South Korea · Drama · 2012
A Gentleman’s Dignity
Binge Brief
- Twenty episodes aired on SBS on Saturdays and Sundays from 26 May to 12 August 2012, with two weekends off after 22 July for the London Olympics.
- AGB Nielsen put the finale on 12 August 2012 at 23.5 percent nationwide; episodes 17 and 18 shared the series high of 24.4 percent.
- Jang Dong-gun and Kim Ha-neul both won Top Excellence awards for a weekend drama at the 2012 SBS Drama Awards, and Kim Eun-sook received the Achievement Award.
- "My Love" by Lee Jong-hyun, released as OST Part 5 on 8 July 2012, won Best OST at the 22nd Seoul Music Awards in 2013.
- Filming started in April 2012 and ran for about four months, finishing in summer heat above 30 degrees with the last two episodes.
Synopsis
A Gentleman's Dignity (신사의 품격) is a 20-episode SBS romantic comedy from 2012 about four friends in their early forties who have known each other since they were eighteen. Kim Eun-sook wrote it, Shin Woo-chul and Kwon Hyuk-chan directed it, and it ran on weekends from 26 May to 12 August 2012.
Kim Do-jin is a confident architect who runs a firm with his friend Im Tae-san. Then he meets Seo Yi-soo, a high school ethics teacher who also umpires amateur baseball, and for the first time his interest is not returned. Yi-soo has quietly been in love with Tae-san for years. Tae-san, meanwhile, is dating her roommate Hong Se-ra, a professional golfer who has no intention of getting married.
The other two friends carry their own stories. Choi Yoon is a lawyer still grieving his wife, and he finds himself drawn to Tae-san's younger sister, Im Meari, who wants to design bags. Lee Jung-rok owns a cafe and bar, married into money with Park Min-sook, and keeps flirting with other women until his marriage starts to come apart. Tae-san and Yoon play for the Blue Cats, an amateur baseball team, and Yi-soo umpires amateur games, so the men and Yi-soo keep crossing paths.
Two younger characters push the plot along. Colin, an American-born teenager played by CNBLUE's Lee Jong-hyun, arrives in Seoul and says one of the four is his father; his mother, Kim Eun-hee, was the woman all four of them fell for when they were young. Kim Woo-bin plays Kim Dong-hyub, a student at Yi-soo's school with a crush on his teacher.
The A Gentleman's Dignity kdrama is built around the friendship as much as the couples. Every episode opens with a short prologue from the men's shared past, a teacher catching them in high school, a 1993 group date, a reserve forces drill, and every one of them is played for laughs except the sixteenth. It was Jang Dong-gun's first television series in twelve years, and it reunited Kim Eun-sook with Shin Woo-chul, the pair behind Lovers in Paris, Lovers in Prague, On Air and Secret Garden.
Why it still gets watched
The prologues are the usual answer. Each episode starts with a short scene from the four men's past, and the high school flashbacks still have a cult following more than a decade later, according to Namuwiki. It also turns up in cast histories. Namuwiki credits it with first bringing Kim Woo-bin wide attention, and Seo Kang Joon has said his first screen appearance was a fraction of a second in it.
A Gentleman’s Dignity cast
Best scenes
Spoilers aheadThe moments people come back for, and where to find them. Episode numbers and outcomes are named, so come back to this one after watching if you would rather not know.
-
The tablecloth skirt Episode 1
When Yi-soo's dress unravels in the street, Do-jin buys the tablecloth off an accessories stall, wraps it round her waist as a skirt and finishes it with a flower pin (Dramabeans recap of episode 1).
-
Colin's father Episode 14
Do-jin is revealed as Colin's biological father, which OSEN reported the morning after the 8 July 2012 broadcast; on 12 August Lee Jong-hyun told OSEN that calling his resemblance to Jang Dong-gun 70 percent would be generous.
-
Yoon and Meari Episode 18
Yoon and Meari finally confirm they love each other. AGB Nielsen measured the scene at 30.5 percent, the highest minute of the 22 July 2012 broadcast (MTN, 23 July 2012).
Visual design and costumes
Little has been published about the look of the show beyond its credits. Hwang Min-shik won Best New Cinematographer at the 25th Grimae Awards in 2012 for his camera work on it, according to the drama's English Wikipedia page; no interview with the director or cinematographer about the visual plan has been found.
Themes and messages
Middle age without apology. The four leads are 41, successful and still behaving like the boys in the prologues. The drama treats that as comedy rather than a problem to fix, and the opening scene of every episode reminds viewers how long the friendship has lasted.
Friendship before romance. The one prologue that is not played for laughs, in episode 16, is the friends dropping everything to stand by Yoon at his wife's funeral. The love stories change from episode to episode; the four men do not.
Interesting facts
- A twelve-year gap. It was Jang Dong-gun's first television drama in twelve years.
- Same team as Secret Garden. Writer Kim Eun-sook and director Shin Woo-chul had made Lovers in Paris, Lovers in Prague, On Air and Secret Garden together before this.
- Olympic break. SBS took the drama off the air for two weekends after episode 18 on 22 July 2012 for London Olympics coverage. When it came back on 11 August, KBS2's Olympic gymnastics programme beat it in the same slot.
- Cameos. Choi Soo-young of Girls' Generation plays herself in episode 5. In episode 13 Jung Yong-hwa of CNBLUE appears as a former student of Yi-soo, and Juniel plays a street musician in Hongdae.
- A novel. A two-part novelisation of the drama was published in August 2012, the month the series ended.
Remakes and other versions
Men in Love (请和这样的我恋爱吧), China, 2024. A 40-episode remake for iQiyi and Tencent Video, released from 3 to 20 May 2024, with Hu Yi Tian and Liang Jie in the leads. DramaWiki lists A Gentleman's Dignity by Kim Eun-sook as its original, and Namuwiki records it as the Chinese remake.
Episodes
| Ep | Title | Air date | Status | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yi-soo's long knit catches on Do-jin's bag buckle and unravels in the street, he helps her out, and after more chance run-ins he finds her umpiring at a baseball game. | 2012-05-26 | Aired | 14.1% |
| 2 | On a lazy holiday morning the four friends meet for brunch in their weekend clothes, and halfway through the chatter Do-jin finds himself staring at Tae-san. | 2012-05-27 | Aired | 12.8% |
| 3 | In a club thumping with shuffle dancing, all four men turn their attention to the young-looking woman sitting quietly among the crowd. | 2012-06-02 | Aired | 14.9% |
| 4 | Jung-rok remembers the day the four of them were caught watching an adult film by a teacher at their high school. | 2012-06-03 | Aired | 14.8% |
| 5 | Sitting cross-legged in Jung-rok's cafe, the four debate which member of Girls' Generation is their favourite. | 2012-06-09 | Aired | 15.9% |
| 6 | Dressed in designer suits, the friends split into two teams at a billiards hall and bet the bill on the game. | 2012-06-10 | Aired | 16.8% |
| 7 | Yoon looks back on Jung-rok's wedding, the first of the four, where the bride Min-sook's guests turned out to be a crowd of tall, glamorous women. | 2012-06-16 | Aired | 17.1% |
| 8 | The prologue goes back to early summer 1993 and a four-on-four group date at a fast-food restaurant that the friends try to sneak away from. | 2012-06-17 | Aired | 16.6% |
| 9 | In a sauna changing room Jung-rok takes out his eye cream to jeers from Yoon and Tae-san, until it turns out Do-jin is holding something too. | 2012-06-23 | Aired | 18.6% |
| 10 | The four ignore the news that Jun Ji-hyun has walked into their PC bang but leap to their feet when they hear pro gamer Lim Yo-hwan is there. | 2012-06-24 | Aired | 20.3% |
| 11 | On a camping trip the men bring nothing but alcohol and try to swap it for ramyeon with the women in the next tent, only to find someone got there first. | 2012-06-30 | Aired | 22.0% |
| 12 | Do-jin recalls the day three years earlier when Yoon talked all four of them into quitting smoking over a very serious meeting at the cafe. | 2012-07-01 | Aired | 20.3% |
| 13 | Do-jin thinks back on how consistently the four handled break-ups in their mid-twenties, and Jung Yong-hwa turns up as a former student of Yi-soo. | 2012-07-07 | Aired | 22.0% |
| 14 | A summer 1994 flashback has Do-jin dreaming up a computer as thin as a book, while Yoon jokes that people might as well start buying bottled water, and the mystery of Colin's father is settled. | 2012-07-08 | Aired | 21.6% |
| 15 | Tae-san and the others recognise a customer at Jung-rok's cafe as the private who drilled them at reserve forces training in their early thirties. | 2012-07-14 | Aired | 23.5% |
| 16 | Yoon remembers how Do-jin, Tae-san and Jung-rok dropped everything to be with him at his wife's funeral. | 2012-07-15 | Aired | 23.7% |
| 17 | Watching a football all-star match at Tae-san's house, the friends talk about the heroes they looked up to. | 2012-07-21 | Aired | 24.4% |
| 18 | A young driver in an expensive car bumps the back of Yoon's car, and the four, sure it is his father's car, clutch their necks and overplay the injury. | 2012-07-22 | Aired | 24.4% |
| 19 | Back from the Olympic break, the men wait at a restaurant window and cover the women's outfits with napkins when they arrive dressed to impress. | 2012-08-11 | Aired | 18.1% |
| 20 | The men catch Yi-soo, Se-ra, Meari and Min-sook trying to meet men in a nightclub VIP room, and the finale gives all four couples a happy ending. | 2012-08-12 | Aired | 23.5% |
Soundtrack
| Track | Artist |
|---|---|
| High High, Part 1 | Kim Tae-woo, 27 May 2012 |
| Beautiful Words, Part 2 | Jeon Geun-hwa, 3 June 2012 |
| When I Look at You, Part 2 | Gyun Woo, 3 June 2012 |
| Everyday, Part 2 | Park Eun-woo, 3 June 2012 |
| My Heartache, Part 3 | Lee Hyun, 17 June 2012 |
| You Are Everywhere, Part 3 | Big Baby Driver, 17 June 2012 |
| Spring I Love You Best, Part 3 | Big Baby Driver, 17 June 2012 |
| Love... What to Do, Part 4 | Yangpa, 24 June 2012 |
| My Love, Part 5 | Lee Jong-hyun, 8 July 2012 |
| More Than Me, Part 6 | Jang Dong-gun, 9 July 2012 |
| Beautiful Pain (2012 New Ver.), Part 7 | Kim Min-jong, 22 July 2012 |
Awards
| Year | Ceremony | Category | Recipient | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | SBS Drama Awards | Top Excellence Award, Actor in a Weekend/Serial Drama | Jang Dong Gun | Won |
| 2012 | SBS Drama Awards | Top Excellence Award, Actress in a Weekend/Serial Drama | Kim Ha Neul | Won |
| 2012 | SBS Drama Awards | Excellence Award, Actor in a Weekend/Serial Drama | Kim Soo Ro | Won |
| 2012 | SBS Drama Awards | Special Acting Award, Actress in a Weekend/Serial Drama | Kim Jung Nan | Won |
| 2012 | SBS Drama Awards | Achievement Award | Kim Eun-sook | Won |
| 2013 | 22nd Seoul Music Awards | Best OST | "My Love" by Lee Jong Hyun | Won |
Frequently asked questions
How many episodes does A Gentleman's Dignity have?
A Gentleman's Dignity has 20 episodes. SBS aired them on Saturday and Sunday nights from 26 May to 12 August 2012, with a break of two weekends after episode 18 because of the London Olympics.
Who is Colin's father in A Gentleman's Dignity?
Kim Do-jin, played by Jang Dong-gun. The reveal comes in episode 14, broadcast on 8 July 2012, after Colin spends the first half of the series saying only that one of the four friends is his father.
Does A Gentleman's Dignity have a happy ending?
Yes. In the final episode, broadcast on 12 August 2012, all four couples end up together: Do-jin and Yi-soo, Tae-san and Se-ra, Yoon and Meari, and Jung-rok and Min-sook.
Is there an A Gentleman's Dignity season 2?
No. A Gentleman's Dignity was made as a single 20-episode run. China's iQiyi and Tencent Video released a 40-episode remake, Men in Love, in May 2024, but SBS has not produced a sequel.
Who is in the A Gentleman's Dignity cast?
The four friends are played by Jang Dong-gun, Kim Soo-ro, Kim Min-jong and Lee Jong-hyuk, with Kim Ha-neul as Seo Yi-soo, Yoon Se-ah as Hong Se-ra, Kim Jung-nan as Park Min-sook and Yoon Jin-yi as Im Meari. Lee Jong-hyun and Kim Woo-bin play Colin and Kim Dong-hyub.
Where can I watch A Gentleman's Dignity?
A Gentleman's Dignity has been on Netflix in some countries and on Prime Video through the KOCOWA channel in others. The where-to-watch box on this page lists the current services country by country.
Is Seo Kang Joon in A Gentleman's Dignity?
Only for a moment. Seo Kang Joon told KBS 2TV's Entertainment Weekly on 14 June 2014 that his first screen appearance was in A Gentleman's Dignity, for about 0.3 seconds, as one of a group of young men in skinny jeans. MyDramaList does not list him, and no source names the episode.
If you liked this drama
Matched on genre, country and era. Closest first.
