Gu Jun-pyo: A Look at Lee Min-ho’s Symbolic K-Drama Character

A curly-haired, towering, filthy rich, and adonis Gu Jun-pyo’s role went to Lee Min-ho, and purportedly he learned of it from the newspaper; there was fierce competition for the part

Gu Jun-pyo (Lee Min-ho) is a man with firmly held opinions and feelings, yet underneath, he is empty—at times acting in repulsive ways. He upholds his moral standards and won’t waver, ponders and tests himself, and experiences an intense love that both breaks and makes him. Photo courtesy of KBS2.

Gu Jun-pyo—Boys Over Flowers’ high school flame lent the then-rising Lee Min-ho massive fame as the widely read shōjo manga-based K-drama mushroomed across Asia, fanning the Korean wave and cementing Lee as a Hallyu star.

Notwithstanding the backlash they incurred from certain quarters, the KBS2 television series remains recognized as the forerunner in Korean high school series, with Jun-pyo jogging memories of it and the very essence of the classic K-drama two decades later. Boys Over Flowers is, for me, a profound sentiment. I care not for its cringe; I care that it’s capable of altering one’s perspective on life, and Lee’s Jun-pyo ranks as one of the best portrayals of a Korean actor that has ever made me crave seeing more of them at a time when what I knew of them was fairly limited.

An in-depth look at Gu Jun-pyo’s past explains the lonesome, opulent young man who’s had his F4 friends through thick and thin but carries the scars of parental desertion since childhood, rendering him a seemingly spoilt brat; he isn’t otherwise. And you know you can’t help but root for him as the drama rolls.

The F4: (from left to right) Song Woo-bin (Kim Joon), So Yi-jung (Kim Bum), Gu Jun-pyo (Lee Min-ho), and Yoon Ji-hoo (Kim Hyun-joong). Photo: Courtesy of KBS2.

It has to do with the way that emotional vulnerability is brought on by familial estrangement or the presence of egoist tensions with someone you love. When matters are detrimental for those like Jun-pyo, the only feeling coming through is contempt for that person until love infiltrates. Jun-pyo hates yet feels something for ordinary girl Geum Jan-di (Koo Hye-sun), for this reason. His isolated upbringing shaped him into a conceited man whose hurt pride gravitates even more toward her as she keeps dismissing him, his celebrity, and his bullying of her.

Boys Over Flowers opens with a mammoth conglomerate, Shinhwa Group, led by a stiff-snob chairwoman. Her son, Gu Jun-pyo, is the heir apparent and heads F4—the ruling clique at the elite Shinhwa High School. Its three other members are Jun-pyo’s closest, the high-profile Yoon Ji-hoo (Kim Hyun-Joong), So Yi-jung (Kim Bum), and Song Woo-bin (Kim Joon).

As F4 afflicts a boy to the point of suicide, Geum Jan-di, a dry cleaner’s daughter, intervenes to save him. Media outrage against the Shinwha Group follows the appearance of a photo of her bravery in the headlines. To quell the outcry, Jun-pyo’s mother sets up Jan-di’s admission to the school courtesy of a scholarship.

As she lands amid her privileged peers, their obsession with the F4 disgusts her, and she promptly despises them. Jun-pyo retaliates, pulling practical jokes on her because of her unyielding attitude; she doesn’t back down but rather challenges him, saying how much she dislikes him, much to his intrigue.

With her distaste for Jun-pyo growing and her liking deepening for Ji-hoo, Jun-pyo gets increasingly nervous, refusing to accept that his social standing isn’t drawing an ordinary girl, so he seeks to win her over routinely failing to impress—she who has nothing as he does—his expertise in enjoying things at his disposal with zero effort suffers a great deal. The more Jan-di flouts him, the more he follows her, at some point into their very humble household out of sheer desperation.

Jun-pyo pulls a night there—it’s a whole new world for him; he sleeps on the floor, sharing a mattress with her family, squeezed into a tiny space, cooking kimchi together, eating, taking a sauna bath, and savoring fish cakes on the streets—realizing the bliss of the simplest things in life. For that, he starts seeing things anew, becomes more infatuated with Jan-di, and longs for the family he ever had.

He has a short fuse and is frequently unable to verbalize how he feels, but he invariably puts Jan-di’s safety before his sentiments. Not a womanizer, he is a devoted lover—he goes above and beyond for her, waiting for hours in the bitter cold, taking care of her family on occasion, beating others to save her, risking his safety, standing up to his mean mother whenever she mistreats Jan-di and her family countless times, and never refraining to profess his love for her out loud.

When things run out of hand, Jun-pyo moves to Macau per his mother’s demand to prevent her from harming the one girl he loves anymore. He perhaps urges Ji-hoo to stick by Jan-di and grudgingly consents to marry his mom’s choice. The moody envious protective guy, who is manifestly loaded charms Jan-di with his unwavering love, but he also breaks her in ending up a victim of his circumstances and slowly crumbling from within.

Several traits of a Byronic hero may be identified with Gu Jun-pyo. He is an attractive man with firmly held opinions and feelings, yet underneath he is empty—at times acting in repulsive ways. He upholds his moral standards and won’t waver, ponders and tests himself similar to Byronic heroes, and experiences an intense love that both breaks and makes him.

The conflicts that arise from his steadfast will to follow his lead and be with Jan-di regardless of others, his rebelliousness, F4, and Jan-di, of course—who defy all odds and helps Jun-pyo discover true love—keep the story from ending tragically.