Friends (Korean: 프렌즈; Japanese: フレンズ) is a 2002 South Korean–Japanese television series starring Won Bin and Kyoko Fukada. The four-episode series was co-produced by TBS (Japan) and MBC (South Korea). This was the first time in history that the two countries collaborated on a series. It was originally broadcast on February 4–5 in Japan and February 15–16 in South Korea.
Contents
Plot
Tomoko, a Japanese tourist, and Ji-hoon, a South Korean film student and aspiring movie director, meet in Hong Kong. Despite a rocky meeting and the language barrier, they become friends. Over time, they eventually head back to their respective countries but only after exchanging email addresses, promising to keep in touch and meeting again. Tomoko decides to go to Korea to work as a tour guide and sees Ji-hoon again, but problems occur.
Cast
Korean
Won Bin as Kim Ji Hoon
Lee Dong-gun as Park Kyoung-joo
Han Hye-jin as Park Hye-jin
Dokgo Young-jae as Gyu-han
Sunwoo Eun-sook as Soo-kyung
Japanese
Kyoko Fukada as Tomoko Asai
Akiko Yada as Yuko Yamagishi
Naho Toda as Midori Kaneda
Yukiyoshi Ozawa as Shota Sakamaki
Keiko Takeshita as Satoko Asai
Production
The series was created to commemorate the 2002 FIFA World Cup, which was co-hosted by South Korea and Japan. Filming took about two years. Episodes one and two were produced by TBS, and episodes three and four were produced by MBC.