"Lovers in Paris" on SBS was last year's major summer hit drama, surpassing the 50 percent viewer rating. This summer's "Princess LuLu", another similarly formulated SBS drama also starring Kim Jeong-eun as the heroine, was expected to carry on the success of "Lovers".
Instead, this season's summer heart-sizzler has fizzled. After being met with lukewarm viewer ratings, criticism for excessive commercialism and its conventional storyline, there was even talk from Kim of quitting the show.
So what will become of "Lovers in Prague", SBS' upcoming weekend drama? The drama, set to premiere on Sept. 24, has a lot in common with "Lovers in Paris" and "Princess LuLu". It brings back together producer Sin Woo-cheol and writer Kim Eun-sook, the successful team behind "Lovers in Paris". Also, its background is Prague, a European city renowned to be as exotic as Paris.
Like the other two dramas, "Lovers in Prague" has gained public interest by casting movie stars. The drama will mark the return to television of actress Jeon Do-yeon and actor Kim Joo-hyeok, both of whom last appeared on the small screen three years ago.
In "Lovers in Prague", Jeon plays the role of Jae-hee, a diplomat and a daughter of a South Korean president. She falls in love with a detective from a poor background who lost both of his parents as a teenager. While "Lovers in Paris" was a Cinderella-like story of a poor female student getting hitched to an elite member of society, this time, the situation is completely reversed.
Jeon is also awaiting the premiere of her new movie "You are my Sunshine" in which she played a role of HIV-positive mistress. The movie is to premiere on Sept. 23, just one day earlier than the drama.
"Although Jae-hee is completely different from the character I played in the new movie, I had no difficulty in playing her", Jeon said in a press conference on Tuesday in southern Seoul. "I always manage to easily get away from the character as soon as the role is done".
Although she acknowledged that because of the high expectations for her new drama she feels the pressure to succeed, she said she felt confident of a positive reaction from audiences.
"It is a warm story of people who were hurt by love but again fall in love and get their scarred hearts cured", said Jeon.
As her role is a diplomat, in the drama she frequently has lines in Czech.
"Czech is really a difficult language, especially its pronunciation. I receive private lessons as well, but what I actually do is just learn everything by heart. I am thankful that it's a language that not many people know", she said, jokingly.
"There are all kinds of romances in this world. I wanted to show as many of them as possible and this time I chose to feature a romance of woman whose social status is higher than her partner", said Kim Eun-sook, the writer of the drama.
The writer said she wanted to make the difference of social level between the two main characters as extreme as possible, thus choosing to make the female lead the daughter of the president. "Although some might say it is another unrealistic story, a drama is a drama. I just want to make people enjoy the fantasy".
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