Record of Youth – Kdrama Review

Original Air Date: September – October 2020

Plot: It follows the careers of two models turned actors and a makeup artist and their struggle to make it big and reach their dreams.

Watched Because: My friend is a Park Bo Gum fan and we decided to do a Netflix watch party for episode 1. Yay for covid lockdown social watching!

My Review: Record of Youth was okay for me. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great either. I watched this as it got released weekly on Netflix. Normally that annoys me because I just want to binge, but in this case, I was totally fine. I didn’t rush to watch when the new episode was out, I was fine waiting until the weekend to catch up. That’s never a good sign.

*some minor spoilers*

What worked for me:

I liked the insider look into the model world. It’s not all glamorous and based on good looks. A lot of hard work and practice goes into reaching your goals. This show also depicted the class differences that your family and background can give you a leg up. It never even occurred to me that people can “buy” Instagram followers to fake like you are a big deal!

I also loved the relationship between Sa Hye Jun (Park Bo Gum) and his grandfather, Sa Min Gi (Han Jin Hee). They had such a supportive bond. I thought it was great when Hye Jun encouraged and helped his grandfather find passion and pursue his own dreams again, even at an elderly age.

The cameo with Park Seo Joon. I liked him in What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim, so it excites me when I see him.

What didn’t work for me:

The rest of Sa Hye Jun’s family. I understand that there had to be some conflict and his was to pursue his dreams, despite his unsupportive family. But the father and the brother were just a little too much for me. It felt unrealistic and harsh. I often cringed and wanted to fast forward through the scenes where he fought with his family.

Lee Tae Soo, the first manager of Hye Jun. I understand that Tae Soo was meant to be an antagonist and another hurdle for Hye Jun to reach his goals. But I didn’t understand why Tae Soo kept targeting him repeatedly and then expected him to come back and sign with him. His whole character didn’t make sense. Usually when there are mean people like this, you either see them eventually get a consequence for their negative behavior OR you see their character develop. But neither happened with Tae Soo. He just remained a selfish mean guy the whole time.

The chemistry between Hye Jun and Jeong Ha. They felt more like good friends than romantically involved. As my friend put it, she had more chemistry with the second lead, Won Hae Hyo (played by Byeon Woo Seok).

The story line involving the gay fashion designer. I know this wasn’t a big story line, but it did bother me the handling of this character. Ethnic diversity, people with disabilities and LGBTQ characters aren’t often shown in K-Dramas. But after Itaewon Class and It’s Okay to Not Be Okay, I thought dramaland was starting to become more diverse and not stereotypical. I feel like this show missed an opportunity to shed a gay man in a positive light. Especially since it is the modeling and fashion world, where it is more accepted than in say the corporate world. But instead, the writers went with the gay guy as a sexual predator, manipulative, die by suicide and then harm the career of our star. It was a disappointing and missed opportunity for the writers.

*end minor spoilers*

Over all, I wanted to like this drama. But even as I wrote this post, I kept finding more things I didn’t like about it than I did like. An excellent drama always comes down to the writers. And on this one, the plot got draggy and the characters were either underdeveloped or one-dimensional with no growth.

Final Opinion: If you got nothing else to watch – Park Bo Gum fans would probably rate it higher, but he’s not one of my

• Korean Drama