Reply 1994

Reply 1994

6.5/10

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:

Go Ara (Sung Na Jung)

Jung Woo (Sseureki/Trash)

Yoo Yeon Seok (Chil Bong)

Kim Sung Kyun (Samchunpo)

Son Ho Joon (Haetae)

Baro (Binggeure)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Though the closing of the boarding house did make me unexpectedly sad