1
coming of age minus any of the hard parts
A story that is supposed to be centered around female friendship and coming of age is instead shadowed by a luke warm love story and nonexistent plot. The story did begin with the beautiful growth of two female friends and I do really love their friendship, loyalty, compassion, and tenacity not only toward each other but toward other women around them. The two lead ladies are so likable and pleasant to watch and root for. But then just as things really begin to get hard and our characters face their biggest obstacle the story decides to skip right over it and pick up in a place that makes the characters we previously met seem like completely different people.
Massive time jumps rarely work out well for story tellers and often just feel like a lazy way of getting out of writing hard scenes. Here the time jump was 7 years and it completely skipped over all the aftermath and depression the characters needed to go through following a life altering point in their lives. It was an easy way for the writer to just skim the hard part of coming of age following set backs and misfortunes that lead to character growth and maturity. Instead the narrative just jumps to these completely different characters that we no longer are familiar with nor understand how some of the characters even ended up where they did based on the understanding we previously had of them. All the important information that needed to be gained from seeing the characters experience things was instead just told to us in nonchalant snippets making the show feel like two completely different ones. Everything that would have been difficult for the characters to overcome or experience was completely skipped over. Yeong Rae and company finding new jobs, Jeong Bun being a single mother, Jea Pil's family actually going through the bankruptcy and him going to med school, etc. Every important development is played off screen cheapening the experiences.
My other major complaint is that almost every character spends the majority of the story pining for someone. And they were secretly in love for years without saying anything. One or two characters I can handle but the whole main cast was spending their early twenties just pining for one person but never saying or doing anything. Do none of these characters have backbone or courage?
Examples of unanswered questions: Why would Jong Hui run but not call? Was that not clearly self defense? What kind of trouble would have actually happened if she had stayed? But instead she just runs with nothing and doesn't look back? Han Jea Pil had such strong feelings for Jong Hui that he seems to have spent those 7 years pining for her and she is the reason he quit boxing but then the writers want us to believe that he actually loves Yeong Rae after 7 years and a ton of meddling from everyone around them? Why is everyone living with Yeong Rae's family? Why did Yeong Sik wait that long to make a move when he had known her forever? Why are Sang Cheol and Jea Pil still close to Yeong Rae after Jong Hui left?
All in all it just felt like this story had no real direction or centered plot and left me as a viewer feeling like the whole thing was pointless by the end.
Massive time jumps rarely work out well for story tellers and often just feel like a lazy way of getting out of writing hard scenes. Here the time jump was 7 years and it completely skipped over all the aftermath and depression the characters needed to go through following a life altering point in their lives. It was an easy way for the writer to just skim the hard part of coming of age following set backs and misfortunes that lead to character growth and maturity. Instead the narrative just jumps to these completely different characters that we no longer are familiar with nor understand how some of the characters even ended up where they did based on the understanding we previously had of them. All the important information that needed to be gained from seeing the characters experience things was instead just told to us in nonchalant snippets making the show feel like two completely different ones. Everything that would have been difficult for the characters to overcome or experience was completely skipped over. Yeong Rae and company finding new jobs, Jeong Bun being a single mother, Jea Pil's family actually going through the bankruptcy and him going to med school, etc. Every important development is played off screen cheapening the experiences.
My other major complaint is that almost every character spends the majority of the story pining for someone. And they were secretly in love for years without saying anything. One or two characters I can handle but the whole main cast was spending their early twenties just pining for one person but never saying or doing anything. Do none of these characters have backbone or courage?
Examples of unanswered questions: Why would Jong Hui run but not call? Was that not clearly self defense? What kind of trouble would have actually happened if she had stayed? But instead she just runs with nothing and doesn't look back? Han Jea Pil had such strong feelings for Jong Hui that he seems to have spent those 7 years pining for her and she is the reason he quit boxing but then the writers want us to believe that he actually loves Yeong Rae after 7 years and a ton of meddling from everyone around them? Why is everyone living with Yeong Rae's family? Why did Yeong Sik wait that long to make a move when he had known her forever? Why are Sang Cheol and Jea Pil still close to Yeong Rae after Jong Hui left?
All in all it just felt like this story had no real direction or centered plot and left me as a viewer feeling like the whole thing was pointless by the end.
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