Girl's Generation 1979

Girl’s Generation 1979

5/10

Girl's Generation 1979

Genre:                                                Episodes: 8                                   Year: 2017

School

Romance

Synopsis:

Lee Jung Hee is a high school girl in South Korea in the ‘70s. She has a crush on her senior, Sohn Jin, but the dynamics in her country town shift when Jung Hye Joo, a transfer student from Seoul, arrives.

Cast:

Bona (Lee Jung Hee)

Chae Soo Jin (Jung Hye Joo)

Seo Young Joo (Bae Dong Moon)

Lee Jong Hyun (Joo Young Choon)

Yeo Hwe Hyun (Sohn Jin)

Min Do Hee (Shim Ae Sook)

Jo Byung Gyu (Lee Bong Soo)

Kwon Hae Hyo (Jung Hee's Father)

Kim Sun Young (Jung Hee's Mother)

Park Ha Na (Jung Hee's Maid)

General Thoughts:

I didn’t love the show, in fact I barely even liked it, but I do think that’s partly my fault. I went in with pretty high expectations. It seemed like the sort of drama that would be widely ignored but would end up being a great little show with a small, yet dedicated, following. And that didn’t really happen. While the show definitely had its charming moments, I can't deny that the whole thing came across a tad more juvenile than I’d been expecting.

I wanted more friendships and less romance

I guess when you cast an actor that’s nearly 30 in one of the prominent roles (I actually even mistakingly thought he was the lead before starting) I’m just expecting a slightly more mature vibe than what we were given. I think my mistake in thinking Jong Hyun Oppa was our leading man got me off on the wrong foot for this drama. For 1, I was endlessly confused at how little screen time he was a getting and 2, I was put off Hye Joo’s crush for him because I thought that he was (somehow) going to go for Jung Hee.

As usual- looking great

I mean, I figured it out pretty quickly, but by that time I’d sort of got a feel for how I thought the drama would go, so it felt weird when it didn’t go that way. I freely admit that this is all my fault, as the drama in no way made it seem as if Oppa was the lead. On a side note, I was pretty annoyed at how little interaction Young Choon as a character got with anyone who wasn't Hye Joo or Ae Sook. For a show that seemed to be wanting the friendship of the girls to be its main selling point, I personally thought that the friendship wasn’t that great. I mean, for most of the show’s run Jung Hee doesn’t even like Hye Joo. While there were some cute moments between the girls, I never really felt them connect until right at the end. Jung Hee never really stood up for Hye Soo in school that much, and neither of the girls really communicated when things went wrong. A lot of the development I was wanting between the girls was actually happening between Hye Joo and Young Choon. Rather than going to her friend Jung Hee for help (as girls tend to do), Hye Joo was running to her crush, Young Choon. It did further the romantic development between the two, but I couldn’t help feeling that it was also barring Jung Hee from becoming a truly reliable friend.

I thought we were trying to build a friendship here people

All instances where Jung Hee was willing to put aside her jealousy and help Hye Joo out, Hye Joo never asked for help, and before long Jung Hee was growing jealous again. The jealousy was something I understood and I appreciated that the show went there. It risked making Jung Hee seem petty and selfish, but for me it made her character feel more real. It’s a general rule of thumb that high school girls don’t like new girls.

She's kinda petty and kinda rude, but I still like her

Especially when they’re pretty and smart. And definitely not when their crush is crushing on the new girl. I was looking forward to seeing what it was that would bridge the jealousy and bring the two together as friends. Hye Joo’s father being a communist and getting arrested was a pretty good start, but as I mentioned before, the girls never really got the opportunity to support each other through that on screen. While Jung Hee had some pretty prominent negative points (pettiness, jealousy, occasional rudeness), she was such a typical teenage girl that it was relatable. She thought the world revolved around her and anything that didn’t go her way was just the peak of unfairness. Most people, even if they’d like to deny it, felt that way when they were teenagers. To balance those traits, Jung Hee had a bunch of good personality points. She was loyal, spoke her mind, was wonderfully innocent, and disliked injustice. Despite how jealous she was of Hye Joo, Jung Hee never delighted in any of Hye Joo’s suffering. When she saw Hye Joo having a hard time she wanted to help and felt conflicted due to her initial dislike of Hye Joo.

I mean, who likes their romantic rival?

Even though Ae Sook gave her a hard time at school and pushed her around, Jung Hee spoke out against her father when he threatened Ae Sook and forced her to kneel. Jung Hee was perfectly realistic in her balance of good and negative traits. Cosmic Girls’ Bona did a wonderful job at giving Jung Hee life, and excellently balanced her character’s mix of traits. Jung Hee could have very easily been an annoying character, but Bona gave such a sweetness and innocence to the character that you couldn’t help but like her.

Equal parts cute and crazy

I also think Bona did well at expressing Jung Hee’s conflicted feelings regarding Hye Joo. Despite Jung Hee often doing nothing, Bona always made sure we as an audience knew that Jung Hee was seriously considering stepping up before deciding not to, and obviously feeling some level of regret after. I found Hye Joo to be a less fun character than Jung Hee. She was just too perfect. And I know that’s kind of the point, but she was perfect to the point that it wasn’t believable.

Cue exasperated groaning

She’s smart (like, top of the nation smart), pretty, and nice. All in the extreme. Like, she’s not just nice, she’s super, ridiculously, stupidly nice. No one is this nice. Except for maybe Gandhi, but she was way prettier than Gandhi. And to top it all off she was loved by everyone. Boys would flock to the girls’ school to get a look at her, her father adored her, and the girls (except for a few) idolised her. She was perfect to the point it was exasperating. She was constructed as such a perfect character that I actually had a hard time feeling bad for her when she was struggling, it was just kinda like ‘welcome to the real world, princess’. Which is mean yes, and wouldn’t be my response to a real person, but Hye Joo just didn’t seem like a real person at all. She was shown to have no negative qualities whatsoever. It’s hard to really say whether Chae Soo Jin did a good job acting Hye Joo or not because I was so disinterested with the character and didn’t pay much attention. The role wasn’t one that required a lot of effort or skill, as all Chae Soo Jin had to do was smile and act nice with the occasional tear here and there. I mean, she wasn’t bad, it’s just that she didn’t really add anything to a bland role to make it memorable.

She seemed pretty keen to trade in her father for a boyfriend anyway

The flip side of Hye Joo is Sohn Jin. While he was constructed with a similar sort of level of perfection, he was also shown to have flaws. While Jin was smart, cute and well loved he never really came across as nice. It felt like he liked the attention, and he liked girls fawning over him so he put on an air. Early on he was seen to be pretty possessive of girls’ affections, even when he wasn’t interested in them.

I didn't like him much, but he was an interesting character

Even though Jin liked Hye Joo and had no desire to date Jung Hee, he still didn’t want Dong Moon to date her either. He also had some pretty serious trouble trying to come to terms with the fact that Hye Joo didn’t like him. It was clear that he loved being loved, and that sort of arrogance and self-importance were enough to balance out his good qualities and make him seem like a real person. Yeo Hwe Hyun acted the character well, but similarly to Chae Soo Jin he didn’t really stand out. There was nothing that made the character uniquely his, and another actor could have done the job just the same. As for our hero, I won’t lie, I wasn’t a fan. There was nothing about Dong Moon that made him all that likeable. I found his persistence with Jung Hee was more annoying than it was cute, and I actually found him to be quite obtrusive. I guess you could say the same about Jung Hee in the way she followed Jin around, but I argue that Jin encouraged those sorts of behaviours whereas Jung Hee did not. Jin often spent time with Jung Hee, called her cute, took her out to eat, and always told her he’d see her again.

Master of keeping hopes up

However, Jung Hee repeatedly told Dong Moon she didn’t want him following her around, explicitly said that she didn’t want him interfering with her relationship with Jin, and drew a clear line in the sand. And yet Dong Moon was constantly crossing that line. While he was just following her for himself (which still sounds creepy), it was kind of passable, because it just came across as a dorky guy wanting to see his crush.

No means no and if you can't respect that we're gonna have problems

However, once Dong Moon started following Jung Hee so that he could actively interfere with her relationship with Jin it became far less acceptable. I mean, Jung Hee has clearly expressed that she has no interest in dating him, yet he still thinks he has the right to meddle in her love life? No thanks. The show was trying to pass Dong Moon’s behaviours off as cute and endearing, but they were just too stalkerish for my taste. If this drama was ‘Cheese in the Trap’ he’d be that weird creeper who stalked the heroine. Just because he’s the hero of the drama, it doesn’t magically make his mildly creepy moves into cute ones. And I just don’t think Dong Moon was consistent as a character. When we first meet him he’s dorky and all kinds of awkward with no real confidence. I have no idea where he got the nerve to follow this girl around and continue making advances on her even when she blatantly shuts him down. Like, that’s pretty bold for a nervy high schooler. As much as I didn’t like Dong Moon as a character, I will say that Seo Young Joo did a pretty good job acting him out.

But those glasses were hard to stomach

He was excellent at being the awkward dork, and did pretty well at making behaviours that weren’t exactly consistent with his character type seem more natural on screen. Although Dong Moon was 100% not my kind of hero, I can see why he, and the actor behind him, got a lot of love from some of the viewers.

I wish I was on board for this romance, but I'm just not

The person I was most excited to see was definitely Lee Jong Hyun (because I love him), but he was pretty non-existent here. The only time he really made it on screen was when he was helping Hye Joo with whatever she needed, and then I was pretty bummed because it was always at a point in the series where I wished Hye Joo would confide in Jung Hee. I wouldn’t say it was the best performance he’s ever given, but he was on par with everyone else in the show. But his love-line…I just wasn’t on board with it. It kind of annoyed me that he went from being so indifferent to Hye Joo to being completely in love with her. Especially because what first caught his attention was hearing that she was from a good family and a top student. It just felt a bit shallow. I was also a bit bummed that him liking her meant that Hye Joo got everything. Yeah her Dad was a communist and whatnot, but the show placed so much more weight on her crush that her winning Young Choon’s heart overshadowed her father being arrested. She was not only perfect, but she got to have her cake and eat it too.

I wish all the characters got a bit more development than they did

I could see how these personalities and situations would work in a manhwa, but I just think that nothing much was added when it was converted into live action, so the whole show just came off a bit cartoonish.

What Was Great:

The ‘70s:

I haven’t seen a lot of dramas that take place in Korea in the ‘60s or 70s. I think the closest I’ve gotten is ‘Reply 1988’.

Though some things don't change

For someone who’s grown up in a different country it’s so interesting to see the differences in culture. Sure, I wasn’t alive for the ‘70s here either, but I’ve seen it a lot through Brittish and American media. One of my favourite things about this drama was seeing what Korea was like in the ‘70s, because I really had no clue about it. The military inclusions in school were fascinating to see, as it’s something that I never would have thought of. The girls were learning how to march in lines, treat injuries in case of war, and spot communists. I had no idea that there was a curfew on regular citizens, and the extreme sexism was something that surprised me. This drama was only set about 40 years ago, and yet there were so many differences. It really highlighted how far the country has come in such a short time. I mean, Jung Hee and her mother didn’t even eat at the same table as her father and brother. It was these sort of inclusions that really made it feel as though this story was taking place in a different time. As much as music and dress can express these differences, it’s the small details that really sell the era.

The patriarchy was kind of shocking

What Wasn’t:

Crushes:

The whole plot of this drama centred around who was crushing on who, with not a lot extra thrown in.

It was aaaaaall about who liked who

Hye Joo’s struggles due to her communist father could have been something really fascinating to look at, and I think you still could have had that lighthearted, school vibe while also exploring a more unique topic. Despite how the drama was set in the ’70s, it really could have been a modern drama, because there was nothing in the plot that made it ‘70s- only the details. Which is a bummer, because as I’ve just mentioned, one of my favourite aspects of this drama was how it was set in the past. Instead all we got were school kid crushes. Jung Hee liked Jin. Jin liked Hye Joo. Hye Joo liked Young Choon. Young Choon liked Hye Joo. Jin switched to liking Jung Hee. Dong Moon likes Jung Hee. Jung Hee switches to liking Dong Moon. Boom. That’s the whole drama right there.

Recommend?

Look, if you like mildly silly, kind of childish shows go for it. I’d say if you’re the type of person who enjoyed ‘The Liar and His Lover’ (for the story not the music) this show would probably be right up your alley. Otherwise, I advise you read the synopsis, look at a few screenshots, and move on with your K-Drama viewing.

I wish there'd been more girl bonding