Letter #151: Coffee Prince

Good morning, Erin.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

…by which I mean this was supposed to be my Valentine’s gift to you, were it not for the…um, exciting start to February mucking up my carefully-planned schedule for 2025. 

But—alas!—it was not meant to be, as is the case with so many of my plans. And, galled though I am that it has even indirectly affected you, there is nothing to be done about it. 

…except repackage it as your birthday gift HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SEONBAE!!! 

And what better way to celebrate than with another one of your actual recommendations: Coffee Prince. Which, though I knew it was an older show, I was shocked to see was from 2007. And then twice as shocked when I saw who was in it—but back in 2007.

Time’s a funny thing, Erin.

But, hey, you’ve got cake to eat and…uh, discotheques to go to maybe? Whatever—point is, you don’t need me preambling away forever when you’ve got things to do on your big day. (Or maybe you don’t. Maybe you’re looking forward to a really relaxed, schedule-free day. Or maybe you’re at the discotheque right now, but it’s boring or you just can’t stop wondering if I remembered your birthday (which, of course, I did). Regardless, I’m sure there’s cake. And I don’t want to keep you from that. Like, any more than this letter is going to already.)

Let’s talk Coffee Prince, shall we?

1. I am genuinely shocked at how good this show is. I know, I know, everyone says it’s a classic, so it should stand to reason that it’s good…but, come on, that’s as often a guarantee of quality as it is a guarantee that it’s just old and boring. Thankfully, though, this classic lived up to its label—because it is really, really good. Sure, the overall look of it isn’t as polished as modern shows, unsurprisingly, but I don’t see how that could matter when the script is this good. The story is absolutely solid, from its main throughline to its sub-subplots, even with the need to suspend disbelief a fair bit—and, even then, the script hardly takes the most expected routes to get to where you know it’s going to end up. The characters are all (well, pretty much all) well-rounded and believable, regardless of how important they are to the plot, with a couple of pretty spectacular performances really bringing that excellent writing to its full potential. Admittedly, the last few episodes tread water like nobody’s business, and I would have preferred the show ended at maybe 13 rather than 17 episodes—but that doesn’t change the fact that everything up to the point where they officially get together is easily among the best K-dramas I’ve had the pleasure of watching. I forget specifically why you recommended this to me, but I’m really glad you did, because this was excellent. And I think a lot of newer shows would do well to look back and study what made it work so well. 

2. Now, I’ve already hinted that I know some of the actors in this (and that I was shocked to see them looking so young!), but who was it exactly that I recognized?

• Mr. Goblin from Goblin as…uh, the main guy, who I only ever called “Mr. Goblin.”

• the guy from My Mister as…so, I only ever called him My Mister Guy, but the second male lead

• the psych director from It’s Okay to Not be Okay as Mr. Hong, the original coffee shop owner

2A. There’s also this, which sent me into a bit of a cognitive dissonance spiral (through no fault of its own) when I saw it in My Mister Guy’s living room:

…because this is the “Fly Me to the Moon” set the Front Man has in his quarters in Squid Game:

…and Mr. Goblin is in Squid Game. And also because it’s hard to see these mechanized figures and not immediately think of hundreds of people being shot to death in a game of Red Light, Green Light. Which is not the Coffee Prince vibe. Typically. 

3. Let’s get this out of the way up front: Mr. Goblin and My Mister Guy are leaps ahead of the other actors in the series, and it’s not even close. They are both clearly in a totally different class. And they both kill it, of course. 

4. And while we’re on the subject of obvious things about this show…Mr. Goblin’s struggle with his attraction to Eun-chan was one of the best things ever. I’m actually stunned that the show takes it so seriously. I mean, it’s great that it does, but it could have easily played it more for laughs than it does. But no, it goes straight (...heh) to being genuinely serious. He’s not just confused but struggling with what this attraction means, whether he’s found a platonic soulmate or suddenly realized that he’s gay or stumbled across the one person whose connection transcends his natural sexual inclination. That he can’t just ignore the implications of how he feels (because it’s so very easy to feel how you feel on paper; reality is less forgiving)...it’s just really, really, really well done. And then him finally deciding that he doesn’t care about anything else but his love for Eun-chae…only to immediately have it pulled out from under him when she’s revealed to be a girl? Absolute gut-punch. I mean, I don’t know what else there is to say. If you’ve seen it, you know: it’s excellent. 

4A. …but only slightly less excellent than the incredible aftermath of this reveal, when Mr. Goblin is set adrift without any manner of self-understanding to keep hold of, left to tumble into a whirlpool of disbelief, humiliation, and heartbreak. It’s just great. (Well, the eventual conversation he has with Eun-chan about it is kind of clunky at the start, with both just expositing their feelings and motivations at each other in a very soap-y way that the show has avoided to that point. But it bounces back a good amount with him talking about how desperate he is to find someone who understands him and how adrift he’s been all his life, despite wanting so badly to care about things and do stuff…just without any success at finding what those things could be.) The highlight from this spiral is the confrontation he has with My Mister Guy. Perfect tone and emotional balance from both—which is equal parts excellent writing and excellent acting. 

4B. And—sidebar—I love that the one thing in Mr. Goblin’s life that he’s completely sure of is the thing that makes the least amount of sense to him: that he’s in love with another man. 

4C. I also kinda love how much the, um, logistical side of being in a relationship with another guy doesn’t seem to cross his mind—or, more likely, he’s just trying not to think about it. 

5. Not to take away from Eun-chan’s struggles, of course. And I totally sympathize with her problem deciding whether to put her family or her feelings first, but…babygirl, you sure dragged your heels, didn’t you. I’m not saying I’d have been any more likely to speak up, believe me. But Mr. Goblin was pretty obviously desperate for you to be a girl. You absolutely could have framed the whole thing as “I was afraid you’d hate me for lying, but I only lied before I fell for you” and that would have leaned right into what he wanted. Once he decides he’ll love you even though you’re a dude…oof. 

6. Also: I really like Eun-chan. She’s hilarious. And adorable. And rolls four slices of pizza together to eat at once. All excellent qualities. Plus, she puts me in mind of Eun-tak (from Goblin) if she were played by Jung So-min. Not a bad thing, if you’re me. 

7. Speaking of Eun-chan: I love, love, love how concerned she is (early in the story) about whether or not Mr. Goblin is dating Hot Ex-Girlfriend. 

7A. …which is what I called My Mister Guy’s ex- who gets back together with him. (And on whom Mr. Goblin has a big-big crush.)

8. Actually, speaking of Hot Ex-Girlfriend: she was great! Like, for more than just being hot, I mean. Such a well-written character. Not at all what you’d expect her to be: she’s cool, grounded, confident, not afraid to call someone else out on being wrong—but she’s just as likely to be vulnerable, to make mistakes, to admit she’s wrong. She’s understanding, knows how to handle different personalities (and, as with Mr. Goblin, different attentions), but will still overestimate her perceptions or get too hung up on her feelings. Y’know, she’s a fully-formed adult character—not overplayed, not underplayed—and if she’s had more screen time, she probably would have rivaled Mr. Goblin for best writing. I was surprised just about every scene she was in to see her deftly avoid the cliche, dramatic reaction to whatever situation she found herself in. There’s so much more meat to Mr. Goblin and Eun-chan’s stories, and My Mister Guy’s actor lends A LOT of gravitas to his otherwise quite-secondary second male lead, but I think it’d be a great disservice to Hot Ex-Girlfriend not to keep her in the “this was excellent!” discussion. (And the actress is rock-solid in the role, too.)

9. …but obviously Eun-chan’s bratty younger sister was #bestgirl. Because of course I’d say she was. 

10. For the record: fake gay relationship is still a fake relationship. I am satisfied. 

11. I tried very hard not to read into the sheer number of nutcrackers that are littered around Mr. Goblin’s apartment.

12. I also tried very hard not to read into Eun-chan’s attraction to two older men and the fact that her father died. 

12A. Also: I frikkin’ love that she’s totally into both guys. That’s so fun. 

13. Speaking of: when My Mister Guy tells Eun-chan that he’s 31, she A) says his age in English, for some reason, and B) tells him he can speak informally. And I—again—ask if this is how this is supposed to work. 

14. I still can’t believe Hot Ex-Girlfriend took Mr. Goblin on a movie date…to see Shrek the Third:

Bad sign, my dude. Very bad sign. 

15. I also can’t believe they pretty much just brush past Hot Ex-Girlfriend having a miscarriage. I…don’t know why that was a plot point. And the rest of that couple’s scenes for the remainder of the show (particularly after the f***ing time jump) seemed tinged in melancholy, to me, as a result. I don’t know if we were meant to see them as having moved on from it (as best as anyone can) with their love being what keeps them going, but…it was just very strange. Perhaps even stranger when we see them with the unused baby shoes before their trip to the countryside for some biking or whatever. I’m totally in favor of showing and not telling, but this felt a little too big to just leave to tangential story hints. To me, anyway.

16. I was very excited by the prospect of a crisscross romance (where our romantic pairs are more interested in who will end up being the other’s final romantic pairing), but that’s not really how the story shakes out. Which was disappointing. I mean, it’s still sort of there, but not how I’d have wanted it. Which is what really matters.

17. During the mini-arc where Mr. Goblin has to go on all those blind dates, one of the women he meets describes herself as looking like “Ming Na-yeon,” according to the subtitles. And the internet just will not tell me who this is. It keeps thinking I mean Ming-na Wen. Or maybe Nayeon from TWICE. 

17A. As if I don’t have saved search parameters for Ming-na Wen. C’mon, google machine. Think.

18. There are a TON of English-language songs used in this series…but none of them excited me anywhere near as much as hearing Kula Shaker’s cover of “Hush” that was on the I Know What You Did Last Summer soundtrack! What a pull!

19. In a fun meta-turn, My Mister Guy has a very significant moment in My Mister where he makes a very big deal about insisting IU stop calling him ahjussi. No such complaint with Eun-chan. 

20. In Episode 5, My Mister Guy brings Eun-chan as his “date” to Hot Ex-Girlfriend’s art exhibit, and he helps doll her up ahead of time so she can feel fancy enough to fit in without worrying she shouldn’t be there. She looks fantastic, at the end of this, but she inexplicably is given a long wig to wear along with her dress and heels. Now, in terms of narrative functionality, this is clearly just so that Mr. Goblin can see her at the exhibit and not recognize her. So, I got very excited that the idea that they would run into each other, and she’d have to pretend to be her little sister to explain why she “looks familiar.” But, no, they don’t do that at all. Which was disappointing. I’d have loved a subplot where she had to swap in and out of costume to keep the ruse up.

20A. I’m just saying…there’s a lot of filler at the end of this series. We had time for this to play out. 

21. The boys who round out the rest of the Coffee Prince staff are…fine. I kinda like the big dumb guy who’s in love with Eun-chan’s little sister, I guess. 

22. Probably my favorite line from Eun-chan comes after she’s given in to her feelings and kissed Mr. Goblin but still sees him trailing after Hot Ex-Girlfriend: “I kissed him, I went to the hospital [to see his sick grandmother] with him, and…IT’S STILL HER?!” Utterly heartbreaking. 

23. Holy cow—I didn’t tell you! Okay, remember I mentioned in my Single’s Inferno 4 letter that I’d been playing around with Grok, the X/Twitter A.I. chatbot? Well, to help cheer me up one day, Grok offered to write me a treatment for an anime-style love triangle romcom about my two favorite girls from Weki Meki and a stand-in for me. It was AWESOME. (That he did it, I mean, not the treatment itself, exactly, which was…fine.) And I’ve been refining the story with him for about a week. What was originally a 12-episode win for Elly has turned into a two-season, 24-episode win for Yoojung. It’s full of pathos and self-sacrifice and an episode where Lucy wears a fake moustache and demands to know if the male lead ate her final pack of ramyeon. I’m putting way too much effort into it, but…it’s just so much fun trying to put the puzzle pieces together to make the story as exciting as possible. 

23A. There’s also this weird thing where we needed a nickname for the male lead that his childhood crush would call him—and Grok picked (at random, apparently) the actual childhood nickname my mom used for me. Crazy stuff. 

23B. Well, okay, my mom’s nickname for me is “Ugly,” but it wasn’t that when I was a little-little kid. 

23C. Point is: It’s going pretty well.

23D. …minus that my character’s neato name is apparently a very popular girls’ name. (When I asked about it, Grok was like, “Well, I was gonna say, but you thought it sounded nice. Besides, the story’s in English—who’s gonna know?” Total amateur hour.) I’m working on it, though. Fear not. 

24. In the immediate aftermath of the scene where My Mister Guy kisses Eun-chan, Hot Ex-Girlfriend immediately clocks what’s happened, and she tells him that she knows exactly what happened without saying a word to him. And it is excellent. Such a good moment. 

25. Eun-chan’s ringtone sounds a lot like the theme song to the anime series Negima!. Which I like.

26. Why does Mr. Goblin park his car in the literal entrance to the ground of the coffee shop? Nothing says “come on in!” like having to skirt around someone’s car in a driveway. 

27. I don’t know for a fact that My Mister Guy and Hot Ex-Girlfriend are improvising half of their dialogue, but she sure reacts like they are. Their flirty moments feel very real, and she frequently seems not to anticipate what he says to her. Are they riffing? Are they just that good at seeming like they exist in the moment? No idea. But it really works, whatever it is. 

28. In what I assume is a fun coincidence, the city skyline visible from Mr. Goblin’s “backyard” has a giant HOTEL PRINCE sign lit up across one of the buildings. 

29. I really appreciate that the show doesn’t linger on the Mr. Goblin/Eun-chan sex scene. And that it doesn’t leave this to the final night before she leaves. (So that they have more time to keep enjoying themselves before she goes off.) I maybe think it’s a little…much(?) that she’s decided to round all the bases for the first time all in one go, but…maybe that says more about me than anything else, I dunno. Regardless, it was tasteful and romantic, and I approve.

29A. And Eun-chan is suuuuuuper-cute the next morning, refusing to come out of the comforter as she glomps around trying to gather her clothes off the floor. (Again, she is absolutely adorable, when she wants to be.)

30. Lots of Hyundais. Which…as if this show wasn’t already fantastic, right?

31. In the very first episode, we get five straight minutes of Mr. Goblin walking around in nothing but a bath towel…and the counterbalance to this is 15 seconds of Eun-chan’s little sister sitting on the toilet. (Or, I guess, there was the women’s bathhouse scene (where everyone gets upset because they think Eun-chan is a dude), but that was filled with grannies and toddlers, which is not the same thing!)

32. Relatedly: Mr. Goblin certainly had an excellent physique, so why wouldn’t you have him in nothing but a bath towel for five straight minutes? 

33. Relatedly: not judging, but…is My Mister Guy handsome? He has a nice voice, certainly, but…he’s no Mr. Goblin is what I’m saying. 

34. That everyone but Mr. Goblin knows Eun-chan is a girl by the time Episode 7 rolls around is kind of incredible. It’s slightly less incredible if you consider that the main plot ends in Episode 13, so…more than halfway through the story. 

35. The show makes a bit deal about Hot Ex-Girlfriend looking good in her wedding dress, but…eh. I mean, she’s a knockout, so of course she looks good, but…she tried on a totally different dress at the store, and she looked STUNNING. So, of course that wasn’t the dress she picked. Because I can’t have nice things. 

36. In a ridiculous bit of improvising, there’s a scene where Mr. Goblin and Eun-chan are out making deliveries, and he tells her that she must have worked up a sweat because of the hot weather…except, in the background, everyone is either under an umbrella or in a poncho—because it’s raining, but the scene isn’t written to account for rain. So, Mr. Goblin tries to make us think Eun-chan is wet because of the heat, not the very obvious rainshower. So silly. So amusing. 

37. I was saddened to find out that the guy playing the big dumb dude who liked Eun-chan’s sister had died. And then I remembered that My Mister Guy was also dead. Which is also sad. 

38. Eun-chan and Mr. Goblin meeting (after the big fight over the reveal that she’s actually a girl) because they’re both picking up the trail of chestnuts she’s unwittingly left behind her is twee cliche nonsense. And I loved every second of it. 

39. …almost as much as I loved them being embarrassing teenage blush-muppets when they say they love each other on the phone at the end of the episode. Absolutely adorable. 

And that’s Coffee Prince. What a gem. Again, the last four episodes are all but extraneous, but that doesn’t at all take away from the fact that the first 13 are excellent. A classic for a reason, as they say. 

Now, you go enjoy your birthday. And, if you need me, I’ll be here having a pointed discussion with an A.I. about whether or not “Zuzu” is an acceptable name for a member of a k-pop girl group. 

More soon.

—Daryl