about Makino, my mind doesn't conjure up her image. But who knows, maybe she'll manage to pull it off. Just have to watch to find out :D

After all the delays I'm just glad we're finally getting somewhere and hearing solid news. I don't think I've seen the actress in anything but disregarding the age (which hopefully means the drama will be set in college) she can apparently act.

errr...well I'm not too excited about the choice of Makino....i just hope she does well on the series and meet people's expectations; after all it`s a huge shoe to fill in, and comparisons are going to be thrown at her from every direction!

I am disappointed that they choose an older version of makino. The guys were great...but thsy should have chosen a younger korean MAKINo...at this rate i think they will not beat the JAPANESE HYD. It's going to be another taiwanese version. So disappointed.....well i'm not gonna be excited with it anymore..old MAKINO? i don't believe it.

she might be a little older than the supposed age but i guess she'll adjust to it well .. i am also thankful that makino wasn't lee yeon hee or go ara .. makino should not the prettiest girl in school .. but then again, hyd is just another youth drama that appeals mostly to the younger crowd ..

"You have to realize that guys tend to mature a little bit later than girls, so a 22-23 year old guy typically has the mentality of a 17-18 year old so they are still age appropriate for their characters."

It only seems odd when compared to the HanaDan J-drama. By the time a J-drama lead actress is about 21, she can do bride / young mother roles. Inoue Mao, who turned 21 this year, would have been deemed too old to originate the Makino role if the drama began in 2007.

Meteor Garden is not a comparable situation anymore. Barbie was eldest and 24 when she did Meteor Garden, but it was cast in college. And there aren't honorifics to make the audience conscious of age. Doumyoji loves Noona?! I love it! :D

The inherent problem with casting Go Hye Sun isn't her age per se, but (outside of MV work?) that she's never played or been associated with high school characters. Most of the teen audience have never related to her as such, and the teen audience is the main one for this show. Honestly, if they were working with this kind of net, why not Shin Min Ah or Han Ji Hye. Ji Hye's Makino would be fierce like Tyra!! ;)

However, I kinda like this casting. Hye Sun's regular girl (and smart) persona is probably closer to the manga Makino than the other actresses. She hasn't done comedy in years, and she can relive her days as ullzang and "selca" through half of the comedy bits. Above all, due to her director experience as well as having done more serious work, she can provide a leadership role and help direct the younger actors in her scenes with them, which should be almost every scene. The most important aspect of the Makino job is to sell Douymouji to the audience, and then the F4 as a whole.

i am actually not disappointed, like you said, just surprised. go ara is just too petite and delicate to play makino, good thing they didnt pick her, but she fits makino's image!! seriously, and many actors play characters much younger than them.. but i guess we just have to see how she can pull it off.

Javabeans.. I totally agree with you on this one. She's wayy much older than the 4 guys, so it kinda makes the age thing a bit off balance.

I thought she was ok in her last drama Strangest Chil Woo.

Good luck to her and hopefully she does well and gets the ratings.

at first i was like holy crap, shes kinda old. but then i realized that in the taiwanese verison, barbie was actually 25 when she played the role, and the F4 were like at least 20. so this is okay. and plus she DOES pull off the fragile yet tough role, especially in chil woo. hopefully its gonna get good!

Huh...
Well, really, I'm just happy someone was chosen! I suppose we'll have to wait and see how well everyone does. It took so long to assemble the cast, maybe they're all gonna be amazing!

I wished LYH was picked to be in his drama but she's probably to busy filming EOE right now and she's probably " too pretty". What's wrong with having a pretty actress play the role?

Don't waste time on this drama.

I love japanesse hyd.i love mao inoue acting in hyd.cute n brave in a same time.i hope go hye sun will surprise us with her acting as makino.is there any chemistry between the lead like matsumoto jun-mao-oguri shun?lets just see.just can't wait.oot, i dont
See beethoven virus is the same drama as nodame cantabile at all.where is nodame who clumsy,dirty,but clever in music?i didn't see nodame in durumi.

As big of a fan i am to you javabeans, im fairly disappointed in your reason for being disappointed with goo hye sun.
AGE REALLY?
i mean COME ON.
Dramas these days don't pick their actors/actresses based on AGE.
they pick them out of their talent.
People who play high school kids arent actually in high school....

and what if goo hye sun is older? doesnt mean she LOOKS any older than they are.
i just don't understand it when people dont think she fits in the drama solely because of her age. it just doesnt make any sense.

"(because I thought she was on the older end of the generation this drama is being marketed to)."

Yeah, that's my argument too. Also, i think when there was buzz about casting her (or Jung Ryeo Won or Han Ji Min, who would be good in this role), it was upon the condition that Korean HanaDan would take place in college (a la Meteor Garden.)

In the end, it's about visualizing Lee Min Ho with his noona Goo Hye Sun. Replay, replay noona!! ;)

Anyone withholding reservations regarding the quality and versatility of Goo Hye Sun's acting need only to refer to her body of work. Anyone needing reference to her range of charactors, expressions, emotional response, likability, cuteness...need only to refer to her portrayal of the undefeatable "Yang Gukwha" in Pure in Heart. GHS has risen to the task in each role that has come her way and will do the same in this one. I have no preconceptions or knowledge of what this role calls for but have come to expect the best from Miss Goo. She's one of the top "new " actresses in the business and has won nothing but praise from people both in and outside of the Korean entertainment world.

This is one person's whose projects always interest me for the mere fact that she's in them. My wish was to see her smiling face in something less historical and more hysterical (just one more time before this increadibly fast-moving audience clock turns her from "newcomer" to "ajumma" and relagates her all too quickly into meatier, though often less appreciated roles), it looks like I'll be getting that wish!

"Anyone withholding reservations regarding the quality and versatility of Goo Hye Sun’s acting need only to refer to her body of work."

I don't think that's in question, and HanaDan isn't exactly a difficult drama to act in. She'll be fine. The challenge is, will Korean HanaDan successfully sell Goo/Lee as a credible (if not definitive) Makino&Douymouji to the teen audience? Will we fangirl over them?

Noon pairups have worked before. There's Binnie and Sun Ah. And Jo In Sung has done this many times in his career.

@Jihwan,

"Wow people are taking this so seriously."

Did you expect any less? ;) HanaDan is the Harry Potter/Pride and Prejudice/Golden Cow of the Asian Idol Drama. We haven't even started!! :D

*groan
She's a good actress but she's too old! And I don't think she looks the part. I really was hoping for Go Ara...

my reaction was just like yours, but wiht a little disappointment. i just hope it comes out well...

BTW, is this synopsis of HYD confirmed as real?

"Goo Hye Sun plays Yeonoo that is the daughter of a Dry Cleaner owner, who is a swimmer at her school when her school doesn’t even have a swimming team. Near the dry cleaners, she was delivering or picking up clothes when she meets [runs into] the F4 leader (Lee Min Ho) and the whole series then starts as she deals with certain episodes and events as she becomes Cinderella. "

Uhhh . . . Korea . . . this show was called Water Boys. That show where all the boys were half naked through half of the scenes. Did you confuse the two? Maybe? I mean, I would love to see a Korean version of Water Boys. But uhhh . . .

(oops. never mind. posted in wrong place)

"The plot as I’ve seen places Yeon-woo as the daughter of a dry-cleaning store owner who lives on the outskirts of town, who makes a delivery to a posh school and runs into F4."

Does this suggest that she's actually not part of the school? Will we get no Red Card? What's Doumyouji without his Red Card? :(

But Barbie Xu was much older than the F4 boys, too

i'm still watching pure 19 here in singapore...
and suddenly she's makino.... weird...
its kinda hard for me to make a connection..

@Belleza. I've heard rumors that she later works to get into the school and the plot resumes from there... alas, rumors are rumors. I just hope they're true. x_x
RED CARD PLZ

@JiHwan,

That is because Belleza isn't a human. Belleza is a web bot programmed to post excessive paragraphs regarding all things Hana Yori Dango. Or anything with terminal diseases. Web bots love Choi Ji Woo.

I've seen several plot synopses mention the high school they all go to as 'Shin Hwa College' - opened only for "nobles." Or is that just a mistranslation?

Now I'm curious as to see who they're going to cast as Yuuki. And whether or not they're going to expand Soujiro/Yuuki storyline as a way to expand Soujiro's role, since Kim Bum is a promisingly talented young actor.

"the high school they all go to as ‘Shin Hwa College’ - opened only for “nobles.” "

AWESOME!! (Hana Kimi anyone? :D ) Forget Doumyouji, Makino, go after Principal Eric Oppa!

"AWESOME!! (Hana Kimi anyone? :D ) Forget Doumyouji, Makino, go after Principal Eric Oppa!"
Haha, but I think it'll probably be a mistranslation on the translator's part. Calling a high school 'Shin Hwa College' doesn't make sense. But more importantly, it wouldn't make any sense if it was opened only for "nobles" (they don't even exist in Korea! unless the producers decide to retcon the original and place it in an alternative universe) -- perhaps "nobles" refers to "prestigious"?

I just wanted to get confirmation from anybody who knows Korean and has read trustworthy sources to see if they heard anything about the high school the characters are supposed to be attending.

P.S. I haven't watched Hana Kimi, but I heard it was good.

*EDIT: Oops. Sorry Javabeans, looks like you posted before I got to respond. I guess this message is rather irrelevant now. Thanks for the info, BTW.

If this show ends up a cross between HanaDan (F4!), Hana Kimi (Idol School!), and Nobuta wo Produce (Nobuta Powa!)), I may never need to watch another drama ever again. My life will be complete, and the earth will explode in ecstasy knowing that there will never be a better idol drama.

"I haven’t watched Hana Kimi, but I heard it was good."

It's actually not that good (a lot of the jokes just missed, painfully), but the idea itself was awesome.

"It’s actually not that good (a lot of the jokes just missed, painfully), but the idea itself was awesome."

ITA the only thing it did better than the manga was giving the girl a solid reason for going to the boys school, other than being a creepy stalker fangirl.

I'm not sure what to make of the initial plot, after a run in with the F4 she decides to go to their school? Er...okay.

javabeans thanks for the info, and you have right to say whatever in your blog..it's your opinion anyway:D

The more I stare at Gu Hye-sun's picture, the more I think she can do it. I have hope now! She really is looking very young for her age.

^ Yeah, I think Gu Hye Sun can do it too. At least she's likeable and looks chaste. We don't want Skanky!Makino running around with F4 in her micro-mini skirts and bright pink lipstick ala Wondergirls. I'm also glad it's not Go Ara, Lee Yeon Hee or YEH. Kim Byul would've rocked though. She's got that fiestiness in her, which I don't see yet from GHS.

No one's the right age for the Japanese version anyway.. as long as she can pull it off, age is nothing but a number.

Eh anyway, will be in the minority that I'm not looking forward to this.

"after a run in with the F4 she decides to go to their school?"
I don't think the synopsis said anything about Yeon-woo/Makino going to the posh school, only that she delivers laundry there. But if that's the case (Yeon-woo decides to go to their school after running in to them), I think the audience would have to suspend disbelief for the sake of the plot. But yeah, a little weird. I'm wondering how much they're going to deviate from the original, and I'm going to guess that they are going to make quite a few changes.

i actually hoped she'd be the female lead of this Korean Version of Meteor Garden/Boys Over Flower when i heard about the casting of female lead. i loved MG Taiwan and i like Barbie Hsu's portrayal. Barbie Hsu was the oldest among the casts and she pulled through the character of San Cai. i think these Korean F4 should be acting with an actress who is more experienced in the acting department...for as long as GHS can act whose acting by the way impressed me in King And I, she'll do good.

Yoon Eun Hye has had her moments...besides she is getting older and playing the same roles...she should get out of her shell and do a more challenging character something apt for her age.