Tons of Stills From Lee Hong Ki's "Noriko Goes to Seoul"

Sep 10, 2011

With Chuseok fast approaching, the upcoming holiday weekend will be chock-full of Chuseok specials as South Koreans clog up the national highways going home, spend time with the folks, eat tons of holiday food…and pass the time watching family-friendly television.

One of KBS’s specials is Noriko Goes to Seoul, scenes from which you can see in the tons of stills below. The special — I guess you could consider it akin to a TV movie, or a one-act drama — stars F.T. Island singer (and You’re Beautiful idol boy Jeremy) Lee Hong Ki, alongside Japanese actress Takashima Reiko.

In a nutshell: She’s a Japanese housewife, he’s the aspiring musician who fails audition after audition; the two develop a friendship and she helps him through the difficulties of heading toward his dream.

The plot in more detail:

Takashima plays the titular Noriko, a housewife who comes to Korea because she’s a fan of Hallyu star singer Kim Hyun Jae, whom she calls Hyon-jjang. She has a taciturn husband of 17 years and a teenage daughter Miyuki, neither of whom can understand her fandom. However, one day she gets the diagnosis that she’s got lung cancer, her daughter decides to quit the sports activities she’d liked so much, and her husband just stands idly by.

Hearing that her beloved Hyon-jjang is judging an audition process in Seoul, and thinking she’ll show her daughter what it means to have courage, Noriko rustles up her own and heads for Korea to participate in the audition. Even though her Korean skills are clumsy and she’s clearly destined to be cut right away.

In so doing, Noriko meets a young man, Min Ha (Lee Hong Ki), a talented 20-year-old who’s full of passion for music but whose hopes are continually frustrated as he fails multiple auditions. Despite their differences in age, gender, and nationality, they develop a touching relationship as she helps him find his passion again.

(I have no idea what that leopard-print blazer is doing in Hong Ki’s wardrobe. Maybe Min Ha strikes it big after all and becomes a rock star? Aw, and then Noriko can finally be besties with a Hallyu star singer, and she can call him Min-jjang.)

Sounds cute and heart-warming, just the kind of thing that Chuseok programming loves. “Noriko Goes to Seoul” airs on September 10.

Click on the images to view the full size.