**NEW** Do You Like Brahms?
Welcome back to Hallyu Reviews! We hope you enjoyed Connie’s review of Mr. Sunshine. If you missed it, be sure to go back and have a read.
This week, we take a look at Do You Like Brahms?
SPOILERS AHEAD!!
Final Verdict: WATCH
Synopsis
The world of classical music is brutal. It is a high-pressure environment of competitiveness, dedication, financial strain, and political manipulation. Making a life-altering decision, Chae Song-ah (Park Eun-bin) is determined to earn her violin diploma, seven years after having graduated with a business degree. On this new journey in her life, she meets acclaimed pianist, Park Joon-young (Kim Min-jae), who performs before adoring worldwide audiences, yet feels no joy when he plays. The main storyline is of our two protagonists' struggles of finding themselves, and each other. Filled with insecurity and self-doubt fueled by outside observers' critiques, beginning late with the violin is a metaphor that Song-ah can't help but use in evaluating the stability of her relationship with Joon-young, who wants to be more than just a dutiful performer. Do You Like Brahms? is a deliberately slow-paced K-drama of love triangles, friendships, and the unintended betrayal of those friendships. Special attention is given to the thoughts and emotions of the characters, to intentionally draw the viewer into the hearts and minds of the main characters. There are moments of silence, where subtle nuances of the actors' facial expressions, combined with the mood set by carefully-chosen musical scores, communicate clearly what minds and hearts experience without the utterance of a single word. Key items hold significant meaning in the lives of the musicians. A photograph, a musical score, and even a handkerchief, trigger memories of sadness and longing for what was, or what might have been. Life lessons are taught by both music instructors and students; among them, that hindsight is a painful teacher, as some lessons are learned far too late.
While it is not a MUST WATCH, Do You Like Brahm’s is a WATCH.
THE GOOD
(+) Gorgeous Classical music, actually played, at times, by the lead actors – You rarely hear music from the likes of Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Schumann, Rachmaninoff and, of course, Brahms, in a K-drama, but if you enjoy classical music, you are in for a treat. Kim Min-jae and Park Eun-bin actually played the piano and violin, respectively, in many scenes. Kim Min-jae practiced for over a month to be able to play during critical scenes, and Park Eun-bin, who played the violin as a child, spent several months intensely re-learning the instrument for the drama. No wonder, they look like they are really playing!
THE BAD
(-) Slow Pace – This is not a drama for the impatient. Although, at times, you want to scream at the TV and say, "Spit it out, already," you can't because you realize that altering the timing or pace of the dialogue would not only ruin the cadence of the story, but frustrate the pace at which Joon Young and Song-ah figure out and resolve their own feelings.
(-) “Mean Girl” manipulations – A few of the women in this drama display insecurity and an ugly pettiness in their blatant maneuvering. Watching them hide their disdain behind broad, fake smiles and forced laughter, it's painful to see grown women behave this way.
Courtesy of Nekos Drama
So, there it is, our review of Do You Like Brahms? What did you think of this K-drama? Be sure to leave your thoughts down below!
Up next, A Shop for Killers (Season 1)
