South Korea · Drama · 2014
Pinocchio
Binge Brief
- Twenty episodes aired on SBS on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 12 November 2014 to 15 January 2015.
- Nielsen Korea put the nationwide average at 10.6 percent; the finale on 15 January 2015 was the peak at 13.3 percent.
- Park Shin Hye won the Top Excellence Award for an actress in a Drama Special at the 2014 SBS Drama Awards, where she and Lee Jong Suk also won Best Couple.
- Lee Jong Suk won Most Popular Actor (TV) at the 51st Baeksang Arts Awards in 2015.
- Park Hye-ryun wrote it and Jo Soo-won directed with Shin Seung-woo, a year after Park and Jo made I Can Hear Your Voice (2013) with Lee Jong Suk.
Synopsis
In 2000 a factory explosion kills a squad of firefighters, and the body of their captain, Ki Ho-sang, is not found. MSC reporter Song Cha-ok goes on air suggesting he survived and ran, and the report turns his family into national outcasts. His wife jumps from a cliff with their younger son, Ki Ha-myung, and dies; the older son, Jae-myung, blames the reporters for all of it.
Ha-myung survives. He is pulled from the sea by Choi Gong-pil, an old man on Hyangri Island who takes him for his own son Choi Dal-po, dead for thirty years, and the boy lets the mistake stand. He grows up as Dal-po beside Gong-pil's granddaughter Choi In-ha, who has Pinocchio syndrome: she hiccups whenever she lies. Her mother, he finds out, is Song Cha-ok.
By 2013 the family is back in the city. In-ha keeps failing reporter interviews, and at MSC her own mother turns her down, saying a reporter who cannot lie is useless. Dal-po, who hid how clever he was all through school and now drives a taxi, decides to become a reporter as well. YGN hires him and not her; MSC then takes In-ha on as a publicity stunt. The two start as rookies at rival networks, alongside Seo Beom-jo, a sheltered chaebol heir at MSC, and Yoon Yoo-rae, a former sasaeng fan at YGN.
Flashbacks carry two child actors: Nam Da-reum plays Ha-myung as a boy and Shin Jae-ha plays Jae-myung as a boy, before the story hands both roles to the adult cast once it reaches 2013. TMDB and Wikidata both file the series under comedy and mystery in addition to drama, and those two strands show up in the newsroom rivalry and in the open question of who actually lied about the factory fire.
Dal-po wants the job to find his brother and clear his father's name. He does not know that Jae-myung has already taken his own revenge on the factory workers who lied about their father. From there the Pinocchio K-drama is less a revenge plot than an argument about reporting, fought over the same stories from opposite desks, and In-ha has to decide what to do once she learns what her mother did to his family.
Why it still gets watched
More than ten years on, Pinocchio is watched less for the romance than for the argument underneath it. The drama opens with a news report that destroys a family, and it never really leaves that scene behind. Every episode afterwards is a working-out of what a reporter owes the people inside the story.
The hiccup device sounds like a gimmick, and in the early episodes it mostly is. What the writing does with it later is sharper: because In Ha cannot lie, she has to decide which truths to say out loud, and the show is honest that those are two different problems.
What keeps it in circulation is the newsroom itself. Pinocchio treats journalism as a craft with consequences rather than a backdrop for a love story, and it lets the reporters be wrong in ways that cost other people something. That is rarer than it sounds, and it is why the show still turns up in recommendation threads a decade after it aired.
Pinocchio 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.
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First kiss in the snow Episode 8
Dal-po and In-ha kiss for the first time with the street illuminations and the falling snow held in frame behind them. Herald Economy's review of 14 December 2014 singled the shot out.
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In-ha calls out her mother Episode 10
At a lecture, In-ha turns on Song Cha-ok for the report that ruined Ha-myung's family. The camera stays in close-up on both faces, so the scene rests on the lines and their reactions.
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Grandfather's blessing Episode 20
Dal-po and In-ha tell Choi Gong-pil they are together, and he agrees to end Dal-po's adoption so the two can marry (Soompi finale highlights, 16 January 2015).
Filming locations
- Cheongsando, Wando County, South Jeolla. Hyangri Island does not exist; the island scenes were shot on Cheongsando, and Yonhap reported on 17 November 2014 that visitor numbers there had risen after the first episodes.
- Nowon Police Station, Seoul. Sports Chosun's interview with Park Shin Hye on 5 February 2015 names it as a set where friends came to visit her.
Visual design and costumes
What has been written about the look of Pinocchio is about framing rather than sets. Ko Seung-hee, reviewing the first ten episodes for Herald Economy on 14 December 2014, credited the camera angles, the colour of the image and the music cues under Jo Soo-won's direction with carrying much of the feeling, and picked out two scenes that are listed under Best scenes on this page.
No interview with the director, the cinematographer or the costume team about production design has turned up in Korean or English press, so this section keeps to what that critic saw on screen.
Themes and messages
What a report does to the people in it. The drama opens with a broadcast that turns a missing firefighter into a fugitive, made in a race for ratings, and it spends twenty episodes on what that did to his wife and sons. The damage is shown before the romance starts.
Mother and daughter on opposite sides. In-ha cannot lie without hiccupping. Her mother, Song Cha-ok, is the reporter whose false story started everything, and she turned In-ha down at MSC because of the condition. The drama puts them in the same profession and lets the daughter's reporting become the case against the mother.
Two stations, one story. Putting Dal-po at YGN and In-ha at MSC lets the show set two newsrooms against each other on the same cases, and it is plain about how commercial interests, in the person of Park Ro-sa, can bend what gets reported.
Interesting facts
- Record price in China. The online rights for China sold for US$280,000 per episode in November 2014, the most any Korean drama had fetched there at the time. By 23 January 2015 it had passed one billion views on Youku.
- Four hours under traffic cones. The rain scene in which Lee Jong Suk and Park Shin Hye wear orange traffic cones as hats took about four hours to shoot in the cold, according to set reports published on 12 November 2014, the day of the premiere.
- Borrowed titles. Every episode is named after a well-known story, from The Ugly Duckling to Peter Pan. Episode 8, "A Lucky Day", takes its title from Hyun Jin-geon's 1924 short story.
- A double bill near the end. SBS gave the 31 December 2014 slot to its drama awards, so episodes 18 and 19 went out back to back on 14 January 2015.
- Cameos. Lee Joon plays an idol called Fama in episode 19, speed skater Lee Kyu-hyuk appears as himself in episode 16, and Shin Jae-ha, who plays the young Jae-myung, turns up in episode 20 as a YGN rookie named Shin Jae-ha.
Real-life loves on set
Lee Jong Suk and Park Shin Hye were reported to be a couple in a Dispatch story published on 1 July 2015, about six months after Pinocchio finished airing. Both actors' agencies answered within the same news cycle. Park Shin Hye's agency said the pictures used in the report were taken during an overseas photo shoot and called the two "just close friends." Lee Jong Suk's agency, Wellmade Yedang, said the trip was for a joint shoot after the drama wrapped and that the pair had already been friends before filming Pinocchio together. Neither agency has since issued a statement confirming a relationship.
Episodes
| Ep | Title | Air date | Status | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pinocchio A news report falsely implicates firefighter Ki Ho-sang after a deadly factory blaze, his family falls apart, and his younger son Ha-myeong starts a new life as Choi Dal-po. | 12 Nov 2014 | Aired | 7.8% |
| 2 | The Ugly Duckling Dal-po keeps playing the worst student in school, until a perfect quiz score sets off rumours and he decides to show what he can do. | 13 Nov 2014 | Aired | 9.8% |
| 3 | The Snow Queen After three years of trying, In-ha tells Dal-po she finally has a reporter interview, at MSC, where her mother works. | 19 Nov 2014 | Aired | 9.4% |
| 4 | Romeo and Juliet In-ha's father puts a delicate question to Dal-po, both of them apply to YGN, and Gong-pil, the man who raised Dal-po as his son, has a surprise for him. | 20 Nov 2014 | Aired | 10.4% |
| 5 | The King Has Donkey Ears Dal-po still cannot find his brother when YGN picks him, and In-ha's hiccups keep coming, but he tells her he meant what he said in the debate. | 26 Nov 2014 | Aired | 10.2% |
| 6 | Two Years' Vacation The rookies are sent out to their assigned beats for a long night, and Dal-po sees In-ha leaving MSC with Seo Beom-jo. | 27 Nov 2014 | Aired | 10.4% |
| 7 | The Frog in the Well Dal-po and Yoon Yoo-rae think they have an exclusive, so do In-ha and Beom-jo, and digging further leaves Dal-po with an uneasy discovery. | 3 Dec 2014 | Aired | 8.7% |
| 8 | A Lucky Day Dal-po will not tell Ki Jae-myung his real name or his job, and although he sees how alike they look, a bad feeling stays with him. | 4 Dec 2014 | Aired | 10.2% |
| 9 | The Pied Piper of Hamelin Dal-po watches his family turn up in the news again and begs In-ha not to speak to Jae-myung, while In-ha learns the truth about her mother. | 10 Dec 2014 | Aired | 10.1% |
| 10 | The Boy Who Cried Wolf When her mother insists she did nothing wrong, In-ha presses her at a lecture to take responsibility. | 11 Dec 2014 | Aired | 10.7% |
| 11 | A Midsummer Night's Dream Dal-po tells Jae-myung he is Ha-myeong, is thrown by what his brother asks of him, and learns how far Song Cha-ok went. | 17 Dec 2014 | Aired | 10.4% |
| 12 | The Magic Flute Jae-myung's revelation catches Song Cha-ok off guard in an interview, and Ha-myeong decides to take back his real name. | 18 Dec 2014 | Aired | 9.7% |
| 13 | The Gift of the Magi Ha-myeong goes after Song Cha-ok, and Beom-jo settles his feelings about In-ha but bristles when Ha-myeong chases a story close to his family. | 24 Dec 2014 | Aired | 9.8% |
| 14 | Hansel and Gretel In-ha sides with Beom-jo, to Ha-myeong's disbelief, and gets in the way of the evidence he is gathering on the department store story. | 25 Dec 2014 | Aired | 10.8% |
| 15 | Don Quixote Song Cha-ok's misleading report on An Chan-su makes Ha-myeong vow to protect his friend, and Jae-myung fears old memories will come back. | 1 Jan 2015 | Aired | 12.9% |
| 16 | The Emperor's New Clothes Remembering how Song Cha-ok mocked the new evidence, Ha-myeong worries the waste plant fire story will be buried by other news. | 7 Jan 2015 | Aired | 11.8% |
| 17 | The Scarlet Letter In-ha and Beom-jo each confront their mothers over what they did, and Song Cha-ok tells In-ha she is being foolish. | 8 Jan 2015 | Aired | 12.9% |
| 18 | The Red Shoes Ha-myeong turns down the text messages and relies on an informant against Park Ro-sa, while YGN and MSC both come under attack. | 14 Jan 2015 | Aired | 11.9% |
| 19 | The North Wind and the Sun Ha-myeong's report exposes Song Cha-ok's manipulation of the news and her ties to Park Ro-sa, and Beom-jo gives the police a statement nobody expected. | 14 Jan 2015 | Aired | 11.3% |
| 20 | Peter Pan Park Ro-sa goes to the police for Beom-jo and loses her composure when Ha-myeong asks how it feels to see the media report on her son. | 15 Jan 2015 | Aired | 13.3% |
Soundtrack
Starting the player loads Spotify, which sets its own cookies.
| Track | Artist |
|---|---|
| First Love, Part 1 | Tiger JK feat. Punch, 20 November 2014 |
| Pinocchio, Part 2 | Roy Kim, 27 November 2014 |
| Non Fiction, Part 3 | Every Single Day, 4 December 2014 |
| Challenge, Part 3 | Every Single Day, 4 December 2014 |
| My Story, Part 3 | Every Single Day, 4 December 2014 |
| Love Is Like Snow, Part 4 | Park Shin Hye, 11 December 2014 |
| The Only Person, Part 5 | K.Will, 18 December 2014 |
| Kiss Me, Part 6 | Zion.T, 24 December 2014 |
| Passionate to Me, Part 7 | Younha, 31 December 2014 |
| You Are the One, Part 8 | Kim Bo Kyung, 8 January 2015 |
| Dreaming a Dream, Vol. 1 | Park Shin Hye, 15 January 2015 |
Awards
| Year | Ceremony | Category | Recipient | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 27th Grimae Awards | Best Actor | Lee Jong Suk | Won |
| 2014 | SBS Drama Awards | Top Excellence Award, Actor in a Drama Special | Lee Jong Suk | Nominated |
| 2014 | SBS Drama Awards | Top Excellence Award, Actress in a Drama Special | Park Shin Hye | Won |
| 2014 | SBS Drama Awards | Top 10 Stars | Lee Jong Suk | Won |
| 2014 | SBS Drama Awards | Top 10 Stars | Park Shin Hye | Won |
| 2014 | SBS Drama Awards | Special Award | Lee Jong Suk | Won |
| 2014 | SBS Drama Awards | Netizen Popularity Award | Lee Jong Suk | Nominated |
| 2014 | SBS Drama Awards | Netizen Popularity Award | Park Shin Hye | Nominated |
| 2014 | SBS Drama Awards | Best Couple Award | Lee Jong Suk and Park Shin Hye | Won |
| 2014 | SBS Drama Awards | New Star Award | Kim Young Kwang | Won |
| 2014 | SBS Drama Awards | New Star Award | Lee Yu Bi | Won |
| 2015 | 51st Baeksang Arts Awards | Best Actress (TV) | Park Shin Hye | Nominated |
| 2015 | 51st Baeksang Arts Awards | Most Popular Actor (TV) | Lee Jong Suk | Won |
| 2015 | 10th Seoul International Drama Awards | Outstanding Korean Drama | Pinocchio | Won |
| 2015 | 8th Korea Drama Awards | Top Excellence Award, Actor | Lee Jong Suk | Won |
| 2015 | 8th Korea Drama Awards | Top Excellence Award, Actress | Park Shin Hye | Nominated |
| 2015 | 4th APAN Star Awards | Top Excellence Award, Actress in a Miniseries | Park Shin Hye | Nominated |
| 2015 | 4th APAN Star Awards | Best Young Actor | Nam Da Reum | Won |
| 2015 | 4th APAN Star Awards | Best Production Director | Jo Soo Won | Won |
| 2015 | 4th APAN Star Awards | Best Original Soundtrack | "Pinocchio" by Roy Kim | Won |
Frequently asked questions
How many episodes does Pinocchio have?
Twenty, each running about an hour. SBS aired it on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 12 November 2014 to 15 January 2015, and showed episodes 18 and 19 back to back on 14 January.
Is Pinocchio Syndrome a real medical condition?
No. The condition that makes Choi In Ha hiccup whenever she lies was invented for the drama, and the show treats it as a premise rather than a diagnosis.
Is there a Pinocchio season 2?
No. Pinocchio was made as a single twenty-episode run and no sequel has been produced.
Who wrote and directed Pinocchio?
Park Hye-ryun wrote the script. Jo Soo-won directed with Shin Seung-woo, and Jo won Best Production Director for it at the 4th APAN Star Awards in 2015.
How well did Pinocchio rate in Korea?
It averaged 10.6 percent nationwide and 12.1 percent in the Seoul area on Nielsen Korea. The lowest episode was the seventh at 8.7 percent, the highest the finale at 13.3 percent.
Where can I watch Pinocchio with English subtitles?
Netflix, Rakuten Viki and KOCOWA+ have all carried it, but which one you can use depends on your country and the lists change often. The where-to-watch box on this page shows the current services country by country, from JustWatch data.
Does Pinocchio have a happy or sad ending?
Happy, for the leads. In the finale Dal-po and In-ha tell her grandfather they are together, and he agrees to end Dal-po's adoption so they can marry. Song Cha-ok leaves MSC, and Park Ro-sa is made to answer for what she did.
Is Pinocchio worth watching?
If you like newsroom stories, yes: the romance runs alongside a plot about a false news report that destroyed a family. Soompi's finale review of 16 January 2015 called the ending fitting but felt the later episodes had lost some of their pace.
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