Youth Report (2020)

Self explanatory title

Record of youth is exactly how the title says it, a wholesome record of the journey of youths with different backgrounds, upbringings and financial statuses, but same big dreams and ambitions. Moreover since the plot took a holistic approach to the characters, there was a very honest character development there with realistic scenarios that happen in the life of people pursuing their respective professions; hence the drama felt like something that might be the story of a neighbourhood acquaintance than something fictitious happening on screen. Park Bo Gum surprised me I had to say. To me he always felt like this good looking actor with a character portrayal of freshness, naivety and innocence, but in this drama you get to see really the inner depths, struggles, anxieties, frustrations, self-doubt, betrayal, anguish, loneliness, so many different shades that made his act probably the most suitable for this character over all. Other than him all the actors did a fabulous job overall playing their characters. I also liked that the friendship was so honest and didn't disappear into some dark cliches of jealousy and betrayal. Whatever they felt, wether envy or pride, they talked about it openly like good best friends do and thats another reason why I felt like this was a neighbourhood story. They also tried to show friendship beyond financial status and real understanding of each other according to how the modern world works rather than open cliche discrimination like in those old dramas. By the way, who else thought Shine Ae Ra was hot in this drama 😋? Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this drama and highly recommend it!

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My true feeling about this drama

When I was started watching this drama it made me feel happy and the story explain the importance of friendship, It also tells how people are hardworking to achieve the goal. In this drama, all the actors play their roles really well. When it comes to the story, the first half was really good but it comes to the second half it was quite a disappointment. I had high hope while started watching this drama but I was made so sad. I think the ending of the story can be better.
It has a wonderful Ost and cast. when I saw this drama made a reality check that whether I am doing the job I that like to do and also dream high and work hard with your sincere heart you will surely achieve the goal. I really enjoyed watching this drama. This drama has a great message for us " When you go in of search of honey you must expect to be stung by bees" and "Who you are tomorrow beginning with what you do today"

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To me this drama was mostly calm, on some aspects a little bit sad, but still interesting. Especially the hardships which come with famousness, may those be because of the ruthless comments or family. I also really liked the relationship of main leads because, besides the fact they did not have the usual temporary breakup with lots of misunderstandings and so, they started with perfect communication, which is rare in K-dramas. But as time passed and they had less and less time for each other, they seemed to lose the ability to communicate easily and started to hide their hardships, feelings and desires, which sometimes is so true in life. They were young, but had maturity, which was showed with small things, like how the ML reacted when he found out that FL had been in touch with his best friend and all the scenes where it was stated “he/she’ll tell me when he/she’s ready”.

This drama managed to picture perfectly that sometimes love is not enough. As the FL said "timing is not right” and to me their breakup showed this. How sometimes you have to let each other go to concentrate on your career or other aspects of your life, because otherwise you'd concentrate only on him/her. Yes, giving up the relationship despite of the love is (and was for them) the most painful thing to do, but eventually they accepted and understood. And the acting of Park Bo Gum and Park So Dam was just perfect and so expressive.

As for ML friends - I found their parts meaningful. Their parts showed — as at some point one character stated, in contrast to the main characters —, that with some backgrounds your life is never yours, your decisions are never made solely by you. SML’s struggles pictured this magnificently. And to me his suspicions about him not being in control of his life and his wishes to control something (and to some extent competition with ML) made him fall for FL. But this desire was answered through the relationship of his sister. At the end SML seemed to have made it to the acceptance that his life is not entirely his, so this storyline was kind of sad for me.

After the time skip the ending was maybe a little bit short and rushed, but it did give an answer to one aspect — at least the breakup choice wasn’t wrong: ML’s career seemed to have been continued even after being absent for months and FL has had the chance to boost her career. Concerning of their relationship, it probably was left to viewers to decide. Also the ending did lack a little bit for the other characters.

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I wanted to Love this...

It started out so well but in the end it was just another meh series for me.

Things I loved: Park Bo-Gum. This was my first series with him and I will watch everything else now.

Things I Liked: I really liked the theme song. Beautifully done and nostalgic!

Things I hated with a passion: Tae-Su, disgusting human being. Do Ha, what an infantile person. Kim Su Man, Damn Reporter!!!

Other things I hated: Yi Young terrible mother and way too involved in her children's lives. I hate too that Hae Hyo never tells his mother how she made him feel. Young Nam terrible father even with the back story. Hae Na and Jin-ju not fighting for their relationship. Tsk.

Annoying: Jung Ha and Hye Jun's relationship. I just felt like Jung Ha in the beginning was a strong character then she was flighty, especially when it came to their relationship. She wasn't even willing to fight for it and yes I get her backstory to and wanting her new career plans to take off but...Girl Bye!

The last few eps were a downer for me but the ending wasn't as bad as thought it was going to be. Overall the series ended up just being meh when it started out so well.

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What a wonderfully touching drama!

Oh My!!! What a sweet drama Record Of Youth is!
I'd had it on my list for a long time and just never watched it....but after watching the magical Park Bo-gum in Encounter I decided to move it up to the top of my to-watch list.
I was a bit nervous as I don't usually go for "sad endings", and had read a review or an article that said the main couple split....but I was extremely happy to see that the actually end leaves the door wide open...(now I'll keep my fingers crossed for a Record Of Youth 2!!)
I thought the drama dealt beautifully with the angst of growing up and finding your way in the world, it also dealt beautifully with the different styles of parenting and how it affects children and it dealt beautifully with friendships and how relationships develop and change.
The show was incredibly cast, all were perfect in their roles, but I want to call out Park Bo-gum, Park So Dam, and Byeon Woo Seok for truly portraying their characters and their character's complexities so well.
This is a series I will probably buy on DVD as it is one I will likely watch over and over and won't want to lose access to it! I absolutely recommend watching this magical drama!

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Park Bo Gum supremacy - you cannot convince me otherwise ( joking)

I am not sure why this has so many negative reviews, but I suppose everybody relates/sees things differently and that's perfectly fine. Please don't hate on people for having a different opinion than yours, it is important to respect each other's thoughts even in the free world of the internet. :)

I really liked how well produced was this drama. The frames and camera shots were very raw and honest. The whole story itself had a mature kind of vibe to it, even though it was a romance. The plot did not focus only on the love story of the main leads. It also showed their own progression and growth, I guess that's what you call a coming of age type of drama. It helped the plot develop organically.
I also liked the idea of the past-present alternation, how it started with something that happened ( a momentum) and how it all goes smoothly to show how the story got there. It is indeed a really interesting POV. It makes the viewer feel included in the plot as to say "you are here with us too. Let's see what happened so far. How did we get here?".
I will always have a soft spot for Park Bo Gum, but he never ever disappoints. I believe he is one of the most expressive k-actors out there. He looks genuine when he cries, and I mean not the ugly forced crying that looks like someone splashed your face with water. But the emotional sensitive one. I just love how he takes a character's story and just makes it his own life. He gets immersed in the story and the role. And no matter how "serious" or dangerous his character may be, he will always look like soft marshmallow boy. This world does not deserve such a pure soul.
But, his dramas are all worth watching. No matter who he co-stars with. His aura will make everything shine gold.

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I could not believe the disappointment I felt

Generally speaking I love coming of age dramas, as I am as well doing so hehe.

This one though felt really hypocritical.

At times really unecessarily painful, at other times really bittersweet and at other times completely out of touch with reality it felt like a big joke when I finished it.

Up until episode 10 I would say I had so much fun watching it but I think after that it just decides it wants to look realistic when the whole premise from the beginning is far from it. And yes maybe I am biased because of whatever it is that happened that I didn't like, but they really had it all just to let it bleed to death.

It feels as if the only well written part of this is the male lead and his family, everything else seems half-hearted and dishonest, with some honourable exceptions. Especially the way the female lead acted at times makes me think it was most definitely the script to blame because sodam is overall quite the actress.

Anyway I would HONESTLY not recommend it.
Unless you just wanna see bogum, that was the sole reason I finished it anyway. Yeah that's all.

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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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Erraram na escolha do ator principal

É uma série que seria excelente se o protagonista não fosse Park Bo Gum. Ele não é um bom ator, simplesmente. E o mais irônico é que a série é exatamente sobre isso: um cara que é modelo e ator e vive lutando para ter destaque na indústria do entretenimento.
Ele simplesmente não tem o que é preciso para desempenhar um papel como o do personagem desse dorama, não entendi porque investiram nele com tantos atores coreanos excelentes existentes por aí.
Ele não entregou e comprometeu a série, ao meu ver.
É uma pena, porque se Park So Dam já era uma gigante no aclamado filme "Parasita", que ganhou o Oscar, nesse dorama ela não deixa por menos, ela é linda, elegante, uma das atrizes mais completas e charmosas que já vi.
Byun Woo Suk é outro gigante que, esse sim, merecia ter ficado no papel do protagonista, erraram demais ao colocá-lo de escanteio nessa história.
À parte disso, é uma série muito bem feita, interessante, com enredo intrigante, leve sem ser monótono. Confesso que não gostei do final, não condiz com o restante da trama.

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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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