Save the Last Dance for Me (TV series)

Save the Last Dance for Me (Hangul: 마지막 춤은 나와 함께; RR: Majimak Chumeun Nawa Hamkke) is a South Korean television series that aired on SBS from October 23, 2004 to January 2, 2005 on Saturdays and Sundays at 21:45 for 20 episodes. Starring Eugene,^[1] Ji Sung, Ryu Soo-young and Lee Bo-young, the drama revolves around two lovers who don't let amnesia get in the way of their romance.

Plot

Hyun-woo (Ji Sung) is the reluctant future successor of his father's chemical company and engaged to be married to Soo-jin (Lee Bo-young). Eun-soo (Eugene) lives a simple life, running a bed and breakfast with her elderly father. Their two lives collide one fateful night when after a failed attempt on his life, Hyun-woo loses his memory in a car accident. Discovered on the roadside by Eun-soo and her father, they take him in and nurse him back to health. Over the course of his recovery, Eun-soo and Hyun-woo (whom she has named "Baek Chang-ho") fall in love.

On the day of their engagement, Eun-soo's father passes away. Following another attempt on Hyun-woo's life and a resulting accident, Hyun-woo regains his original memory but forgets the year he spent with Eun-soo. He leaves Eun-soo and seek out his past life.

Eun-soo is determined to find her lost love and travels to the city where she meets Hyun-woo again. Slowly Hyun-woo falls in love with Eun-soo again. A close confidant of Hyun-woo, Tae-min is revealed as a traitor seeking to gain control of Hyun-woo's company. Tae-min is ultimately exposed and Hyun-woo regains ownership of the company.

In a final desperate attempt to get revenge on Hyun-woo, Tae-min tries to run him over, but instead of Hyun-woo showing up, Eun-soo does. This accident paralyzes her from the waist down. Refusing to be a burden to Hyun-woo, Eun-soo disappears and works as a teacher at a home for disabled children. Until one day, Hyun-woo sees a familiar drawing, and after a year of searching, he finds Eun-soo and the lovers reunite. The final credits show Eun-soo slowly learning to walk again with Hyun-woo's assistance.

Synopsis

The drama starts off about a young woman name Ji Eun-soo who lives with her father in their villa called 'Dreaming Forest'. One day, while Eun-soo was cleaning up the visitors room, she found a passport that belonged to a newlywed couple who left early that morning for the airport. She rushes to the airport with the passport in hand hoping to catch up with the newlyweds. Meanwhile, the heir to a big and rich company, Kang Hyung Woo, was on a flight back to Korea the same day after hearing that his father was sick and in the hospital. As the plane lands, Hyun-woo sees a newscast of his father looking healthy and quickly realizes that he has been tricked. As soon as he gets off his flight, he tries to escape seeing that his father sent pursuers. As Hyun-woo was running away from the pursuers, he bumps into Eun-soo but without a word of apology and the pursuers stops to help Eun-soo up. The leader of the pursuers, Jung Tae-min, happens to be a friend and lawyer to Hyun-woo's family. Not being able to see Hyun-woo's face, Eun-soo gets up feeling flustered but accepts the apology from the people chasing after Hyun-woo.

Having escaped from Tae-min, Hyun-woo meets up with his good friend and soon to be fiancee Soo-jin, a sculptor at her studio but because of that, he was caught by Tae-min finally. Tae-min takes Hyun-woo to see Hyun-woo's father, Mr. Kang and realizes the real reason why he was tricked into coming back to Korea. Mr. Kang wanted Hyun-woo to marry Soo-jin as quickly as possible because she is the daughter of an important business partner. Hyun-woo who had no interest in marriage except his dreams of being a photographer refuses the marriage but promises Soo-jin that after his return from America when he's finally reached his dreams, he'll return to marry her and gives Soo-jin a bracelet that he bought from Africa awhile back.

After a welcoming party Mr. Kang and Hyun-woo gets into a fight causing Hyun-woo to run away. On his desperate attempt to run away from him, Hyun-woo stops at a market shop to take out money from the ATM. As he was waiting for his money, he overheard a man behind him on a phone in a desperate attempt to find a ride somewhere. Hyun-woo then asks to help the man not realizing that it was ploy to take Hyun-woo's life. As they drive further into the countryside, the stranger suddenly takes out a pocketknife forcing Hyun-woo to pull off to the side. The two of them engage in a fight to survive and in the end, Hyun-woo was stabbed in the stomach and thrown off the side of the road. The stranger then quickly took Hyun-woo's watch and wallet and fled the crime scene only to get into a car accident that instantly killed him. Because he was carrying Hyun-woo's watch and wallet, Hyun-woo's family quickly accepts the fact that he was indeed dead. Meanwhile, Eun-soo and her father who was on their trip back from the hospital in a nearby town nearly crashes their car in front of a badly injured Hyun-woo. The two of them quickly takes Hyun-woo to the nearest hospital saving his life only to find that Hyun-woo has lost his memories. With no ID or family contact, Hyun-woo had no choice but to live with Eun-soo and her father who hesitantly accepted Hyun-woo into the family.

For two years they adopted the name 'Baek Chang-ho' for Hyun-woo. During that time Eun-soo and 'Chang-ho' falls in love and to prove that 'Chang-ho' really did love Eun-soo he made a bird house aka mail box nailing it to a tree on top of a hill overlooking the villa with a love letter inside. Eun-soo's dad who realizes the love relationship quickly decides to step in and stop it before it could advance any further and confronts 'Chang-ho' saying that one day 'Chang-ho' will eventually regain his memories and in the end it'll be his daughter, Eun-soo, who will be hurt. After 'Chang-ho' realizes this, he lies to Eun-soo that he doesn't want to live with them anymore and that he wants to go to the city to make more money so he can live on his own. This angers Eun-soo who was madly in love with 'Chang-ho'.

As 'Chang-ho' was leaving on a bus, debt collectors come to the villa to get the money that Eun-soo and her father had not paid. In an attempt to help her father from being harassed by the debt collectors, Eun-soo throws herself into the fight and ends up getting injured but luckily 'Chang-ho' returned just in time to save the time of them. Eun-soo's father falls unconscious so they quickly take him to the hospital and finds that her father's illness is getting worse. 'Chang-ho' then tells Eun-soo that he'll never leave her side again. Eun-soo asks why 'Chang-ho' returned when he willingly left, he explains that he had forgotten the letters that Eun-soo gave her. Eun-soo realizes that 'Chang-ho' really does love her and finds the truth from her father that it was him who told 'Chang-ho' to leave.

After this incident 'Chang-ho' decided that he'll stay with them in their villa forever and protect them. One night as Eun-soo and 'Chang-ho' sat under the tree where their love mailbox is, \'Chang-ho' gave Eun-soo a couple necklace saying that there is a curse on it. Whoever is the first one to take it off will obey the other one forever no matter how far away that person is and the only way to get rid of it was to read the piece of paper inside the locket to each other. 'Chang-ho' takes it out and reads, "Even if I can't get my memories back, no, even if I remember and return to the unfamiliar reality, I will love you forever. This I promise you." They both kiss and soon after gets engaged before the death of Eun-soo's father.

Meanwhile, back in Seoul, Tae-min was asked to go to 'Dreaming Forest', the villa that Eun-soo resides in. Mr. Kang wanted the owner of Dreaming Forest to sell their property to Kang Company since it's the last property in the area to clear off so they can build their project on top of it. Tae-min arrives to Dreaming Forest villa and finds that Hyun-woo aka 'Chang-ho' had been living there for the past two years with no recognition of who Tae-min is. Once Tae-min realizes this, it is then revealed that it was Tae-min who had sent the villain in the first place to get rid of Hyun-woo so Tae-min can inherit the company seeing that Tae-min is almost like a second son to Mr. Kang. After returning to Seoul Tae-min hired goons to kidnap Hyun-woo and kill him but fails. In the process of escaping the goons, he regains his past memories of who he really was and quickly returns to Seoul shocking everybody in the house including Tae-min. Hyun-woo was taken to the hospital where Soo-jin watched over him. She notices that Hyun-woo was wearing a necklace and took it off. When she opens the locket and reads it, she realized that Hyun-woo must've loved a woman before coming back home and hides the necklace hoping that Hyun-woo would remember that woman again and what she hoped for came true because Hyun-woo had no memories of that past two years when he went missing.

Later that night when 'Chang-ho' didn't return, it then struck Eun-soo that 'Chang-ho' had probably regained his memories and returned to his old life. Sad and depressed Eun-soo's friend Jang Mi comes to comfort her at the villa and finds that Eun-soo was throwing away every memory she had of 'Chang-ho' by burning every picture she has of him. Jang Mi who has never seen 'Chang-ho' says that Eun-soo will soon forget about him if she moves to the city with her not knowing that 'Chang-ho' is Hyun-woo, now the director at the company Jang Mi works at. Eun-soo moves to the city and tries to get over 'Chang-ho' and Jang Mi also helps by trying to hook her up with one of her co-worker. Eun-soo then mistook Tae-min as the co-worker that Jang Mi had hook her up with and tries to reason with him only to find that he wasn't the guy and befriends Tae-min in the process and helps her get a job at Hyun-woo's company later.

One day as Eun-soo was on her way to visit Jang Mi at work, she finds Hyun-woo who looked like 'Chang-ho'. She gives chase and throws herself in front of Hyun-woo's car and tells him that he is 'Chang-ho', her lover, the one she had been searching for months. Hyun-woo tells her that he is not 'Chang-ho' which angers Eun-soo as she doesn't understand why 'Chang-ho' would suddenly seemed like a stranger. She slaps him causing him to misunderstand her. Thinking that she is a madwoman, he drives off as a security guard comes and hold Eun-soo back. Eun-soo then tells Jang Mi that 'Chang-ho' is Hyun-woo, Jang Mi realizes that it might be impossible for Eun-soo to get him back because he was soon to be engaged with Soo-jin his former lover. Depressed and sad Eun-soo by chance meets with Tae-min a couple of times causing Tae-min to fall in love with the beautiful and sweet Eun-soo.

As Eun-soo continues working in the company most of the female staff grew to hate her as she gets attention from the male co-worker, Park Ho Jin, the one Jang Mi tried to hook her up with earlier and not to mention Tae-min who is the GM of the company. Eun-soo was always given the heavy lifting job so she stayed late one night and manages to encounter an injured Hyun-woo who was also staying late counting inventory. Hyun-woo misunderstands her again thinking that Eun-soo probably wants something from him but she tells him that she just wants to work in the company forever.

One day Eun-soo and her co-workers gather together deciding they were all heading towards the mountain for a one-day break. A company car had broken down so one person has to stay behind and all girls especially the manager of the group wants it to be Eun-soo who stays back. Hyun-woo who was invited earlier to the trip meets up with the group and asked if they could use his car. Park Ho Jin aka Mr. Park states that Eun-soo was squeezed out so she could pair up with Hyun-woo. Jang Mi then takes the chance to push Eun-soo into the car and pushes the rest of the girls into the other two car to everybody's disliking.

During the car ride to the mountain, Eun-soo and Hyun-woo don't talk much because of too much misunderstandings although Eun-soo tries to break the ice by offering kim-bap (Korean sushi) to Hyun-woo who rejects it immediately. When they make it to the mountain, they immediately start off with a hike up the mountain. The manager of the group who is not a nature girl climbs the mountains with heels and sprang her ankle. Eun-soo who had lived in the country side all her life quickly solves the little ordeal and they all quickly leave the mountain letting Hyun-woo see a different side to Eun-soo which also causes him think different and even start liking her.

Late that night as everybody was inside drinking and eating, Hyun-woo goes outside to make a phone call, Jang Mi seizes this chance to bring Eun-soo and Hyun-woo together. She tricks Eun-soo to go outside and then quickly runs back inside saying she needed to use the bathroom. As Eun-soo waited for Jang Mi she notices a poor man standing by the street trying to sell sweet roasted potato. She watches as the man makes a call home lying to his wife that business was going great but in fact truth was he was not selling at all. Feeling sorry for the man, she tries to go buy all of it only to find that she didn't have enough money. Hyun-woo who witnessed everything buys it for her then asks why she bought it all. She replies back saying that she wanted the man to return to his family as quickly as possible because you never know when your loved one will disappear. Hyun-woo then realizes that maybe Eun-soo wasn't as bad as he thought she was.

They meet again by a lake at night where they engage in another conversation where Eun-soo lies to Hyun-woo that 'Chang-ho' has died causing her to go up in tears where she walks away before Hyun-woo could see. She gets drunk and coincidentally runs into Hyun-woo who takes her back to Hyun-woo's room. As he watches her sleep, he notices the necklace that she wore. He opens it and reads the paper inside although not recognizing it, he felt that something was odd about the necklace.

The next day as they returned to the city, Hyun-woo's opinion on Eun-soo dramatically changes. Days goes by and Soo-jin, the to be fiancee finds that Hyun-woo has changed and noticed how he's taken a liking to Eun-soo and slowly realizes that Hyun-woo may have feelings towards Eun-soo and this proved to be true one day at a party of Hyun-woo's Nuna. Two friends of Soo-jin finds out that Eun-soo is the girl who is causing Hyun-woo to stray and pushes her into a table holding an ice sculpture that nearly hits her before Hyun-woo rescues her. Hyun-woo then quickly drags Eun-soo out of the party.

As Soo-jin watches them go out she feels hopelessly lost and then notices something glimmer on the ground and finds the same necklace that she had found on Hyun-woo at the hospital. Because she still has Hyun-woo's necklace she realizes that the necklace belonged to Eun-soo. Hyun-woo and Eun-soo makes it outside and he tells her that her plan of looking so pathetic is to make him sympathetic and fall in love with her has worked. Eun-soo who was hurt by his words tells him that she doesn't need his sympathy and will disappear from him forever. With this Hyun-woo becomes confused and realize his true feelings for her and goes to find her and tell her that he doesn't want her to leave and he loves her. The relationship starts but no one agrees to the idea as everybody wanted Hyun-woo to marry Soo-jin. Soo-jin on the other hand falls into a deep depression to the point where she tried to suicide but was luckily saved at the last moment and taken to the hospital. This anger's Soo-jin's parents and causes a rift between the Joon and the Kang. Eun-soo knows that it's her fault and after being summoned to Mr. Kang's office, she tells him that she'll leave Hyun-woo but Mr. Kang has to lie to Hyun-woo that she is a bad woman who manipulated them for money. Eun-soo then meets Hyun-woo for the last time on a date and quietly leaves.

Soon after Mr. Kang gets sick and is taken to the hospital after Tae-min reveals to Mr. Kang that he is the son of the man that Mr. Kang had betrayed. After this, a problem arises in the company causing Hyun-woo to lose his position as director. Tae-min then takes the position and pushes Hyun-woo aside.

Hyun-woo knows that in order for him to get the company back into his hands is to seek out a shareholder of company's stock with Soo-jin's help in order to gain the company back. The shareholder then tells Hyun-woo that Hyun-woo has to prove himself to him before he can help Hyun-woo thus leaving Hyun-woo hopeless. As they leave, Hyun-woo notices that Eun-soo was on a date with Tae-min. He goes to question Eun-soo as to why she would do this. She lies to him and tells him that she was only after his money. He tells her that he loved her and would have given her as much money as he would but she shakes him off saying that it's over leaving him heartbroken. As the engagement date of Hyun-woo and Soo-jin gets closer, Hyun-woo begins having dreams of the past. He would see the night where he and Eun-soo made a pact under the tree but has no idea that the girl in his dream is actually Eun-soo. He questions his family whether he had on a necklace or a ring on him when he returned but his mother replied with no. When the engagement party day came, Eun-soo returned to her villa and Hyun-woo reluctantly goes to the party with the vision of him and the girl getting clearer.

Soo-jin and her mother also make their way to the party but Soo-jin forgets her box of jewelry she was to wear at the party, her mother insisted that she goes to get it. Instead of grabbing the box of the engagement jewelry, she grabs the box with Hyun-woo's necklace inside. Hyun-woo goes to see Soo-jin in her room where she is preparing for the party and she tells him to wait for her there while she goes off to attend something. Hyun-woo sits there obediently and hears a knock at the door. A worker who brought the box of jewelry sent by Soo-jin's mother. Hyun-woo takes the box and puts it on the side of the counter and instantly gets a phone call from his mother telling him to come out to greet visitors. He complys and gets up to leave but knocks over the box of jewelry. As he quickly picks up the jewelry, he notices a particular necklace and as he holds it up, memories of Eun-soo and him fills his mind. Quickly opening up the locket, he finds the piece of paper that was so familiar to him and realizes that Eun-soo was the girl of his dreams and that he was 'Baek Chang-ho'. Soo-jin he enters the room right on time was confronted by a furious Hyun-woo. Soo-jin admitted that she hid the necklace and Eun-soo was the girl of his past, Hyun-woo walks out and goes to Eun-soo.

When Hyun-woo gets to Dreaming Forest Villa, he finds that Eun-soo had taken customers to the airport so he makes a plan with an aunt who had also been living with Eun-soo and her father when Eun-soo's father became ill. Eun-soo returns from the airport drop off and finds a note saying that her Aunt had left a surprise by the mailbox. She quickly runs to the mailbox to see what it is only to find the letters that she had written to Hyun-woo after he went missing. Sadly she takes out the letters and turns around to leave only to be stopped by a voice asking her if she had found the gift. She turns around to find Hyun-woo who was smiling back at her. At first she pretends to be hateful until he mentions to her about the curse of the necklace. Quickly turning around she finds that he was also wearing the necklace. Hyun-woo tells her that he finally remembers causing her to go up in tears. He promises to never leave Eun-soo's side ever again and after staying with Eun-soo at the villa for a couple of days he finally remembered that Tae-min had found Hyun-woo when he was still 'Chang-ho' at the villa. When he makes it back to the city with Eun-soo, he finds out that Tae-min was the one who caused everything and the reason for it was revenge for Tae-min's parents. Back in the past when Tae-min was still a boy, Mr. Kang had deceived Tae-min's parents causing them to go bankrupt and ending in suicide leaving Tae-min an orphan.

But even after finding this out, he still won't get the company back so they created a new item in Hyun-woo's own small company rising above other companies. In the end all shareholders return to aid Hyun-woo giving him back his position as director. Tae-min was also found out of fraud shares in the company but he escapes becoming a convict.

A friend of Tae-min who has been aiding him since the beginning goes to Eun-soo to ask her to talk Tae-min into turning himself in because he doesn't want to see Tae-min look like a total wreck. Eun-soo agrees and goes to the meeting place where the friend was supposed to initially take Hyun-woo so she can talk to Tae-min. Tae-min who was hiding in the dark with his car was getting ready to run over Hyun-woo but doesn't know that the person walking towards him was Eun-soo. He turns on his car and pushes it at full speed running her over causing her to be paralyzed from waist down. Tae-min finally turns himself in after hurting Eun-soo.

Eun-soo on the other hands decides to disappear forever because she doesn't want to become a burden to Hyun-woo. A year passes by and there is no trace of Eun-soo anywhere. Hyun-woo's father wants to send Hyun-woo to America to manage their new company there but Hyun-woo won't go until he finds Eun-soo. By now everything has calm down and the rift between Soo-jin's and Hyun-woo's family was over. Soo-jin had moved on and even asked Hyun-woo to go to her gallery where she's hosting art auction and donating the profit to disabled children. He goes to the gallery and looks at all the art until he notices one where disabled children were gathered around. Feeling curious, he goes to take a closer look and sees a picture of Dreaming Forest Villa with a couple standing in front of it.

Eun-soo had taken up a job as a teacher for disabled children in the country side. While waiting for the children to come back from the city where they had gone to see their painting, there was a knock on a door. Upon opening it, a limo was waiting outside with a chauffeur saying that there was a problem with the van full of kids. Eun-soo who was concerned for the kids immediately went with the driver. But they never reached the van full of kids. The driver had taken her back to Dreaming Forest where a ramp was nicely made leading up to the porch of the villa. The driver leaves and Eun-soo watches as Christmas lights lit up the whole house and Hyun-woo walks out of the villa. She asks him to don't feel sympathy towards her only to get a scolding from Hyun-woo saying that even if she is disable nothing is going to stop him from loving her. The two of them hug and credits roll as Eun-soo is slowly able to walk again on crutches as Hyun-woo guides her.

Cast

Main characters

Eugene as Ji Eun-soo

Eun-soo falls in love with Hyun-woo while helping him recover his memory and they were engaged to be married before he vanishes. She searches for him and works in his company, determined to try to get him to remember the time he spent with her.

Ji Sung as Kang Hyun-woo

Hyun-woo is the heir to a large Korean conglomerate. He loses his memory after a failed attempt on his life by Tae-min, a rival who wants control of the company. He is affectionately called "Baek Chang-ho" by Eun-soo when he could not recall his name.

Ryu Soo-young as Jung Tae-min

Tae-min is a confidante of Hyun-woo's father. He is loyal to the family and is a hardworking guy but there's more to him than meets the eye. Every decision he makes is a ploy to deceive Hyun-woo's family in order to take control of the company. He falls in love with Eun-soo in the middle of the drama.

Lee Bo-young as Yoon Soo-jin

Soo-jin was Hyun-woo's fiancee-to-be. Even after the "death" of Hyun-woo, she's still devoted to him and waited for his return. At first she was nice and caring, until Eun-soo steps into the picture which drove Soo-jin to the point where she tries to commit suicide.

Supporting characters

• Lee Hye-young as Kang Hyun-jung
• Kim Mu-saeng as Chairman Kang
• Kim Young-ran as Ms. Park
• Park In-hwan as Eun-soo's father
• Kim Min-jung as Ms. Oh
• Kim Min-joo as Ahn Jang-mi
• Ahn Sun-young as Choo Sun-young
• Suh Kyung Suk as Park Ho-jin
• Kim Hong-pyo as Choi Suk-koo
• Kang Ji-hwan as Shin Jung-kyu
• Shin Kwi-sik as Yoon Ui-won
• Kim Hyung-ja as Ms. Son Yoo-rim
• Kim Byung-ki as Boss Joo

International Broadcast

This programme was aired on ABS-CBN in the Philippines in the year 2005.

This programme was aired on Channel 3 in Thailand in the year 2008.^[2]

Remakes

There are three unofficial remakes: Indonesia's Aku Bukan Untukmu ("I'm not for you") in 2005; Taiwan's The Prince Who Turns into a Frog in 2005; and Mainland China's Waking Love Up in 2015.

References

External links

• Save the Last Dance for Me official SBS website (Korean)
• Save the Last Dance for Me at SBS Global
• Save the Last Dance for Me at HanCinema
• Save the Last Dance for Me at the Internet Movie Database