Thirty But Seventeen

Thirty But Seventeen

7/10

Thirty But Seventeen

Genre:                                                  Episodes: 16                                        Year: 2018

Romance

Comedy

Synopsis:

Woo Seo Ri is a promising young violinist who has just been accepted into a music school in Germany. After a freak accident, Seo Ri is left comatose, and wakes up 13 years later only to find she has been abandoned by her family. While visiting the house she used to live in, Seo Ri meets Gong Woo Jin, a man who refuses to form personal connections after an accident in his past left him traumatised. 

Cast:

Shin Hye Sun (Woo Seo Ri)

Yang Se Jong (Gong Woo Jin)

Ahn Hyo Seop (Yoo Chan)

Ye Ji Won (Jennifer)

Jo Hyun Shik (Han Seok Soo)

Lee Do Hyun (Dong Hae Bum)

Gong Eu Gene (Kang Hee Soo)

Yoon Sun Woo (Kim Hyung Tae)

Wang Ji Won (Kim Tae Ri)

Ahn Seung Kyun (Jin Hyun)

General Thoughts:

This is an interesting drama, in that it makes me feel almost the exact opposite of the last drama I watched, ‘100 Days My Prince’. While I arguably enjoyed ‘100 Days’ a tad more and was instantly drawn to it’s characters, it left me feeling pretty disappointed in the story it chose to tell and the way the show wrapped up.

I can't even remember the last time (if ever) the ending has been one of my favourite parts of a drama

‘Thirty But Seventeen’, on the other hand, took it’s time telling the story it wanted to tell, and did so confidently. While I wasn’t instantly drawn to the characters or felt their chemistry particularly strongly, by the time this drama came to a close I realised that I loved the story it was telling, the way it told it, and even (gasp) the ending- how rare!

If we could not act as if teens have the maturity of a 5 year old that would be fab

I had small complaints along the way, but at the end of the day, this drama remained consistent and true the whole way through, and I ended up surprisingly enjoying the journey, even though I had criticised it here and there. One of my small complaints in this drama is that I didn’t exactly buy Shin Hye Sun’s performance. I’m pretty sure (but not certain) that this is her first leading role, and it was a tricky one to start with. I think it was a combination of the way the character was written as well as the way Shin Hye Sun acted her out that made me a little put off. Seo Ri was unconscious for 13 years and woke up technically an adult, when for her she was still a teenager. I felt a bit like the writer made Seo Ri seem even younger in order to try and sell that she had lost so much time. However I thought that both the written Seo Ri and the Seo Ri that Shin Hye Sun delivered seemed much younger than 17. Like Chan said at one point- she seems seven, not seventeen. While teenagers have a certain immaturity to them, I don’t believe that they’re as childlike as the Seo Ri that this drama gave us. That being said, once I got my head around how our heroine was going to be and got used to the way Shin Hye Sun was playing her, I did warm up to the character.

She was sweet in a stupid kind of way

While I probably wouldn't go as far as to say that I believe Seo Ri is a person who might actually exist, I did believe that she was a person that could exist in this separate drama world that was created in this show. In contrast, Woo Jin was a very realistic character who was easy to sympathise with. Isolated and warm aren’t words you’d usually use to describe the same character,

A small part of me did miss the bearded hobo look

but that’s definitely how you’d describe Woo Jin. It was interesting to see how his disconnection was a front that he had to actively work to maintain. Usually drama characters are shown as unconsciously and unwillingly isolated from the world around them due to their trauma, so Woo Jin was an extremely fresh character to have. I loved how it wasn’t necessarily the accident that triggered his desire to stay separate from the world around him, but his fear of something similar happening again. His trauma felt layered and real, and so much more detailed than the usual ‘we need to make our hero seem different and interesting- let’s give him a trauma!’ that you usually get in K-Dramaland. His fear and guilt were so obvious and understandable to us viewers, so it didn’t seem strange when Woo Jin’s natural warm and caring nature started to show through. It wasn’t a sporadic character change, but rather when that fear and self-inflicted detachment fell away, we saw that this compassionate person was who Woo Jin really was. It helped that we saw glimmers of this in the way Woo Jin treated his nephew Chan (and even his dog), before his warm persona started coming out around Seo Ri.

It's doubly cute that the nephew is taller than the uncle

Yang Se Jong acted Woo Jin so wonderfully- I was a little iffy about it at first as I didn’t feel like I was loving Woo Jin the way I was supposed to, but as soon as Yang Se Jong acted out Woo Jin’s first real moment of pure fear and sadness I was totally sold. I might not have bought him completely in the more comedic moments, but boy does that man know how to bring the emotions in.

I already really wanted to watch 'Duel', but know reeaally want to watch it

And hard. It was like I didn’t even notice how much I cared for Woo Jin until Yang Se Jong acted out his complete and utter brokenness, and then I realised how much I wanted him and Seo Ri to work through their joint pain and find happiness together. Chan was honestly such an endearing character, and Ahn Hyo Seop was the perfect actor to play him. To start with, Ahn Hyo Seop has that perfect loveable young guy face, and he was able to project Chan’s youthful innocence in a way that didn’t make him seem too young (the way that Seo Ri sometimes came across). What was so wonderful about Ahn Hyo Seop, is that he was also able to convey Chan’s maturity. While most of the time Chan was a charming, albeit childish student, in the times where Woo Jin was struggling, Ahn Hyo Seop was so good at showing how Chan had been forced to mature a little earlier than other kids his age so that he could take care of his uncle. It was a maturity that felt like it had been forced upon him rather than one that came naturally, and the way that this was so perfectly acted out helped shape both Chan and Woo Jin’s characters.

Our poor muppet has spent so much of his life worrying about his Uncle

It provided insight into the stress and worry that Chan had for his uncle in those 13 years of Woo Jin’s suffering that we didn’t see on screen. I appreciated that the show went an extra step further to show that Woo Jin’s trauma and subsequent withdrawal from the world didn’t hurt only him, but also those around him. Unlike Seo Ri and Woo Jin who were emotionally stuck at the age of seventeen due to the accident, it felt like Chan had to mature and grow up faster in order to care for Woo Jin. Even though Chan wasn’t directly impacted by the accident,

This show sure wasn't short on character growth

or even knew of its occurrence, he still lost time in his own way by losing that naivety and innocence of believing that the person caring for him would always be okay enough to continue caring for him. Even though Seo Ri and Woo Jin’s conflicts were the centre of the drama, I don’t think the story would have been complete without including Chan- and I’m endlessly glad that they made his character more than just the loveable donsaeng with a doomed noona-crush. While our two main leads certainly had their fair share of angst, I found that the most heartbreaking character in this drama was actually Jennifer. From the start, the show dropped small hints that there was more to the housekeeper than she was letting on. Ye Ji Won always does a great job at making her characters extremely unique without being too out there. Originally I thought that Jennifer was perhaps a bit too quirky to be real, but as she spent more time on screen and I got used to her behaviours, it became more apparent that her eccentricities were a cover for her grief and her guilt. Ye Ji Won was exceptionally good at being able to play Jennifer’s behaviour for both comedic and emotional purposes, so that her book quotes and apparent emotionlessness came across as either completely hilarious or completely heartbreaking.

Aaaaaand some more character growth over here

Overall I loved Jennifer’s involvement in the story, how she was always there to help and heal these two childlike adults whose lives were uprooted by the same accident that destroyed hers, and how those she had loved and encouraged were able to help and heal her in the end. The side characters were all sweet and delightful (except for Chan’s fangirl who’s inclusion in the story I question). I always love stories that are about a bunch of strangers becoming a family, and while these characters weren’t all strangers, watching their family bond grow was still charming and fun.

What Was Great:

Healing:

This drama has no big stakes. It’s fairly relaxed throughout, and while at times I did find that made the drama feel slow moving, the overall satisfaction the show gave outweighed the occasional slow momentum.

Without a doubt, this is a feel-good drama

There was no ultimate conflict in this drama. The big event that happened in this drama occurred right at the start- the bus accident that killed Jennifer’s husband, Seo Ri’s friend, and put Seo Ri in a coma. After that it was really all about the pain each of our characters had after that catastrophic event, and how they each learned to live with it. Seo Ri lost her youth along with her chance of becoming a world-renowned violinist.

Two gold stars for your lack of Noble Idiocy

As much as her story was about falling in love with Woo Jin, it was also about her coming to terms with the person she was in the present. She had to give up her dream of being a professional violinist and find a new path that was available to her. While Woo Jin, Chan and Jennifer were all there to support her and love her, it was ultimately Seo Ri’s own decision of how she would live her life from then on out. I can’t tell you how much I loved that Seo Ri didn’t take the usual K-Drama route (which I totally expected she would) and go off to Germany to study music for a year. Not only was Seo Ri’s decision to stay in Korea and work towards becoming a music therapist rewarding for the viewers (because I think we all hate it when our couple get together just to be separated for some reason right at the end), it was also satisfying on a story-telling front, and showed just how much Seo Ri had grown over the course of the drama. Seo Ri was able to realise that while studying in Germany was a dream she had held for a long time, it was no longer what she wanted.

Quite frankly, I wasn't all that interested in the music side of things anyway

Her realisation of the future she dreamed of for herself and her decision to remain in Korea with the people she cared about showed great maturity, and was a logical, reasonable conclusion for Seo Ri’s story. There’s so much pressure nowadays to take a path of delayed gratification where you work really hard and deny yourselves of life’s small pleasures in order to achieve your dream or earn success.

Bonus gold star for recognising happiness as its own success

While I’m not saying this is a bad way to live, it certainly does open the way for anxiety and depression. If your life takes a small detour on the path you’ve set up for yourself, or if after all that work and deprivation you haven’t arrived at your goal, well…you’re not going to feel all that great. The world seems to encourage the idea the we should put off doing the things we like and save them for after we’ve achieved ‘success’, and that not doing so is lazy and self-indulgent. It was nice to watch a show that took the opposite stance- saying that it’s important to take life at your own time. There’s no singular timeline that we should all follow, and it’s important to take the time to be happy with who you are, who you’re with, and what you’re doing in the present. Seo Ri felt flustered and rushed after losing so much of her time, but I think it was an important and meaningful decision for her to choose to live the way that made her happiest- not the way that promised the most money or most success. Chan too had a similar choice to make, and after watching him spend so much time trying to be mature and responsible for Seo Ri and Woo Jin, it was nice to see him choose to live and train with his friends while he could, and not rush into trying to be an ‘adult’ as quickly as possible. 

No Villains:

It almost seems like this should be a negative point, but it’s actually part of what made this drama so charming.

There was something nice about everyone being nice

There’s no ultimate evil that our characters have to defeat, no snarky second lead that needs their comeuppance, no terrible characters that need their retribution. Each and every character in this show was just trying to make their way through life as best they could.

Everyone had their own issues

Each character had to deal with their own challenges and insecurities, and each character learned from their mistakes. Tae Rin was being set up to be a typical jealous character, so it was a nice turn when the writers chose to not push her down that path. We were given just enough to show that Tae Rin had her own stressors and pressure, and she was never downright malicious- she was simply jealous in a very human way. Once she started focusing on what she did well and the things she could do moving forwards, her negative feelings towards Seo Ri fell away, and she was just left with respect for a girl that had once been an outstanding violinist who was trying to find her feet after her life was derailed. Even Seo Ri’s Uncle, who seemed like he was going to be set up as the drama’s major villain, ended up just being a man who tried his hardest to support his family after tragedy struck. While in some dramas not having any antagonistic characters might be a downfall, I think it was to this drama’s benefit that all of its characters were presented as humane, realistic and understandable. 

What Wasn’t:

Holding Back:

All my teeny tiny complaints that I was able to make throughout this drama all pretty much came down to one thing- not a hell of a lot happened in the middle of this drama. The beginning was pretty action packed as we started off with the accident that impacted on all of our different characters. Then we moved on to the aftermath and watch our characters meet each other and start to develop their relationships. And then…nothing much.

I mean the character development was great, but some answers would have been cool

Seo Ri has some issues with realising that her skills have suffered during her unconsciousness. Woo Jin has some issues with his guilt. Chan has a noona crush. The show only had a few mysteries in it and it held onto those right until the end. The show teased Woo Jin finding out that Seo Ri was the girl he thought he’d killed SO many times, that I stopped believing it.

And I still don't get why Aunt had to ditch Seo Ri after Uncle died

Take Seo Ri going into the shed where Woo Jin’s drawing of her is- I should feel some tension here but I don’t, because something is obviously going to happen at the last minute to stop her from finding said drawing. Just like the last 500 times they’ve come close to finding out who the other is. It was a similar thing with Jennifer’s identity. The show seemed to be dropping ‘clues’ as to how Jennifer was involved, but all it was really doing was giving information we already knew. Wow- Jennifer might have some connection to the accident? Well that’s obvious because we’ve already seen her at the hospital during the aftermath. And again with Seo Ri’s Aunt. So, so, so, so, so many times they came close to crossing paths and just didn’t. So I kinda stopped caring. I’d been teased so many times that I stopped sniffing that candy the show was trying to taunt me with. Give it to me or don’t, I’m fine either way now. To be fair, when Woo Jin finally realised who Seo Ri was, and Jennifer's whole story was finally revealed, and Seo Ri finally met her Aunt, I enjoyed the way the story played out. I just found myself wishing that the show hadn’t decided to keep all its cards right to the end, and had spread some of the interest in the middle-stage of the drama.

Recommend?

If you’re in the mood for a slow, thoughtful drama, and don’t mind a story taking its time being told, this is a sweet drama that you’d probably enjoy.

Quirky yet loveable characters for a quirky yet loveable drama