If you like your k-dramas with lots of emotional classical music, sensually choreographed photography and more than a few heart-melting longing glances, "Secret Love Affair" may be just the romance you are waiting for.
And given its popularity on search engine sites it may be the drama many viewers have waited for. The controversial drama is currently one of the top trending topics on Naver, South Korea's most popular search engine.
It's the story of an elegant professional woman in a loveless marriage and the much younger piano prodigy who steals her heart. So far, the melodrama, which stars Yoo Ah In and Kim Hee Ae, is off to a promising start with the characters well established in the first episode. Things can only get more dramatic from here.
Kim Hee Ae's life seems glamorous enough. She wears beautiful clothes, makes important decisions and hangs around with the movers and shakers in the classical music world. She is on top of everything going on at the Seo Han Arts Foundation. She cleans up messes after the foundation's CEO, played by Kim Hye Eun. At her immaculate and carefully designed home, she calms her immature husband, played by Park Hyuk Kwon. But you never get the feeling that she actually enjoys her competency. Her life seems a struggle and it's rarely satisfying except for the music, which she loves.
That is until Yoo Ah In shows up.
Yoo Ah In plays the talented musical prodigy Lee Jun Sae, who happens to make a delivery to the foundation. The photos of the great piano players he admires entrance him. You can see by the longing on his face how much he wants to be like them but he has no idea how to break into the world they exist in. And when he sees the piano a concert is about to be performed on, he cannot resist playing it.
Fortunately, that's how his talent is discovered.
When he first looks at Kim Hee Ae, he doesn't really see her as a woman but rather as part of the glamorous world of classical music that he so wants to be part of. So, will she become the most important thing in the world for him? Or will he one day have to sacrifice her for the career he always dreamed of.
"Secret Love Affair" is based on the 2005 Japanese film "Tokyo Tower." If this sounds like your kind of drama, check it out and let us know what you think.
