Reply 1994
6.5/10
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| Reply 1994 |
Genre: Episodes:
21 Year: 2013
Romance
Comedy
Synopsis:
During 1994,
six university students from the country board together in Seoul. The six
boarders, and an additional almost-boarder, experience many life changing
events and everyday hassles in the ‘90s that lead them to where they are in
2013.
Cast:
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| Go Ara (Sung Na Jung) |
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| Jung Woo (Sseureki/Trash) |
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| Yoo Yeon Seok (Chil Bong) |
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| Kim Sung Kyun (Samchunpo) |
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| Son Ho Joon (Haetae) |
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| Baro (Binggeure) |
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| Min Do Hee (Jo Yoon Jin) |
General Thoughts:
I don’t really want to spend all my time making
a whole bunch of comparisons between ‘Reply 1997’ and ‘Reply 1994’. But I feel
like that’s where I’m headed. Sorry guys- but I need to vent. The show starts
off on the right foot and the right tone. We’re introduced to a delightfully
quirky girl who will be our main lead. She’s got some similarities to Shi Won
from the ’97 cast, but is different enough that we don’t feel like we’ve got
the same heroine but with a different face.
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| And to go with our heroine- a beautiful bunch of boys |
We then get introduced to her
family (oh hi there Mum and Dad from ’97!), which also includes the mysterious ‘oppa’,
and then all the boarding house buddies come along. It’s cute and interesting
that they are all from the country, bonding over being outsiders. And then the
only Seoul boy comes along and doesn’t feel like an insider to the group because
he’s not really an outsider to the city. Haha, poor Bongie.
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| Roomies and bromances are always a fun time |
The boarding house
was a great setting for our characters to interact in- it was a nice connection
between all our characters that was more intimate than simply ‘same degree uni
friends’. Speaking of uni- while I did love the boarding house aspect of the
story, I do wish we’d spent a bit more time actually at university. As it is,
hardly any of our characters get any screen time while they are in uni- which
seems weird because it should have been such a huge part of who our characters
were at the time. They didn’t have part time jobs (except for Binggeure in that
one episode), so technically their whole lives really should have revolved
around study. But we didn’t get to see any of that. Instead the writers choose
to focus on the central who’s-the-hubby mystery. Which is totally fine, it’s
why we came and we all know we're not going to get the answer to that until
right near the end. That being said, this plot point did become drastically
overused. In ’97 we had the ‘who’s the husband’ mystery take a backseat to a
lot of the other goings on- growing up and character development, but
unfortunately ’94 centred everything, literally everything, around the mystery.
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| We've all seen this game before |
This meant that a lot of character
development was sacrificed in order to maintain the mystery. Which wasn’t all
that great, because we’d all narrowed it down to two boys anyway. The side
romance between Samchunpo and Yoon Jin was always enjoyable to watch
(particularly in 2013) and was a delightful little distraction from the
increasing frustration and angst going on in our love triangle.
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| They always made me really want couple tees |
But the biggest
downfall of this drama is how long it is. It is 21 episodes and the episodes
range anywhere from about 60 to 100 minutes. Yikes. This means that all plot
points get dragged out for as loooooooong as possible. Similarly to ’97 we had
a bunch of great cameos and references- though I must admit, as a non-Korean
most of these flew right over my head, whereas I’d managed to grasp a lot more
of the ’97 cameos. The drama had the same nostalgic vibe as the original, but
again, focusing so much on the husband mystery meant that even a lot of the
specifically ‘90s moments were bypassed to give more screen time to red
herrings and meaningless ‘clues’. Honestly, apart from a few moments in the
series, it could have been taking place in any time in almost any country.
Thank goodness for the support cast though. Even though the scenes may be long
and development may be slow, the boarding house cast were just as endearing as
the original cast. Each character was beautifully unique with their own issues
moving forward and their own set of interesting, interwoven relationships. I
absolutely adored Son Ho Joon as Haetae in whatever scene he was in.
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| Haetae 4 eva <3 |
I wish he’d
gotten more screen time in the ridiculous amount of screen time we had, and
that we’d got a more thorough look-in on his friendship with Na Jung and how
that originated. Because the two of them had some pretty darn adorable scenes.
All in all, the drama was an acceptable follow up to the ’97 series- even if it
did start to drag after halfway.
What Was Great:
Good Female
Lead:
I love, love,
love confident, quirky female leads and the 'Reply' franchise did not disappoint
the second time around either. Sung Na Jung was brutally honest, aggressive and
a heroine we could all root for- played by the ever delightful Go Ara.
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| The picture pretty much speaks for itself |
Go Ara
was wonderful in every scene she was in, giving her all to acting, whether she
was in the spotlight for the scene or simply in the background- you never saw
her slip out of character. As Na Jung was really the only character we had any
clear insight into, it was fantastic that she was played by an actress that was
able to bypass the notion of wanting to appear pretty and desirable onscreen in
order to embrace her character fully. It gave us clear insight into who our
heroine was, and made her much easier to understand. Even if some of us don’t understand
her man choice.
1997 Cameos:
One of my
favourite things in the whole series were the occasional appearances of our ’97
cast. It was a hilarious and endearing way to tie the two series together and
give a look in on how our original cast was holding up. Every moment we had a ’97
cameo the show seemed to remember the quirky, offbeat vibe it had the first
time around, and it was an added blast of nostalgia into the already nostalgic series.
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| I MISSED YOU GUYS |
Unfortunately, many of these appearances did occur when the ‘94 plot was
starting to drag, and it did remind me how completely well thought out and
developed our characters were the first time around, and what a zippy, fun show '97 was. It made me realise just how much the writers were drawing everything
out here in '94.
What Wasn’t:
It’s Just Too
Long:
90% of this drama's issues stem from the fact that it was just far, far too long. There
was too much time to fill and not enough content to fill it.
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| Hoooo...still going, is it? |
We had ’97 that
had brief, quick-paced episodes that focused on one (maybe two) conflicts and
went as deep into those conflicts as you can go to evoke the biggest emotional
impact. Then we got '94 that dragged out every episode, trying to cram in four
or five weaving story points that were continually burdened by the idea that they
couldn’t give anything away- lest the entire husband mystery be ruined. By the
time we neared the end of the drama, it was just too exhausting having been
continually jerked around by the writers and given virtually no answers to
anything for 20 episodes, that I don’t think anyone actually cared who the
husband was anymore. I know all I felt at the end was relief that it was finally brought to a conclusion, and
frustration that my favourite wasn’t the husband. Apparently my favourites
never win in the ‘Reply’ series. Had the series stuck to shorter episodes,
it may have had a similar dynamic energy to '97, but as it was, it was more
like slow, sluggish crawl to the finish line.
Forgoing
Development for Mystery:
Apart from the
ridiculous amount of time the writers took to tell this story, my biggest beef
is that they decided to sacrifice large amounts of character development in
order to keep the husband mystery going. Which may not have been the case had
the drama not been so insanely long. See how all our problems tie into one
another?
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| By episode two we could already rule out 3 of the 5... |
Because the central mystery had to be dragged out for such a long
period of time, there were certain aspects of our characters that we were not
invited to witness. Much of Oppa (Sseureki)’s thought processes and feelings
were hidden from us, and were revealed far too late in the story to have the
strong, heart wrenching impact we wanted.
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| Just tell us who you are, Oppa! |
Small things like the fact that he’d
studied neuroscience because Na Jung’s real brother died of a brain tumor could
have been revealed to us much earlier on and received a massive emotional response- but it was revealed far too late to
have much of an impact on how his character was viewed. Which is sad, because
that is a huge part of who that character is, and us viewers were left to
construct an understanding of who this man is without a rather vital piece of
information. I mean, this guy has basically centred his whole life around the
impact his friend’s death had on him- and yet we were given none of this juicy,
character-developing information. It was a similar story with Chil Bong. Very
late in the piece we were provided with the information that this poor boy has
basically had no one to rely on his whole life, and that the boarding house was
the closest thing to a real family he’d ever had. And so many of Chil Bong’s scenes would have had that extra emotional
impact had we known this earlier on.
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| Had to be shirtless so often to make up for the fact that he was barely in the drama |
The first time Chil Bong hesitantly called
Lee Il Hwa ‘eomeoni’ he wasn’t doing it purely to try and fit in with the rest
of the country kids, but also because he was searching for a mother-figure that
he’d never really had before. But we don’t totally realise this until much
later when the depth of his familial isolation is revealed to us. It’s a
similar story with the department store collapse. In the scene where Na Jung
cries and hugs him because she thought he may have died, Chil Bong stands
there- mildly shocked, but a little pleased. Originally, I attributed his small
smile to the fact that he was happy that Na Jung was hugging him and showing
that she cared for him in one way or another.
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| I'm just a sucker for the handsome-idiot types |
But again it’s MUCH LATER that we’re given the voiceover and flashback
that suggest that Chil Bong was touched by this gesture, not because it was his
crush hugging him, but because there was someone, anyone, who was concerned enough about his safety to worry and be
brought to tears. It was massively frustrating that all these emotional character
reveals were provided in the final hour rather than just being revealed
naturally as the show progressed- which is what ’97 did so well and what made
audiences become so invested in the characters. In ’94, by the time we’re
actually given enough information to actually connect with our characters, it’s too
late. Because it’s been over 25 hours and we’ve all emotionally clocked out.
There were some cases where this was the case for our support characters as
well, though to a much lesser extent than with our two main husband candidates.
Binggeure’s struggle with who he was attracted to was an interesting story to
go into- and I wished the writers had allowed his feelings to be more clearly
presented. Because it was devastatingly obvious that he wasn’t the husband in this equation. I would
have loved if the drama had more adequately explored his struggle and confused
feelings between Oppa and Die-Die. Lord knows we had the time.
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| This could have been such a captivating story arc |
It wasn’t even
made expressly clear that he had
romantic feelings for Oppa- but it was rather heavily hinted at even if it was
never said out loud. But on the other hand we had his feelings for Die-Die be
expressed in what he was saying (either in voiceover or at drinking gatherings)
but not in what was being shown to the audience. Which left his final decision
a little confussing- because until Die-Die was on the scene we hadn’t even
known poor Binggeure was confused at all. We just thought he was ashamed or embarrassed.
Again, hiding the character’s emotions only served to lessen the impact of what
should have been an important emotional scene. Rather than feeling happy and
touched when Binggeure referred to Oppa as ‘hyung’ for the first time- it was
just mildly perplexing.
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| Look how happy our '97 couple is. Swoon. |
What the ’97 drama was able to do really well was to pull
meaningful, heart-warming messages out of mundane, everyday events- and
unfortunately the ’94 drama missed out on that quite a bit by choosing to focus
their whole story around love, rather than having our characters grow and
mature and have their relationships change based on their growing independence
and self-awareness.
Awkward
Triangle:
Something that ‘Reply
1997’ was able to handle so well was the delicate balance of the love triangle.
Making two brothers fall for the same girl meant that the angst would be
heavier, but that the awkwardness would quickly be forgotten if the boys could handle it well. Unfortunately, ‘Reply
1994’ wasn’t able to handle the balance as well as its predecessor.
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| Head-to-head confrontation |
Due to the
husband mystery being the central plotline for everything that happens in the series, it meant our two main boys
were constantly vying for the leading space in our heroine’s heart. A little competition never hurt anyone- in fact it was Chil Bong’s declaration that actually got
Oppa off his ass to respond to Na Jung’s confession, but after that the
relationship dynamics fell flat. Because there had been no other relationship
between the boys except for rivalry, there was awkwardness there when Oppa and
Na Jung started dating. Because Na Jung had never actually considered Chil Bong
in a romantic sense, this also caused awkwardness to bloom in their
relationship as well. Perhaps the most frustrating part of the whole love
triangle fiasco was that all three of our triangle characters were rarely in
the same place at the same time. For the first few episodes where we’re getting
to (sort of) know our characters and relationships are just starting, everyone
is together. But then Oppa heads down to Busan. And Chil Bong goes to Japan.
Then Oppa comes back. Then Chil Bong is in the USA. Then Na Jung is in
Australia. Then she’s in Seoul. And Chil Bong is in Seoul. No wait, there goes Chil
Bong back to the USA. I appreciated the moving around as a result of the
job crisis in Korea- but it had a weird and whacky impact on the love plotline.
Because the love was such a central part of the story, even when our characters
were involved in the bankruptcy of Korea (which was actually super interesting
and had a very unique effect on a select group of people- those just graduating
and entering the workforce), the writers chose to focus more on romantic
relationships rather than adjusting to new jobs and whatnot. The real bummer
was- I only really enjoyed watching Oppa and Na Jung’s romance when Chil Bong
was nowhere around.
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| Only cute in the absence of Bongie |
Not once did I truly root for Oppa when Chil Bong was on
the scene. Which is a little disappointing considering that Oppa is our main
male lead- I wish the writers had managed to construct his character in a way
that I wanted him to be happy even when Chil Bong was in the mix. But I didn’t.
Oppa seemed to make all the wrong moves- keeping his feelings a secret, keeping
the girl at a distance, not communicating effectively- and yet he still got the
girl. Whereas Bongie seemed to do everything right- he confessed and was
honest, and always supported Na Jung.
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| First Yoon Tae Woong, now Chil Bong |
I suppose it’s true to life that love
doesn’t follow what logically should work- but the writers here just made Chil
Bong far too damn loveable. The joy of this franchise is that we start in the
present- so one way or another we know everyone remains friends and ends up
happy. AND YET in the very last episode, there seemed to be a distinct
awkwardness between Chil Bong and Oppa, which was unfortunate and unwanted. The constant
yo-yoing between the boys also meant that it was extremely likely that all viewers would have one particular favourite, whether it be Chil Bong or Oppa- three
guesses who my fav was. Sadly, this means that there’s a good chance that
around 50% of the viewers are going to be bitterly disappointed. Unlike in ’97 where
we had two likeable men making their feelings known to the audience and our
heroine, who both had a fairly even shot at being the final husband. You just
felt the writers’ hand too heavily in ’94 in the way the two boys swayed in and
out of Na Jung’s life- we all knew we were being baited over, and over, and
over again. And eventually that stops being fun.
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| If you want to try and blindside me- at least do it properly |
Honestly at one point I sincerely
hoped that the two main boys were the biggest fake-out ever seen and that Na
Jung ended up marrying Haetae. I think some part of me still wishes that had
happened.
Re-watch?
I don’t think I
have enough lifespan left to watch that whole drama again. While it definitely had
its beautiful, shining moments, those moments were buried under a pile of
meaningless, time-wasting episodes with no development for our plot or
characters.
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| Though the closing of the boarding house did make me unexpectedly sad |
