Age of Youth

Age of Youth

8/10

Age of Youth

Genre:                               Episodes: 12                         Year: 2016

Melodrama

Synopsis:

Five university students live in a share house, and each girl lives with their own dreams and struggles. The story follows the five girls and their friendships as they learn about each other and the secrets they each keep hidden.

Cast:

Han Ye Ri (Yoon Jin Myung)

Park Hye Soo (Yoo Eun Jae)

Hwa Young (Kang Yi Na)

Han Seung Yeon (Jung Ye Eun)

Park Eun Bin (Song Ji Won)

Shin Hyun Soo (Yoon Jong Yeol)

Yoon Park (Park Jae Wan)

Ji Il Joo (Go Doo Young)

Son Seung Won (Im Sung Min)

Yoon Jong Hoon (Seo Dong Joo)

General Thoughts:

While in no way perfect, the drama still manages to capture hearts, tug at your emotions, and leave in a sadly satisfying way. It’s not often that I find myself sad to watch a drama go (especially not with those longer ones that drag on for more episodes than necessary), but it was a tad sad having to say goodbye to these five wonderful girls.

Our glorious heroines

The writer did such a great job with these characters, as did the actresses who portrayed them. While each girl was distinctly different and had their own quirky characteristics, they never fell into a typical K-Drama heroine category. While the girls definitely had overarching qualities that you could use to label them (studious, shy, glamorous, bubbly, loud) there was so much more to every one of their characters.

Girl friendships are where it's at

To add to how amazing our five heroines were, we had the splendid friendship that was shared between them. The show really hit the nail on the head with the way it began. We enter into this share-house with Eun Jae, who is as new to the situation as we are, so it gives us time to observe the other girls that will be in our story. Then as each episode goes by we have a different main narrator for the hour, with one girl taking centre stage for that episode. Yet the other girls were always present, sometimes coming in with snippets of their own story, sometimes being completely involved in another’s story as either a support, a friend, or an obstacle. As for each girl’s story, they were all unique and different. While most of the stories were a little too dramatic to be considered ‘everyday’ stories, there were always aspects of our characters and their situations that felt similar and relatable: feeling isolated, lost, confused and scared as you try to make your way through the world as an ‘adult’. While none of the storylines were exactly new, the writing and characters were like a breath of fresh air, and completely invigorated the story, making it seem totally original again. I loved that the show felt very ’20’. I haven’t watched a heap of shows that focus on this stage of life, so it was nice to have a drama that was so focused on this period.

Welcome to the 20s- where we drink away our problems

Most dramas tend to go for late 20s-30 and focus on an everlasting love, or on the teens and first love. But ‘Age of Youth’ focuses itself on that weirdly messy period of time in between. Our characters have all made mistakes and have pasts that they have to deal with, but they also have such a question-mark over their futures. Plot-wise I do wish we’d got into some of the stories a little quicker, as while the pacing of the show never felt drawn out (yay for 12 episodes), it did feel a little rushed at the end in regards to Eun Jae’s story, and Ji Won didn’t even really get a story at all.

There were some great love-lines flying around

And while I love that the series focused mainly on the relationships between the girls, I do wish we’d had just a smidge more on the boys. Jae Wan and Doo Young had the perfect amount of screen time and story, but I wouldn’t have been mad if the other three boys were given a little more attention. Jong Yeol had a cute love-line, but did disappear in the middle there as the drama only focused a lot on Eun Jae in the beginning and then at the end. Our other two boys, Sung Min and Dong Joo, were hard to catch a glimpse of. Blink and you might miss them. I do wish that a little more effort had been put into Dong Joo and Yi Na’s relationship, as I found Dong Joo such an interesting character. It’s pretty common to see the ‘sugar daddy’ card played, so I enjoyed that this drama branched out a little and had a male gold-digger. It’s not a new or unheard of concept, but it is rarely seen on screen. His feelings for Yi Na were pretty heavily hinted at, and I dearly wish we could have seen some sort of reciprocated feelings on Yi Na's part. Son Seung Won caught my eye as the young version of the villain in ‘Healer’ and I’ve eagerly anticipated seeing him in more roles since then. Sadly, his character here is pretty blasé and relatively unimportant- but he did sparkle nicely in those scenes he was given.

If you'd made some moves on her maybe you would have gotten more screen-time

The cinematography was beautiful and really gave the whole show a melancholy, reflective feeling. The shots and angles were lovely, but what really caught my attention was the colour of this drama. It’s very soft and clean and gives off a bit of a dream-like, nostalgic quality that was simply stunning. The music helped support this weird (yet totally likeable) melancholy but heartwarming vibe, and really gave the show a sense of endearment. 

What Was Great:

Our Girls:

The characters were great and the actresses were great. If you have both of those things, it’s pretty hard to dislike the characters. Every girl had both likeable and dislikable aspects, and the show really capitalised on that, showing how relationships must overcome these less than wonderful parts of a person in order to be able to continue enjoying all these other wonderful things about them.

You can't not love these girls

What was really sweet about the relationships between the girls is that it wasn’t super in-your-face that they were making a drama that focused on female friendships. While the heart and soul of this drama was definitely all the gal pals, the lovely friendship moments came about in beautifully unforced ways. It was sweet and natural and never overplayed, which only made it that much more rewarding to watch.

Oddly dark for a slice-of-life drama

Rather than having great acts of friendship to display the love between the girls, the show opted for rather mundane, everyday, yet totally heart-tugging ways for the girls to show that they cared, and this made all the relationships feel wonderfully real and authentic.

Our Stories:

I was thoroughly invested in all the different stories going on in this drama. The romances were adorable and you couldn’t help but root for our heroines in all their endeavours- romance or other. The drama shined light on every one of our girls (though Ji Won definitely got less light than the others), and as each story slowly played out, we learned more and more about our different girls, their pasts, and what shaped them into the people they were in the present. It’s a wonderful example of beautiful, fluid writing that keeps the series completely engaging from start to finish. 

Our Visuals:

It’s so pretty to watch. Obviously the girls are all gorgeous and stunning (especially Hwa Young- I mean really, how can anyone be that attractive?), and the boys aren’t bad to look at either. But what really set the drama apart from others visually was the beautiful way it was shot. Even in the funny moments the drama managed to snag a rather thoughtful, pensive tone. The whole thing was just so, so pretty.

It was so nice to look at

What Wasn’t:

Some Unanswered Questions:

While all the stories were loveable and engaging, there were some aspects to them that left me wanting a little more explanation. My main question-mark after the series ended was what the deal was with the ballerina ex-roommate.

Please give me my answers now

It felt like the drama had more mysteries it wanted to go into regarding her character- it felt like she was going to be used for more than just a tool to have Eun Jae suspect that her roommates weren’t very nice people. I kept expecting her to make a reappearance (maybe as a part of Ji Won’s story as she was rather story-less, and is ballerina the Hyo Jin that Ji Won called out to in one of the epilogues?). But alas, she never returned. I felt a little disappointed that this question wasn’t answered- simply because the drama had set her up like some big secret. None of the girls seemed comfortable talking about her and it just seemed like one big lie that she left because she got knocked up. After learning more about each of the housemates, I seriously doubt they’d cut ties with someone just because she got pregnant. But unfortunately for us, we’ll never know. Another unanswered question was the ringing in Ji Won’s ears. Seeing as she was supposedly lying about seeing ghosts and reading auras, I wondered if maybe she did have some supernatural power she didn’t know about yet. But that seemed to eventuate to nothing, and the drama ended without really explaining Ji Won’s ringing ears. And then there’s Doo Young. While we do get to see occasional instances of him being a giant jerk, he mostly just came across as a boyfriend who took his girlfriend for granted.

From uncaring to crazy in one fell swoop

While I appreciate that the show did go into domestic violence, I would have liked to see a gradual buildup to Ye Eun’s kidnapping, as it just seemed to be a bolt from the blue. I think it would have had more effect if his violent behaviours started of small and we saw Ye Eun ignoring or explaining away his actions until it climaxed at the kidnapping. As it was, it was a tad random to have him turn into a deranged, psychopathic kidnapper when he’d really been played as a disinterested boyfriend who cheats for most of the show’s run.

Re-watch?

I would love to go back and revisit this drama when I have the time. The relationships (both friendship and romantic) were just so sweet, and the drama has managed to snag a rather unique niche for itself where there’s nothing else quite like it around. It’s truly a very, very enjoyable drama.

Super satisfying