Splendid Days (2025)

Una promessa mancata

Our Golden Days parte con un’intensità sorprendente. Fino al dodicesimo episodio ero completamente conquistata:
“Sono arrivata all’episodio 12 — ne mancano ancora 38 — ma già posso dire che questa serie mi sta piacendo moltissimo. Non capisco davvero il punteggio così basso che ha ricevuto finora.”

La storia iniziale è forte e commovente. Seguiamo un capofamiglia sessantenne in crisi, che dopo la pensione non riesce a trovare un nuovo lavoro per sostenere la moglie, i tre figli adulti e la madre novantenne. Sullo sfondo di una Corea dove giovani e anziani faticano a tirare avanti, la serie racconta le difficoltà economiche e personali con un realismo che colpisce.

Accanto a lui, le vite di tre amici universitari ormai adulti si intrecciano mentre cercano di conciliare sogni, responsabilità e desideri. Nei primi episodi tutto è scritto con cura: dialoghi intelligenti, ottime interpretazioni, personaggi complessi, profondamente umani, e una famiglia che funziona davvero.

- genitori presenti,
- sacrificio reciproco,
- cura degli anziani,
- figli trattati con rispetto,
- quotidianità credibile e piena di calore.

Tanto che già allora mi sentivo di consigliarla senza esitazioni, rammaricandomi persino per i problemi della traduzione italiana (con frequenti errori maschile/femminile in diversi episodi): “NOTA PER I TRADUTTORI: riguardate gli errori, ce ne sono tantissimi…”

Proprio questa solidità iniziale rende ancora più evidente ciò che accade dopo.

Dopo il dodicesimo episodio, infatti, la serie cambia improvvisamente tono. Il rapporto tra Ji-Hyeok e suo padre — fino a quel momento costruito su rispetto e comprensione reciproca — si spezza in modo artificiale.
Il padre diventa rigido e incapace di ascoltare.
Il figlio, pur volendogli bene, smette di comunicare del tutto.

È una frattura che non nasce dai personaggi, ma dalla sceneggiatura: un conflitto imposto dall’esterno per creare tensione, e si sente.

Procedendo verso il ventesimo episodio, la freschezza iniziale evapora:
- scene ripetute,
- discussioni interminabili,
- reazioni esagerate,
- assenza di progressione narrativa.

La serie scivola lentamente in un melodramma stanco e ripetitivo, svuotando di senso i valori familiari e la delicatezza emozionale che l’avevano resa così speciale all’inizio.

A quel punto, arrivare al ventunesimo episodio è quasi un atto di resistenza.
La caduta qualitativa è troppo evidente, e la sceneggiatura non riesce a sostenere la lunghezza del drama.

Our Golden Days avrebbe potuto essere un weekend drama splendido: famiglia realistica, protagonisti interessanti, dialoghi maturi, vera umanità.

Ma la mancanza di coerenza nei conflitti e il progressivo abbandono della dimensione più autentica rendono la seconda metà sempre più pesante.

Droppare non è stato un capriccio. È stata una scelta inevitabile dopo un inizio davvero “dorato”.
- - -
A Broken Promise
Our Golden Days starts with surprising intensity. Up to episode twelve, I was completely won over:
“I'm at episode 12 — there are still 38 left — but I can already say that I’m really enjoying this series. I honestly don’t understand the low rating it has received so far.”
The opening story is powerful and moving. We follow a sixty-year-old family man in crisis who, after retirement, can’t find a new job to support his wife, his three adult children, and his ninety-year-old mother. Against the backdrop of a Korea where both young and old struggle to get by, the series depicts economic and personal hardships with striking realism.
Alongside him, the lives of three former university friends intertwine as they try to balance dreams, responsibilities, and desires. In the early episodes, everything is carefully crafted: intelligent dialogues, excellent performances, complex and deeply human characters, and a family dynamic that truly works.

- present and supportive parents
- mutual sacrifice
- care for the elderly
- children treated with respect
- a believable, warm everyday life

Back then, I already felt confident recommending it without hesitation, even regretting the issues with the Italian subtitles (with frequent masculine/feminine errors across several episodes):
“NOTE TO THE TRANSLATORS: please review the mistakes — there are so many of them…”
And it’s precisely this initial strength that makes what happens next even more evident.
After episode twelve, the series suddenly changes tone. The relationship between Ji-Hyeok and his father — until then built on respect and mutual understanding — breaks apart in an artificial way.
The father becomes rigid and unable to listen.
The son, though he loves him, stops communicating altogether.
It’s a fracture that doesn’t grow organically from the characters but from the script: a conflict imposed from the outside to create tension — and it shows.
Heading toward episode twenty, the initial freshness evaporates:

- repeated scenes
- endless arguments
- exaggerated reactions
- no real narrative progression

The series slowly slides into a tired, repetitive melodrama, draining the family values and emotional subtlety that had made the beginning so special.
At that point, reaching episode twenty-one becomes almost an act of endurance.
The drop in quality is too obvious, and the script simply can’t sustain the drama’s length.
Our Golden Days could have been a wonderful weekend drama: realistic family dynamics, interesting protagonists, mature dialogues, genuine humanity.
But the lack of coherence in the conflicts and the gradual abandonment of its authentic tone make the second half increasingly heavy.
Dropping it wasn’t a whim. It was an inevitable choice after such a truly “golden” beginning.

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Has potential but misses the mark

Our Golden Days had potential but imo totally went off.... It was supposed to be a great commentary on unemployment, seniors having to work, women's rights, women at work force, women in relationships, jerky blind males coming to their senses, about family conflict and sacrifices, what do parents owe to their kids, what do kids owe to their parents, about reconciling parents and children, stern idiotic proud fathers, bad mothers, criminals, what do adopted childrren owe to their real and surrogate parents, friendship, etc etc etc, etc. IT HAD GREAT POTENTIAL as it raised sooo many relevant issues..... and them imo flopped. The script did not present the issues well, FL could not act, ML/FL were practically the only ones on the screen - and the moron cemented Dad - and the filming made it too draggy...

I stopped watching Our Golden Days. I bailed out when FL just had to donate her liver. Pfsk. The third KBS weekender with young ppl donating their livers to some doozies. Now ML has to get a donated heart...

The best parts were Soo Bin - Soon Jae and Ye Ra - Youngest Brother pairs.... but they recently got removed... The family is telling their grown daughter she cannot date this guy bc he was divorced and his family is not nice and they dont want her to suffer - but all her life they kept her in poverty to pay hospital bills for the drunken grandpa... !!!!! It is like .. brain dead hypocritical family. I just had to quit watching that.
FL-ML pair never worked out bc FL actress cannot act and the script was not in their favor.

Also the trope of a toxic disfunctional family that messed up their kids - they put all money and attention into saving the grandpa who willingly engaged in reckless activities and kept causing more and more hospital bills!!! and the family heads, their kids, paid it all and disadvantaged their kids, aka the grandchildren, for life - but then the same adults want to dictate who kids marry bc it is so important for kids' happiness... !!! Bologney. It killed SB-SJ pair that was so fun to watch. And Webtoon-Bodyguard couple also got killed...

FL is acted as a snide cynical cold person and I think it misses the point.. I really dislike the FL actress lack of acting skills...

Our Golden Days has a lot of potential but just never took off bc some conservative film makers always push it back into soapy dumb trash.

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Sorry for length I was just rambling on, I have no time to polish this



It was very ... rough. It was so ... harsh, macho, lots of melodrama, all miscommunications, ... Bad script... FL on the screen a lot and cannot act... .The Father on the screen a lot as a totally clueless poker faced cemented old geezer closed mind character... ML a lot on the screen as a jerk....

Our Golden Days made some mistakes.. it had just a few actors and focused mostly on ML and FL on the screen but then it gave awful script to ML and made him a jerk for too long, and FL actress was just TERRIBLE in acting... Also, since ML and FL were on the screen a LOT and the drama used the other characters as just fluff and rarely showed them... they were kinda really on the side - the drama got really bogged down. FL was on the screen so much and had nothing to offer... she was sooo boring... her acting is terrible... and ML had a terrible script so his time on the screen was mostly wasted - first he was a harsh rude jerk, then he was this grown man who behaved like a teenager when he first discovers hormones, which was rather .. weird... waste of talent for that actor... then we had ... liver donation.. then heart donation... then forbidding a grown daughter to date someone bc she was supposed to live well and free - but her family bogged her down for like 30 yrs while they paid hospital bills of some drunken grandpa who could care less and kept smoking drinking etc and smooching for his medical bills...

then we as the audience complained and then side stories took over and that was a breath of fresh air. The 2 side couples and the villain mom saved the drama!!!!! but then were removed to make way for the plot of donating the heart...

And this is not the first time that secondary pairs took over to save the drama! In 3 Bold Siblings, Mi Young and the youngest sister took over the drama since FL was 100% terrible in acting omg. ML tried so hard but she was a piece of CEMENT. etc.

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