Record of Youth

Fun watch but left me irritated.

I absolutely hate endings like this and breaking up in the 15th-16th episode. The leads have fought so hard to be where they are in the relationship. But let's do some incredibly lazy writing and have them break up for some incredibly stupid reason.
The series started off really well, then got slow in the middle, and then you could see the breakup coming several episodes back. I could watch it build up and was so disappointed. Give the couple a real reason to break up, and then don't put them back together in the last five minutes or show them overcoming their issues.
I also had trouble with the FL and second ML having a relationship. She knew he liked her, but instead of cutting it off and moving on, she continued to lead him on. It was an emotional affair - cheating.
I found the second couple's relationship much more realistic. They had to hide their relationship from the parents and finally broke up because of it, and I found both of them charming.

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My First Healing Drama

The haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate.

I swear I almost didn't watch ROY for all the bad rep it got here on MDL. I am so glad I ignored all that and watched this beautifully written show. Obviously, I wanted to watch PBG and PSD on screen again...both incredibly talented actors.

I love going into a show with as little info as possible...most of the time, I want to be surprised and I want the story to tell itself so I was pretty amazed to discover that this was less of a romance drama and more of a slice of life piece. If you love poems, this is the kind of show that opens up your mind like poems do - with the weight of the words and the waves of emotions. This show was my first ever healing drama. It reached down deep and my own emotions came to the surface.

This could only have happened with the great acting, particularly by Park Bo-Gum as Hye-Jun. We all sort of want to achieve sth really really badly. It doesn't usually matter why...you just hope that you could live a life where all your dreams could come true. But what ends up happening to us is life and the reality that everything comes at a cost. This very real aspect of life was intertwined so intricately into the show and came to a head when An Jeong-Ha said to Hye-Jun. "are you happy now? You have everything that you ever wanted..," (I paraphrase).

I will admit that I am not a big fan of slice-of-life. I come to dramas to escape reality but this show has an underlying note of hope and that's why at the end you are grateful that all your projected emotions bring a sense of "its okay..it didn't work out the way I thought it would but that's also okay". I have had it said that there were far too many side characters that were not well developed. In my opinion, we had a healthy dose of the different relationships with family and friends and with co-workers and with people you just happened to meet so that we had a beautiful picture of the whole. I still appreciated the growth in Hye-Jun's family and how that affected him.

I could talk the whole day about this drama so I'll just summarise here that this was top-notch acting from the leads, the writing and dialogue were superb and it was slice-of-life the way slice-of-life should be done plus the music was beautiful.

9/10.

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Not Enough Of A Return On My Time Investment

The relationship between Hye Joon and Jung Ha was the central pillar of this series. I slogged through all the episodes (lots of fast-forwarding during the last couple) and felt robbed of a romantic ending, my expected reward. I have a hard time swallowing the "realism" of the ending when the entire story is a fantasy to begin with. Yes, there were a few foreshadowing moments and it was clear that Jung Ha wasn't really ready for a long-term relationship. I guess I don't take much joy from depictions of failed relationships.

Too many product placements! Hurrah for BMW and Subway, among others.

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Interesting and had a good start! Lackluster ending, unfortunately, and almost none of the character arcs had a good wrap up. I think this drama was meant to be more slice of life than it advertised itself, and than it began. It almost had the semblance of a plot.

However I feel that things came too easily to the main couple, that they lacked chemistry except for in one scene, and that the hardships the ML went through were extremely unrealistic and overplayed. It's not a waste of time to watch this, but I can't fully recommend it and it's definitely not worth a rewatch. Unfortunately somewhere in the middle it lost all the momentum it had built up and went into rapid decline.

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had potential but fell flat

loved the main cast!! but there were sooo many characters to hate lmfao the balance among characters that i liked and disliked was not good or i’d have given it a higher rating. i was too annoyed with some characters in every episode to fully enjoy myself

there were also lots of plots happening and i know the point is to show growth and character development but i feel like i didn’t get enough from hyejun and jeongha. i wish we dived into their relarionship more before we showed hyejun getting busy and them distancing from each other. we barely get any indication from either of them that their relationship is being affected by hyejun’s fame/schedule bc neither of them really discuss their issues w each other like a normal couple 😖just a couple sad glances and sighs here and there. a missed call and scenes with haehyo stepping in bc bro is so jobless 😭😭 it’s so frustrating that they don’t talk things out but i might just be biased bc i hate when couples don’t properly communicate w each other lmfao

anyway it was a decent series and i absolutely love the brotherhood of the 3 main male leads. i wish jeongha had more support from women so she could have her own people to lean on without having to be too independent, but i know it’s part of her character. it would’ve been nice to see her open up to her friends too and learning how to count on other people without getting the ick from what her mother has been like

this was my first park bo-gum exposure and i’ll be tuning in to his next projects!! officially a fan now hehe :p

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I was disappointed and I just wanted more

There is nothing wrong with a drama being overdramatic, as long as the overdramatic adds to the storyline or actually pertains to the story. In this case, I felt like there was too much drama that was just somewhat meaningless. The male lead, Park Bo-Gum or Hye-jun, after starting to get famous kept on running into problems and honestly, after a while it just got boring. I did not feel like it added to his character or make him a stronger person, just a huge lack of character development.

Let's talk about the poster for the show itself, I felt was not really even focusing on who the show was really about. The poster makes it seem like its about those three characters mainly, when in reality, it was really about Park Bo-Gum's character, I mean even at some point the female lead gets pushed to the side. Speaking of the female lead, Park So-Dam or Jeong-ha, there was also a huge lack of character development with her or really any other character in the show. Specifically with her, we were clued into her family problems and how those issues have lead to her being cautious when it comes to romantic relationships, but those issues were never addressed. The FL continued to just be in the dark alone with her own thoughts and continued to be upset alone while the ML knew nothing about it because he assumed she was fine and that they were happy together. That was what made me hate their relationship even more, they never really knew what the other was thinking because they never spoke about their problems or when they were upset. Byeon Woo-Seok or Hae-yo, the last person in the poster for the show, I thought in a way was the only character to actually change. Hae-yo is depicted as being in love with the FL even though she has a boyfriend, but he continues to just be her friend. As the ML gets more popular than he does, we start to see a change in Hae-yo's character, we see him struggle jealousy, anger, reality. We finally see him come face to face with the fact that he has not made it this far on his own but because he has had a helping hand the whole way. He was the only character I felt actually developed over the course of the show, he struggled very much with self esteem issues and being insecure but near the end, he started to realize that he wanted to take total control of his own life, and he proceeded to do so.

Overall, I felt the show lacked in some areas. It was fun to watch at the beginning but I would say that at about episode 8 or so, it just went down hill from there. But I mean everyone has their own opinion. :)

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I don’t understand the bad reviews

I’m not going around and writing reviews for every drama I watch. Either I like it or I don’t. I was very disappointed with all the bad reviews on this drama. I felt it was good. Very realistic. Not every drama has to have a soapy ending and not every story needs to be spelled out into details. I think it will drag the story and it will get boring pretty quickly. The actors did an excellent job portraying their characters and their life experiences. It was interesting to see how vicious the entertainment industry can be and how damaging the trolls comments can be to an actor’s life when all they’re trying to do it’s their dream job which is to entertain us. In the process, you’ll need to make sacrifices since life is not peaches and roses; you’ll also have your great supporters because they believe in you and the one ones the hate your choices because they think you’re making a mistake with your life choices. This has been one of the most realistic refreshing drama I’ve seen in 2020.

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This could have been so much better.... but a letdown in the end

I really liked the synopsis on Netflix and decided to give it a go. Didn't ready anything about the drama beforehand, no reviews, no comments... took a dive right in.
I really enjoyed myself, this is a good time drama about love, friendship, the importance of family and that sometimes the good guys win.
OK, I concede that there isn't really a lot of drama here, no real angst, people stay in their lane and you can feel nothing bad or too dangerous is going to happen, in other words, a relaxed and good time.

Spoiled by a rushed ending that wasn't all that satisfying (to me anyways). When I invest 16 full hours into a drama, I don't want anything left to chance, I want my stories (main and side) wrapped up (positive or negative). Is that really too much to ask? I'm not asking for pink bow-tied rainbow endings, but a thorough last episode. This Drama did not give us that, leaving me hungry for more.
As a result, I deducted a full point.

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Disappointing

There isn't much to discuss; it would have been better as a 12-episode series. I ended up fast-forwarding through the second half just to finish it. The ending was lackluster, and many storylines were left unresolved or forgotten. The only consistent aspect was the military enlistment of the male leads. It's disappointing because I was genuinely intrigued and enjoyed the first half of the series.
































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Tissues please!

i cried the whole last 2 episodes and didn't got this emotional relief that my heart needed after going through all this sadness of the characters, especially the Lost of the one and only Love and not giving it back in a way that gives my heart conclusion.
That's why i didn't gave 10.

BUT
I loved this series VERY VERY VERY much❣️🫶🏻❣️

Loved the friendships, all the characters, the places and Music 🫰🏻

Just watching BoGummy is pure Joy. His face alone is satisfaction pure.
His acting Skillz are A M A Z I N G ❣️

While watching i quiet often asked myself: is he portraying his own Life, or experiences?😵

This series made me think a lot..... about this very difficult times these Idols/Stars have to go through for real. I felt very much for each and one of them, not be able to live their true, authentic selfs and live free.

Well, thank you very much for entertaining me so well.

Kamsahamnida 🙌🏻💜🙌🏻

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