Show: Flower Boy Ramyun Shop
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Lead Actors: Lee Chung Ah, Jung Il Woo and Lee Ki Woo
Note: I do not own any of the pictures in this post.
It's time for another adorable, immensely cute and one of the funnest watches in the K-drama land. I will begin by saying that I absolutely loved watching Flower Boy Ramyun Shop. I'm telling ya, if you're at all the romantic-comedy types, watch this show without any further delay. And it'll make you laugh your head off. Before watching this show, I was just a wee bit hesistant because out of three leads in this show, I had only seen the work of Lee Ki Woo (and I had loved him). But Jung Il Woo and Lee Chung Ah were new to me. Of course, now two years later I have promptly fallen in love with all three of them and have since then watched everything with Jung Il Woo in it! :D
So anyways, this particular show goes by multiple names like Flower Boy Ramyun Shop, Flower Boy Ramen Shop, Cool guys, hot ramen and 꽃미남 라면가게. It is a 2011 series with a total of 16 amazingly funny episodes, each one hour long. And here is the plot without giving away too much:
Yang Eun Bi
(played by Lee Chung Ah) is a 25 year old who is preparing for her civil services exam that will qualify her to become a high school teacher. That's all she wants: to have a steady goverment job, with steady goverment salary and eat rice. Her mom had died when she was just a child & now she is kinda estranged from her dad because he wanted her to take over his ramyun ("ramyun" is "ramen" in Korean) shop. It is said throughout the series that she used to be an amazing volleyball player in her high school days and had quite the temper. We see glimpses of the temper which Eun Bi tries to hold back because she has to make it big and secure in the demanding adult world.
Her best friend, junior and roommate, Dong Joo, is the anti-thesis of Eun Bi. She is a year younger than our dear Eun Bi but is already a high school teacher at one of the best high schools in the country and has men falling at her feet. Eun Bi...not so much. Eun Bi has a boyfriend who doesn't respond as much to Eun Bi.
That aside, there is the very, very, very handsome (& aware of it) Cha Chi Soo (played by Jung Il Woo)
who is the sole heir to the Cha Industries. Incredibly charming and incredibly charming, he knows how to flirt and charm around anything...to the extent that he can even charm his way around his dad. Chi Soo is a high school student, in his final year who has just returned from USA.
I was a bit worried that Cha Chi Soo might just be yet another Gu Jun Pyo but happily, he is not. Admittedly, they're both handsome and both very rich and both very aware of it...but Chi Soo is more of a flirt. Which I adore! Oh and the one million adorable facial expressions of Jung Il Woo = *swoon*
So anyways, Eun Bi and Chi Soo have a few random encounters that can only be so meangingful and funny in a good rom-com and Eun Bi end up thinking that Chi Soo is 6 years older than she is. There is a reason behind this: seeing Chi Soo so self-assured & suave, she asks him his zodiac sign (which is the Chinese zodiac, depending on the year of one's birth), and he tells her that he's a rooster. Now, Eun Bi is a rabbit which means, as per her calculations, that Chi Soo is either 6 years older or younger than her. It doesn't even occur to her that someone that much in control and self-possessed can be just a 19 year old high school kid. And then there is her shock that he looks very baby faced, assuming that he is 31!
As fate would have it, Eun Bi ends up calling Chi Soo "Oppa" in an attempt to flirt and asks him out, something he shamelessly laughs at...and the very same day she realises that the school she is interning at is (a) the school that Chi Soo is a student of, and (b) the school that the Cha empire owns.
Anyways, more confusions and hilarity later, Eun Bi's father dies, leaving her the ramyun shop (she has lost her job as the intern and is sad that there goes her chance of eating rice and has to, instead, do with ramyun). There she meets a half Korean-half Japanese & very, very, very handsome prodigy of her late dad's, the rooster who is 31 years old...Choi Kang Hyuk (played by Lee Ki Woo) who lives with her as her roommate above the ramyun shop and for some insane reason, takes care of her and insists on calling her his wife.
More plot twists later, Eun Bi, Kang Hyuk, Chi Soo and two other guys open up and work in the ramyun shop and behave like a family. Of course.
Then we have both Chi Soo and Kang Hyuk fighting over Eun Bi. And that's when I want to be Eun Bi!
More reason to be super jealous of Eun Bi...
*distracted*
Flower Boy Ramyun Shop is a hilarious show! I love how it takes a cliched plot lines, using them and making it into something mindbogglingly funny.
I adore the part where Chi Soo, the I've-got-it-all prince that he is, is stuck in a railway platform without his cell phone or cash or warm clothes, in his pajamas (don't ask), shivering in cold where he starts asking a little girl for money who in turn wounds his pride by asking him if he's a beggar.
In the end, out of kindness, the little girl donates her Pororo blanket to him. I love how this Pororo blanket becomes a symbol of comfort and protection later on in the show to Chi Soo to the extent that his dad becomes jealous of Chi Soo's growing affection for the animated penguin!!
I won't say anything more in case I blurt out the entire story line before you watch it. But I'm telling you, if you're into food and romantic-comedies and two very hot men, do watch this show. Flower Boy Ramyun Shop is a yummylicious show!
My ratings for Flower Boy Ramyun Shop is a 9/10. Yes, this show is that funny.
Other K-drama reviews by me:
My review on the Korean film I love with Lee Ki Woo in it: The Classic.
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Lead Actors: Lee Chung Ah, Jung Il Woo and Lee Ki Woo
Note: I do not own any of the pictures in this post.
Yang Eun Bi
 |
| Eun Bi and Dong Joo. |
That aside, there is the very, very, very handsome (& aware of it) Cha Chi Soo (played by Jung Il Woo)
Anyways, more confusions and hilarity later, Eun Bi's father dies, leaving her the ramyun shop (she has lost her job as the intern and is sad that there goes her chance of eating rice and has to, instead, do with ramyun). There she meets a half Korean-half Japanese & very, very, very handsome prodigy of her late dad's, the rooster who is 31 years old...Choi Kang Hyuk (played by Lee Ki Woo) who lives with her as her roommate above the ramyun shop and for some insane reason, takes care of her and insists on calling her his wife.
More plot twists later, Eun Bi, Kang Hyuk, Chi Soo and two other guys open up and work in the ramyun shop and behave like a family. Of course.
Flower Boy Ramyun Shop is a hilarious show! I love how it takes a cliched plot lines, using them and making it into something mindbogglingly funny.
I adore the part where Chi Soo, the I've-got-it-all prince that he is, is stuck in a railway platform without his cell phone or cash or warm clothes, in his pajamas (don't ask), shivering in cold where he starts asking a little girl for money who in turn wounds his pride by asking him if he's a beggar.
I won't say anything more in case I blurt out the entire story line before you watch it. But I'm telling you, if you're into food and romantic-comedies and two very hot men, do watch this show. Flower Boy Ramyun Shop is a yummylicious show!
My ratings for Flower Boy Ramyun Shop is a 9/10. Yes, this show is that funny.
Other K-drama reviews by me:
- Coffee Prince
- Boys Over Flowers
- Dae Jang Geum
- Full House
- Personal Taste
- Playful Kiss
- My Girlfriend is a Gumiho
- Queen In Hyun's Man
My review on the Korean film I love with Lee Ki Woo in it: The Classic.
