Bullet Point Review: Reply 1997

I have been watching Korean dramas for a while now, but I hadn’t started writing their reviews until recently. There are a bunch that I particularly enjoyed watching and would have loved to write about them, so to use up my sudden abundance of free time, I decided to re-watch few of my favourites, and write a review for them.

The drama that tops this list is Reply 1997, which has been demanding a re-watch for quite some time. I had watched this drama back when K-Pop was still new in my life, and I was discovering new groups, actors, shows every other day. I was completely clueless about K- Pop’s history, about fandoms and fan wars, about the groups that ruled over them, and their catchy tunes and anything referring to the events and pop culture of the ’90s went over my head (I used to read the recaps at Dramabeans to help with this cultural divide), but I was the same age as the protagonist of the show, Sung Shi Won (Apink’s Jung Eun Ji), and like she was obsessed with H.O.T., I was obsessed with EXO, so I resonated with the show greatly.
Now, six years later, thoroughly immersed in Korean music, dramas and culture, I am watching this show again.

• Before the nostalgia fever that is currently gripping Hollywood and Bollywood, with remakes, remixes, and live adaptations, back in 2012, director Shin Won Ho, and writer Lee Woo Jung used this wistfulness for the simpler times, to create a heartwarming and funny coming of age story. It is one of the few dramas set completely outside of Seoul, where characters all converse in satoori and became so popular, that two installments have followed since.
  Sure, dramas have been going back and forth in time before, but nothing celebrated the bygone eras like Reply 1997 celebrated the 90’s.
• Reply 1997 follows the story of a group of friends during their last two years of high school as they fall in love, break their hearts, and navigate life and the sudden curveballs it throws their way. These students are hardly worried about exams, or university, or career, and don’t go hopping from one tutoring class to the next. Instead, they go to concerts, movies, basketball matches, or just hang around with each other. We see them a lot in school and in class, but there isn’t much of studying. Instead, we watch them sneak in their walkman and listen to their favourite songs, read magazines, fight a lot about H.O.T. and Sechs Kies (Eun Ji Won, member of Sechs Kies, plays one of the main characters here and this leads to some amusing meta-references.) When choosing their career path as well, it is as simple as following the same path as your crush. Shi Won wants to go to Dongguk University, just because H.O.T.’s Tony Ah is studying there. Yoon Jae (Seo In Guk) wants to become an air force pilot, just because Shi Won wants to marry a guy in a uniform, and Joon Hee (Infinite’s Hoya) follows him to the academy, just to be with him. It is as simple as that.
• That being said, this show depicts the giddiness, anxiety, and frustration of being in love through one of the best love triangles ever showcased, especially since it includes same-sex attraction.
  Hoya’s portrayal of the kind-hearted, quiet and smart Joon Hee, won my heart. The story doesn’t go towards preaching anything about same-sex attractions or relationships but just showcases Joon Hee quietly pining for Yoon Jae’s attention and love, even knowing very well, that they can never be together. His friendship with Shi Won is also reminiscent of the girl with a gay best friend trope, but it is never depicted in any disrespectful way.
• The show plays out with different situations, incidents, happenings stitched together, with stories moving back and forth in time at will; which makes sense since these are memories that the characters at their reunion are reminiscing about. That's also why episodes never start from where they end, and some moments come unexplained, like the time Yoon Jae is in the hospital for a while. Nevertheless, this manner of depicting the development of events does give us some memorable scenes, like the mistaken fried chicken delivery during the World Cup match, Sung Dong Il’s and Lee Il Hwa’s stint to get a free check-up in the hospital and Lee Il Hwa’s frantic phone call to a drama’s writer.
• Sung Dong Il and Lee Il Hwa were the greatest strength of the show. I was surprised to hear that they weren’t married in real life, as their chemistry was so so authentic.
  Most dramas keep parents in the background, and we don’t get to know much about them unless it comes with respect to the lead character, but here, Sung Dong Il and Lee Il Hwa are quite an important part of the story. Right from their heated arguments at breakfast, to getting caught having sex in the car by Shi Won, or pretending to be injured from a minor car accident, they are hilarious and adorable! We even get a short yet sweet backstory of how they meet. Watching them, you do kind of understand why Shi Won is the way she is; when her parents are trying to get a free check-up from faking injuries, at the same time, she is trying to win a pair of jeans by faking a sob story for the radio contest.
• Writer Lee Woo Jung must like the concept of fate and timing a lot, as it occupies an important part of this show, and in its installments as well. Just like how Sung Dong Il and Lee Il Hwa meet due to an accidentally mix up, Yoon Jae’s gift does end up finding its way to Shi Won, even if it does change a few hands. Lee Woo Jung also likes placing his character in moments that are both a high and low blow to them, like on the night when Busan Seagulls (Dong Il’s baseball team) win, Shi Won’s sister dies in an accident, and when Sung Dong-Il is happy to get a free check-up but that leads to him getting diagnosed with cancer. These situations also place emphasis on what the characters blurt out in anger, as they can come true, like when Shi Won exclaims to her father that she doesn’t want to live with parents and is jealous for the Bungeoppang seller for not having parents, but a few scenes later, he ends up finding his parents and Dong-Il is diagnosed with cancer. It’s as if the universe, is a character itself, trying to help and hinder with their happiness, but this family always gets up and keeps walking.
• The show really handled the love triangle between Shi Won, Yoon Jae and Yoon Tae Woong (Song Jong Ho) with dignity. It is messy enough when two friends find out they like the same girl, but it’s, even more, messier and sadder when two brothers fall in love with the same girl.