Secret Garden

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Secret Garden is a Korean Drama that aired in late 2010 on the SBS network. It featured Hyun Bin as a rich, bored heir to a department store chain, falling in love with a stuntwoman. Circumstances become strange when their souls accidentally switch bodies, and, as they cooperate with each other, they slowly fall in love.

Not to be confused with the movies adapted from the book The Secret Garden.

Tropes used in Secret Garden include:
  • Apologises a Lot: Gil Ra Im, to the extent that Kim Joo Won gets exasperated with her.
  • Big Fancy House: The property where Joo Won's house sits has multiple outbuildings and other homes.
  • Bridal Carry: By Joo Won when Ra Im was injured on the set. Also by Director Im when Ra Im leaving the hospital.
  • Caught in the Rain: Never a good idea when it causes you to flip into someone else's body.
  • Control Freak: Joo Won, who can't stand anyone messing up his plans.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Also Joo Won. A classic example: "'Are you trembling because you see so much male beauty in front of you?'" This line occurs about half-way through the first episode.
  • Evil Matriarch: Joo Won's mother lied to Joo Won, caused Ra Im to cry on many an occasion, physically assaulted her as well, and ultimately refused entrance to either one in her home forever.
  • Freaky Friday Flip: Joo Won and Ra Im switch bodies every time it rains.
  • Hates the Job, Loves the Limelight: Oska, who, at 35 years old, is ready to retire from singing. His fans don't think so, though.
  • If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: A group of the Action School boys confront Joo Won after he asks Ra Im to marry him, complete with baseball bats and wooden sticks. Hilariously, he deflates them by threatening to tell her.
  • Impossibly Cool Clothes: Subverted as Joo Won frequently wears tacky sparkly track suits.
  • Lonely Rich Kid: Joo Won and his stark-white house.
  • Mommy Issues: It would happen to anyone who has that for a mother.
  • Pull the IV: Happens almost everytime Joo Won or Ra Im are in the hospital.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Money: Joo Won pays off the Action School's debt, and is called "Mr. Makes Money" by the stuntmen.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Oska's ex-girlfriend acuses him of going out with "Chu Ji Ae". This is the character's name that was opposite Yoon Sang-hyun (the actor who plays Oska)in the Korean Drama Queen of Housewives.
    • Joo Won frequently comments that their relationship was similar to The Little Mermaid.
    • "She" by Elvis Costello is used as a music McGuffin for Oska and Yoon Suel. The song was the main love theme from Notting Hill.
    • Oska begs his fans to stop following him and fall in love with 2PM, a Real Life K Pop band.
  • Show Business: Oska and his music/acting career, the stunt personnel from The Action Company, various characters as casting directors, etc.
  • Stunt Double: Ra Im is employed by the Action Sports Company.
  • The Prima Donna: Chae Rin, whom Ra Im stunt doubles for, freaks out when her nail is damaged during a practise fight.
  • Voices Are Mental: When the Official Couple are soul-switched, the voices follow the souls.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Joo Won has severe claustrophobia, to the point he takes medication for it.
  • Wire Fu: when the stunt personnel are engaged in fighting scenes.