슬픈 연가

It wouldn't have been a 2005 melo without some heavy spoilers as the introduction scene. It was meant to be a sad love story but it was more like a really sad man's story. It's expected to see such themes in melodrama but a better balance was needed. It went overboard with how much misery it inflected on the male lead, there were some false hope moments just to double and triple down on his misery afterwards. I liked how they incorporated the friendship into the mix, it helped recovering from the inevitable bad blood. Having 20 episodes runtime turned out to be too long, not enough attention on side characters/plots to keep it rolling. I didn't like what they've done with the character Park Hye In, ended up disliking her the most. Cha Hwa Jung was the one to kick start the snowball effect but the drama didn't do much with her or give her what she deserved. Regarding the ending, I've seen the exact same ending where the male lead took the same decision from another drama but I can't remember the name. Most people would disagree with the ending but it was done like that on purpose just like every heavy melodrama back then.