From "Another Winter Sonata"

The following is an excerpt from the book "Another Winter Sonata" written by the scenario writers of WLS, Kim Eun-Hee and Yoon Eun-Kyoung
(published Sept. 2004)

The information may not be new, but the 2 writers reveal what BYJ himself thought about his role Min Hyung in the early part of the drama.

Original in Japanese
Translated into English by flowerbossa

One of the things we remember the most during the time we were writing episode 8 is receiving a phone call from YJ-ssi. When we write a script it usually cannot be completed at one shot. After writing the first draft, we examine the flow of the entire story, rewrite it …. and this process is repeated as we make changes. Sometimes, we end up with something completely different from the original draft (and as a result of this process, the amount of script actually written far exceeds that worth 20 episodes!). Of course, it may be possible for a good writer to draw up a scenario only at one try, but being novice writers then, and plus the project being a joint effort between the two of us, there was much more we had to work on together compared to writing alone.

So, customarily we did not show the early drafts to any one but the producer, let alone the actors, but YJ-ssi insisted that he wanted to see it to prepare for his role. We hesitated, but we sent it to him indicating that this was still “a draft”.

The next morning, we received a phone call from YJ-ssi. There were times when we talked on the set concerning the character settings, but since this was the first time to receive a call from him, it some how made us worried. And as we anticipated, YJ-ssi politely addressed his questions to us on the character of Min Hyung.

Actually, YJ-ssi had questions for us while they were shooting episode 6. When Yujin had shed tears mistaking MinHyung for JunSanhg, MinHyung flirted with her by acting like JunSahng in the beginning but in the end confessing that he was actually only MinHyung and accused her for her scheme. In this scene, YJ-ssi just could not understand the emotions of MinHyung. He claimed that watching Choi Ji Woo’s eyes over flow with tears, he was on the verge of tears himself, and couldn’t see how someone could act so cruelly.

He was right of course. In a normal situation, Min Hyung would not have acted so cruelly. But caught in Cherin’s trap, he was forced to mistake Yujin’s truthful expression as deceit. We gave a detailed explanation of the situation and YJ-ssi was finally satisfied, but he was chagrined over his character while shooting the scene claiming that even under the circumstances, HE would never take Yujin’s actions the wrong way.

The point YJ-ssi felt the most uncomfortable with was (as in episode 6) how MinHyung’s behaved so coercively towards Yujin. In the beginning part of the draft of episode 8, MinHyung asked Yujin, "who do you really love?” in a much stronger manner. After we wrote the draft, we also had felt that the expression was much too strong considering MinHyung’s character, and planned to change it, so when we received that phone call from YJ-ssi, we were really in a bind. That was exactly why we didn’t want to him to see the initial draft… We explained to him the content of what we planned to change, and after he learned that the gentleness of MinHyung’s character was going to be retained, he was relieved and hung up the phone.

We felt very sorry towards YJ-ssi at the time. Actors need to be immersed in the emotions of the characters they are playing, but we felt that we had confused him unnecessarily due to the draft. We were also embarrassed, too. We have to admit that just as actors want to be seen at their best and most beautiful in front of the viewers, we writers would prefer to avoid showing the process of trial and error we go through. This wouldn’t have happened if we were able to come up with a great script with just one draft… But, it’s no use talking about it. It was the result of our own lack of ability.

However, what we ARE able to promise is that we will continue to make changes to the script in effort of making it a better one, until the very moment the final shooting takes place.