Korean TV drama Winter Sonata is about that precious first love. The fifteenth episode of Winter Sonata begins with the main male character, Joon-sang, regaining his lost memory. He has been living as Min-hyung after suffering amnesia from a car accident. Joon-sang and his first love returns to Chuncheon, where they search for the traces of their feelings for each other.

You may have watched this scene with an aching heart as if you were Yu-jin, Joon-sang’s first love. It’s hard to believe that next year is already the tenth anniversary of the show’s first broadcast. The feelings of heartbreaking lost love and joyful reunion are still vivid in our memories.

Winter Sonata first aired on January 14, 2002 and ran for two months until March 19th. The show revived the emotions and memories of innocent first love for millions of Korean viewers. Not only that, its leading actor and actress, Bae Yong-joon and Choi Ji-woo, set off the wave of Korean pop culture or hallyu, and shot to stardom across Asia. Filming locations such as Chuncheon and Nami Island, where Yu-jin and Joon-sang shared their first kiss on a bicycle, became sought-after tourist attractions. The number of foreign tourists to Chuncheon grew twenty times from a decade year, well on its way to top nine million this year and demonstrating the show’s lasting popularity even after ten years. Such popularity has stunned even the show’s director Yun Seok-ho.

Winter Sonata is the most meaningful work for me. I’m blessed to have that. I was amazed that a TV drama could move people’s hearts like that, and realized the power of cultural contents. I came to believe that universal emotions, like love for family and humanity, appeal to everyone.

What is it about Winter Sonata that still captivates people after a decade? Here’s Winter Sonata director Yun Seok-ho again.



I heard from fans that they found their hearts going all aflutter like a little girl while watching Winter Sonata. The show was about the nostalgic memories of first love, which usually are forgotten as we grow older. But the fans tell me that watching the show brought back those exciting and precious memories. There are many types of love, but first love between a man and a woman is always thought of as pure, innocent, beautiful love. I wanted to show the beauty of first love in Winter Sonata.

In celebration of the tenth anniversary of its first broadcast, Winter Sonata has been reborn as a musical, currently performed at Myeongbo Art Hall in central Seoul. Here are our peeks at the TV-hit-turned-musical.

The theater is bustling with Winter Sonata fans, who still cherish the show’s impact on their lives.

- I really enjoyed the drama, so I came to see how it turned into a musical. I want to see how the scene of the first kiss would play out in the musical.
- I saw the show when I was little, and now I’m here to see it again. I wonder how they turned it into a musical.
- I already know the story, so I’m going to see how the story is translated into songs on the stage.

The cast of Winter Sonata the musical certainly feels the pressure and responsibility, because Winter Sonata was the TV drama that started the wave of Korean pop culture that swept Japan and the rest of Asia. Here’s actor Kim Seung-hoi who has the leading role of Joon-sang.

Winter Sonata was the beginning of hallyu. I was amazed to see Japanese fans in the audience, and grateful that they saw Bae Yong-joon, who played the original Joon-sang, in me. The theme of this show is nostalgia, memory, and love. Joon-sang is a lonely soul whose pain was alleviated by Yu-jin. He truly loves her and tries to maintain that feeling and memories of her even when he is losing his sight. When I play Joon-sang, I try to focus on his feelings of love and memories of Yu-jin.



The musical has compressed twenty episodes of Winter Sonata into a 90-minute performance. In addition to the lovely main characters of Yu-jin and Joon-sang, the show features a variety of interesting characters. Here’s Winter Sonata director Yun Seok-ho again.

In the beginning of the story the show portrays the unbridled joy of adolescents’ first love. Next come the pain and sorrow of trying to restore the feelings of love in someone who does not remember the emotions, which all comes to a happy end. I tried to keep all these emotions and key scenes of the drama within the given time. I worked really hard on it with the playwright. It was just as hard as when I worked on compressing the show into an 80-minute version in Japan. I’m relieved that we were able to come up with this final version.

This is not the first time that Winter Sonata was turned into a musical. The first musical version debuted in Japan in 2006.

I used to direct only TV shows, but was contacted by a Japanese producer in 2006. That’s when I first directed a musical version of Winter Sonata. The show underwent a lot of changes in the course of adapting the TV show into a musical, which made me want to produce a musical that retained all the merits of the original show. Luckily, the tenth anniversary was coming up and I had a chance to realize my dream.

If the drama presented a delicate and detailed exploration of love, Winter Sonata the musical imbued energy and vividness to the story with live music.

Also impressive is the performance of two music bands hidden behind the birch trees. Here’s culture critic Kim Sung-soo.

The strength of Winter Sonata the musical is its music. I was the potential of creating another drama by adding music to a story. The production team attempted to let the music speak for itself and tell the story. I think they succeeded and showed new potentials for the genre. Starting with this musical, there may be more various products derived from the show. It’s significant that the life of Winter Sonata can be sustained and can flourish from new perspectives.



Unlike the drama that took place against several different backgrounds, the musical is set against the birch forest covered in white snow. The forest serves as a school, a house, a hospital, and even inside a bus. Here’s the musical’s director Yu Hee-seong.

The main stage is the birch tree forest in winter. If the drama portrayed a realistic story with different temporal and spatial backgrounds, our stage version deals a lot in fantasy. One way to traverse time and space on stage is to make full use of each prop, each lighting effect. Recreating an image from memory lends a more sensual, fantastic, and sophisticated feel to the play. We used about 100 real birch trees for the background to create that atmosphere of both reality and fantasy. This is what makes our stage production so beautiful.

One of the scenes that leave a lasting impression is the one where Joon-sang and Yu-jin first lay eyes on each other in a bus. On the stage there is a bench to the right of the birch forest, and that bench serves as the seats on the bus. The scene is about the two young lovers ditching their classroom cleaning punishment to go to the forest and get to know each other better.

Under the subtle light the young couple feels their love blossom. Together with the characters, the audience also sees their memories of first loves filled with heartaches and titillating joys flood back into their hearts. Perhaps that’s why Winter Sonata director Yun Seok-ho counts the first kiss scene as his favorite.

The first kiss scene is symbolic of first love. That scene is so typical of high school students, of teenagers in love. Also the snowman prop on the bench was cute and a perfect addition to the scene. Seen from a director’s view, the kiss scene had some great ideas.

Just when the two were falling deeply in love, Joon-sang gets into a car accident, leaving Yu-jin to believe that he left her. Yu-jin buries Joon-sang’s memories deep in her heart, but ten years later she meets him again, but this time as Min-hyoung. After much effort, Joon-sang recovers the memories of his past life and his love for Yu-jin.

As an aftereffect of the car accident, Joon-sang’s vision slowly deteriorates, leaving him almost blind. But undergoing surgery to restore his vision could again wipe the memory of Yu-jin. Instead of losing her memories again, Joon-sang opts to go blind and leaves her again. Another three years pass and the two star-crossed lovers reunite at a house designed by Joon-sang. And the music ends with a flurry of white snowflakes.



The two run into each other again at a beautiful house built on the seaside. The blind Joon-sang smells Yu-jin’s fragrance and asks her, “Is it you, Yu-jin?” And she answers, “Is it you, Joon-sang.” These two very short dialogues leave such a big impact that the audience is moved to tears. Here are two key actors from the musical, Kim Seung-hoi playing Joon-sang and Kim Kyung-soo playing Sang-hyuk.

- When Joon-sang sees Yu-jin again at the end, it snows on the stage, and they weep. I love that scene.
- One of the most famous scenes is where Joon-sang and Yu-jin reunite. I’m not in the middle of the scene, but I watch them from afar. That house is called the House of Memories. I sometimes felt goose bumps and the tears welled up when those two characters called out each other’s name.

This ending scene was by far the best scene in the drama. It is no surprise that it is recreated in the musical as well. Here’s cultural critic Kim Sung-soo.

The dialogues are very simple. Just “Is it you, Yu-jin?” and “Is it you, Joon-sang?” When they work their lines the snow falls on the stage. People know that it is staged that way, but they can’t help become all teary. Sang-joon and Yu-jin are attesting to their love with their words and their hearts. The emotions audience feel at this point is very different from those felt by TV viewers.

When the 90-minute performance is over, most of the audience stay put, seemingly replaying their favorite scenes in their heads.

- I suddenly got really choked up at the end. I really enjoyed it. I was surprised by the creativity of the production and how the story was played out. The cast was great and their teamwork shone through. Winter Sonata is definitely a hallyu icon.
- I enjoyed both the TV version and the musical version. The musical was more dynamic, because of the songs. And the last scene was really memorable, the scene where the two lovers again affirmed their love for each other. I liked the songs and harmony of the musical version.

The musical version of Winter Sonata is sure to bring back the cherished memories of first love for the show’s numerous fans.