Youth of May (2021)

Watching this drama feels a bit like walking on a thin line over a valley that gets deeper and deeper for every episode.... Keeping your emotions constantly ready to fall... and even though you know someone is going to die you neither know when, how and though you may have a clue you do not know who it was (or they were) that died.

This drama has a little bit of everything I like in a drama, it has sweet, sweet flirting, bad ass woman, evil parents, corruption, conspiracy, war, confronting abelism, domestic violence, activism, forced marriage, sports, friendship... As well as tackling issues of inequality in every aspect of life. I especially loved the way this drama portrays the different consequences rich v.s poor people face for their activism and so called illegal actions and demonstrations a topic that never seems to get outdated (so are the others).

This drama has an amazing pace and build up. with every episode adding parts to the complexity of the situation and adding new dimension to the escalating conflict helping the the viewers to gradually get in to and understand the the plot. Not one single moment was boring and my ayes where more or less constantly moist.

I often (not always, and not only) judge a drama over its ability to ability to awaken my emotions and this one did just that I felt sorrow, angst, anger, suspense, fluffy inside (tho they did make me cringe once or twice) and made me fall competently in love with this cast. The acting here was top notch, and so was the writing making it feel real. There was not one single character with annoying dialog, mimics or flat no matter how small their side-part was (not guest rolls). I did of course want to knock some sense in to people, screamed nooooooo once or twice at the screen but that is to be expected.

The cinematography was gorgeous and the music fit perfectly as well So yes I loved it and I gave it 10 well deserved stars.

So... If you are more of the no romance war type or if you are looking for a fluffy happy romance move along there is nothing to see here.... But if you are a sucker for tragedy and fluff like me this is defiantly worth a watch.

P.S. I like the fluff too, especially after watching something like this i need to cleans my soul with some pure fluff before moving on.

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One of the saddest kdrama

A drama about the truth of Gwangju uprising. It breaks my heart that this drama happened in real life. The way they treated the people back then.

The story is well writen.
The lives of the two leads is hard. They did everything to be happy together.
Almost every episode makes me cry. Myung Hee experienced a brutal death. They didnt even bury her or tell her family about her. She doesnt deserve that.

Lee Do Hyun's character also breaks my heart. The fact that he doesnt know where to find his woman. He waited alone for 48 years without knowing what really happened.

This drama is one of my fav drama even though I cried a river about the ending.
Prepare a tissue before watching this drama.

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Expectations Vs Reality.

Before i say anything else, I'll let y'all know that for me(someone who's watched countless dramas prior to this) this was most probably the hardest drama I have ever had to rate.
Honestly, i could've given this a 10/10, but at the same time i could've given it a 1/10.
Why? Reason being the ending.
And I'll j leave it at that.

Getting into the review, this is basically a reality check of a drama trying to tell us how irl even the "MCs" or protagonists don't get the ending they want always. cuz irl there rly aren't any protagonists to begin with. everyone gets treated alike in this life and there're no "chosen ones". One sad and tragic but real story. Leaves you pondering.

P.S. A friendly advice. Prepare some tissues if you chose to watch the entire show. All the best!

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A beautiful love story

It's definitely my favorite drama of 2021. Their love story is so beautiful, it reached deep into my heart. The actors portrayed their characters well to the point that it feels like I'm watching a real couple's life, instead of a K-Drama. Because of how good the actors' acting skills are, I can feel exactly what they're feeling when I watch the drama. When they're happy, I feel happy too. When they cry, I cry too. The OSTs are also very good and very poetic, if you look up the lyrics. I still have a hard time moving on from this drama even though it has been a few months since i finished it, I think a lot of Youth of May viewers also feel the same way as I do.

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Too tragic for a drama. Made this into a docuseries instead?

Please forgive me, regional folks, this is not meant to disregard or disrespect your history and the tragic horrors behind it.
This is more a reminder for me to never watch this again.
If I had read that this was so Tra gic, I would've never watched it.
If truly this particular romance was so tragic, I would've preferred to see the actual people, their real names, careers etc.
In short it could have been a true story or a true documentary which are made very aesthetically now.

To take history, put your own spin on it again is fine.
But to take history, put your own spin on it, heavily load it with beautiful romance and then kill the lead is like pulling the rug from under our feet and bring us crashing down, breaking our teeth, heart and everything else.
Not acceptable for me.

So yes, it was a tremendously beautiful drama - music, cinematography, costumes, hair make up etc of the '80s, and every actor was stupendous.......but sorry, the ending destroyed it.

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terrible main characters ruined a potentially good drama

I have been following this show since the day it started and now that i finished it i can say that this was one of the worst experiences of my life. I actually liked the first half of the show the setup for the romance seemed very interesting but as the show went on it just seemed stupid. Let's talk about what started to go wrong. Around halfway through the story myunghee and hee tae's "conflict" didn't even feel like a conflict at all because it would get resolved so easily and they'd get back together and the same thing got repeated over and over again so i really don't see any point of the conflict and not like the conflict was different it was the same thing just done too many times. Next, let's talk about how hee tae and myunghee are the most terrible and selfish people i have come across. When the gwangju uprising started they were busy trying to run away from that hospital even though they could clearly see how terrible the state of the country was and hee tae being a doctor and myunghee being a nurse just couldn't care less about any of that. Like that seemed very odd to me aren't main characters should be more empathetic than that? They didn't have any sense of humanity or responsibility in those trying times at all and it was actually very upsetting because these characters were shown as good, conscientious people from the beginning? Now let's talk about how myunghee was terrible to her dad and never even tried to understand his part of the story she just needed someone to blame for her dumb mistakes so she just took it out on his dad and i would have understood if his dad was a terrible person like herself but he seemed like someone who was trying to make it right. Then, let's talk about how myunghee didn't even care about her family all she cared about was her god forsaken romance with hee tae. When hee tae was kidnapped she literally kept acting like a brat and hence his dad and brother had to face the military which lead to his death but this whole time she literally didn't seem worried about them and didn't even cared that they got into all this because of her bratty behaviour but she was busy planning her marriage with hee tae. And all of this would have been understandable if they had some deeper romance going on they literally met each other 2 weeks ago and suddenly they want to risk it all for each other sorry but i am not buying that? Moreover, we kept seeing the side characters risking themselves so hee tae and myunghee can have a good life together which imo they don't deserve but myunghee and heetae didn't even care about anyone else but them. And they kept justifying that with bullshit reasoning that how being selfish is okay because they love each other? I wouldn't have any objection with them being selfish if these characters were originally like this and if the other supporting characters didn't act like they are they second coming of jesus but i think the show intented hee tae and myunghee to come across as good people which i really didn't see. Also the show couldn't wrap up anything well we don't know what happened to the side characters and a lot of things with that. Moreover, it is shown as hee tae is madly in love with her but he couldn't even bother to find myunghee's dead body and pay her respect? So yeah idek what to say anymore but that's what i think don't watch this terrible show.

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Me causou um grande impacto

Youth of May foi uma escolha cega pra mim. Embarquei nesse drama porque amo obras históricas. De início, eu esperava por um melodrama, mas me enganei completamente: a história é veloz e dinâmica, a cada episódio cumpre o que promete sem enrolar. O que me encantou, desde o primeiro episódio, foram os dois protagonistas. Eu não esperava tanto carisma! O brilho nos olhos dos dois me pegou de jeito e suas personalidades capturaram minha atenção.

Hee-Tae e Myung-Hee são dois batalhadores e TEIMOSOS (muito muito teimosos) jovens coreanos. Ele sonha em se tornar músico como sua falecida mãe, ela quer estudar no exterior e ter uma vida melhor. O drama começa com os dois fazendo de tudo para conquistar o que tanto querem. Nesse meio tempo, suas vidas se cruzam e é aí que a beleza da história começa: os dois juntos em cena são uma bomba. Sério, eu não sei como aguentei. Eu me DIVERTI TANTO com eles. Ainda estou impressionada com a química desses dois atores, que entregaram tanto. Desde a primeira cena, ficou claro pra mim que eu iria acompanhar aquele casal até o fim.

Com o desenvolvimento da história, logo a realidade bateu na minha porta: será que havia um final feliz esperando por Hee-Tae e Myung-Hee? Não vou contar se sim ou se não, mas já adianto: eles lutam por isso. A cada episódio, cada brecha do roteiro, lá estão os dois, superando as adversidades e se agarrando à mínima chance de felicidade. Não só eles, mas todos os jovens que viveram naquele maio. Aquelas pessoas acreditaram e berraram pela liberdade do país, mesmo quando os sonhos delas foram chutados e arremessados para longe. Quando parecia não ter esperança, elas ainda acreditaram.

Junto com eles, eu também acreditei até o fim.

Quanto ao Hee-Tae e Myung-Hee, para mim eles sempre serão um dos melhores casais de drama. Estou orgulhosa do quanto cresceram ao longo da história. Obrigada por serem teimosos e não abaixarem suas cabeças, meus jovens de maio. Meu coração se alegrou e chorou junto com vocês, acreditem❤️

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This is basically a romance set during the 1980 Gwanju protests. I thought that the Romeo and Juliet couple, beautifully acted by Lee Do Hyun and Go Min Si, pulled all of the appropriate heartstrings. But the characters surrounding them leaned melodramatic and simplistic. The evil villains, for example, were simply evil, whose evil acts were motivated by evilness. The troubled relationship between Kim Myung Hee and her father did not resonate with me because the whole thing seemed kind of over the top but, at the same time, petty. The Lee siblings’ characters had little depth or complexity. And the Gwanju protests and why and how everything went horribly wrong seemed to be simply background noise, albeit terrible background noise, to move the love story along.

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This reminds me of Titanic but with a weaker storyline

Youth of May is a 12-ep melodrama that follows a romance between a nurse and a son of a dictator. They fell in love during the Gwangju Uprising conflict, and because of their parent's background, their relationship gets complicated. This show has 12 episodes.

What got me interested in Youth of May is the characters and their effort to overcome the conflict. Youth of May is absolutely what I would call a plot-driven show. There’s basically no breathing room to really feel comfortable, nor to get invested in a few of the relationships that were formed within the show.

The problem that stands out to me is the romance, yes even though I appreciate the actor's performance and their setup for this romance at first, the pair actually get together, and there's great tension, but no chemistry. As soon as they do get together, their relationship milestones and choices all seem mindless. I don't get why they act a certain way. Their story progression feels slow to me and I don't personally feel as connected with them.

The midpoint episodes were quite a drag for me to get through. I didn't find any character growth, nor did I enjoy watching them. Instead of dealing with the conflicts, the drama shows a lot of self-inflicted misery which contributes a little to the progressions of the story and makes me bored.

I found the ending so dissatisfying, I really felt nothing. In the last two episodes, I wasn't shocked by any of the climaxes, I wasn't sad, I was pretty emotionless because I could see that the show was ending and I just didn't care. It seems that Youth of May gains popularity due to the "based on real event“ cover, but the storyline is weak and unfocused so it doesn’t buy my sympathy. So my overall rating for Youth of May is 5.5/10

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breathtaking and emotional

I think it's pretty clear from the start how there's going to be a tragic ending...Nevertheless the entire series was a piece of art. The shooting style as well as the overall tone the drama gave was so on point. I regret not educating myself more about the Gwangju Uprising and its history before watching this because then things would have made a lot more sense.

The cast was impeccable...expected nothing less from the main leads Dohyun and Minsi (came from Sweet Home aha) as well as the second female lead (she did so well in Class of Lies). This drama felt similar to "When the Weather is Fine" where it was so relaxing and satisfying--until chaos strikes and nothing goes right. This melodrama was great depiction of reality merged with fiction. The harsh reality of what was politically going on especially amongst those who were hierarchically involved.

The joy and sorrow were expressed so well from the characters. I shed a few tears especially towards the ending episodes because the storyline was so moving. The OST played a big part in the success of the film. If you are someone who likes a nice drama with a peaceful and realistic vibe, definitely watch Youth of May.

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devastatingly beautiful

Youth of May is in many ways a traditional kdrama romance. It uses several common tropes of the industry and the romance genre. The first episodes, while sweet and silly, could be part of many other romances we've seen. The script and the acting are really strong, adding unique charm and flavour to each of these characters.

But this traditional aspect of the drama only makes what we know will come more immensely devastating. From the beginning, we know tragedy will strike, and if you're even remotely familiar with the history of the Gwangju Uprising, you know the extension of that tragedy. All of our characters, even with their unique stories and quirks, are common everyday people. Our protagonists fall in love, face drama and hardship, the prejudices of other people, and have to make tough choices as they grow up into adults. But in the middle of all of that, the uprising happens and the military is sent to Gwangju.

The series does an incredible job of showing the surprise and the betrayal the Gwangju felt at the time and provides no excuses for the brutality of the regime. And in relation to our protagonists, how historical events like this cut the life of people in two. As someone coming from a country with a recent history of state violence, what stayed with me the most was this. How our leads are just everyday young people, with a sweet romance, a bunch of things happening in their lives and the possibility of a future ahead. Suddenly history happens and nothing it's the same again.

My favourite thing about this series is how it makes multiple nods to how the story of our leads is tied to the story of so many people whose stories we don't know. How it's a romance but it's also an exercise in memory.

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