Title: 찬란한 유산 Chanranhan Yusan
English Title:
- Brilliant Legacy
- Shining Inheritance
Language: Korean
Year 2009
Episodes: 28
Cast:
- 이승기 Lee Seung Gi
- 한효주 Han Hyo Joo
- 배수빈 Bae So Bin
- 문채원 Moon Chae Won
- 김미숙 Kim Mi Sook
- 민영원 Min Young Wo
- 백승현 Baek Seung Hyun
SYNOPSIS
이승기 Lee Seung Gi - 결혼해 줄래 Gyeolhonhae Jullae (Will You Marry Me?)When Go Eun Sung's father died, her stepmother took all of their family's properties and left her to take care of her younger brother Go Eun Woo. She had to look for odd jobs and while working, she lost her brother. Despite these setbacks, Eun Sung continued to work hard and hopes to be reunited with her younger brother in the future.
Eun Sung encounters a grandmother who had lost her memory while peddling her wares in the streets of Seoul. She took the grandmother to her apartment and took care of her although she was difficult to deal with at times.
Incidentally, the grandmother is the CEO of a huge food corporation. This grandmother's grandson Sun Woo Hwan is a very selfish and irresponsible person. Seeing the goodness of Eun Sung's heart, the grandmother decided that Eun Sung will succeed her in managing the company and that Eun Sung will inherit all of her properties.
REVIEW
Brilliant Legacy drama is a modern adaptation of Cinderella, one of the most well-known fairy tales, with a Korean twist. There was the lovely and goodhearted Cinderella, the kind godmother, the evil stepmother, the awful stepsister, and the perfect prince.
I don't really get how a person can entrust everything to someone she barely knows, just because she happened to live with that person for some time and have witnessed that person's kindness. It's a crazy thing to do and no wonder everyone else thought that Sun Woo Hwan's grandmother, which played the role of the kind godmother in the drama, was losing her mind.
The prince wasn't initially perfect actually. Hwan was mean and selfish but perhaps no more than the average person. I suppose because he was usually mean and selfish, his small acts of kindness are more pronounced and heartwarming.
One of my favorite scenes in the drama is when he saved Go Eun Sung from being molested in a public bus; he guided Eun Sung to where he was standing and shielded her from the other passengers, particularly potential molesters. This scene was especially poignant because there were several times when Hwan commuted with Eun Sung before and he couldn't care less what happens with her.
When I said this is the typical fairy tale with a Korean twist, I meant that the melodramatic moments are abundant in the drama. It's like everything bad that should happen will happen to Eun Sung so that she becomes more pitiful.
What is different in the drama though is that although Eun Sung is kindhearted, she's smart enough to figure out that her stepmother is the evil person behind most of her sufferings and she's assertive enough to stand up for herself. Eun Sung is nice but she's definitely not a pushover.
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찬란한 유산 Brilliant Legacy
