SHINee‘s Minho recently made his acting debut in “Pianist,” a one-episode part of KBS’s “Drama Special.” In the drama, Minho played Oh Je-ro, a piano tuner who turns out to be a prodigy pianist. Playing the role would, of course, require him to learn the piano – or fake it, at the very least.
It isn’t easy to fake an immense amount of piano skill for a drama, especially if one has not touched a piano until several months prior to shooting. I’m no piano prodigy, but I have played the pieces featured in “Pianist” in the past, and I’m pretty sure that Minho played water-downed versions of the pieces for the drama. And if you’re talking Chopin, that’s no easy feat, either. He had me fooled for quite some time…that is, until I showed the video to some of my other piano-playing friends, whose conclusions forced me to pry the fangirl goggles off my face and accept that Minho isn’t a magical piano playing god. Sigh.
Check out a compilation of Minho’s piano-playing cuts below.
For those who are curious, the three pieces featured in the drama were (in chronological order):
-Frederic Chopin: Ballade No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23
-Frederic Chopin: Etude Op. 25, No. 11 (“Winter Wind”)
-Claude Debussy: Premiere Arabesque: I. Andantino Con Moto
I couldn’t figure out what the other two pieces were, but in the drama it’s implied that Je-ro composes those pieces himself; therefore, I’m assuming that they’re original pieces composed specially for the drama.
Wasn’t there some sort of unspoken K-drama rule demanding that a good K-drama actor must be able to do two things: 1) cry on cue, and 2) play the piano? Seems like we’re seeing less of the real deal in both cases, but hey – if you gotta fake it, you might as well do a good job.
(youtube)
