Pure in Heart

Yang Gook-hwa is a 19-year-old from Yanbian who travels to Seoul expecting to marry Hong Soon-goo, the third son of a respectable family. When she arrives she learns her fiancé died in a car accident, and rather than return home she decides to stay in the city and try to build a new life. She sends money back to her aunt and uncle while taking on odd jobs, coping with grief, and facing suspicion from her late fiance's relatives. The series tracks her slow adjustment to urban life, the friendships and tensions she forms, and the compromises she makes to survive without revealing later plot twists.

Pure in Heart premiered in 2006 as a South Korean television drama created by Koo Hyun-sook. The series stars Koo Hye-sun as Yang Guk-Hwa, with Seo Ji-seok, Lee Min-woo, Han Jin-hee and Jo Mi-ryung in supporting roles, reflecting a cast drawn from both younger leads and veteran actors.

Available records don't show major awards or high-profile nominations for Pure in Heart. The series did not make a strong showing in national prize listings, and there are no confirmed wins at prominent Korean television award events recorded in common sources.

The show had a modest cultural footprint, appealing most to fans of Koo Hye-sun and viewers who follow family melodramas. It didn’t spark widely quoted lines or viral moments, but it found a quieter audience among viewers interested in rural-to-urban stories and the particular social issues faced by newcomers to Seoul.

Critical and audience response was mixed, reflected in a modest average rating. Reviewers and viewers often point to themes of grief, social mobility, family obligation, and the struggle to belong as the drama’s core. Performances, especially from the lead, earned praise from some quarters, while others noted uneven pacing and conventional production values as drawbacks.