Disclaimer: this is a review, and as such it contains spoilers of the whole series. Please proceed to read at your own risk if you still plan on watching this show or if you haven’t finished it yet. You have been warned.

Thirty But Seventeen
( 서른이지만 열일곱입니다 / Seoreunijiman Yeorilgobimnida )
MyDramaList rating: 8.5/10

Hello! It’s time for another drama review! I took my time with this one, since it’s been the first regular-length drama for me since a while. I will say right off the bat that I really enjoyed it.
It’s been on my list mostly because I knew the two main actors, but the story also seemed interesting and I wondered how they would perform.

First of all, I will start with a summary.
Thirty But Seventeen is about the fates of two people, Gong Woo Jin (played by Yang Se Jong) and Woo Seo Ri (played by Shin Hye Sun).
We first meet them as students, age 17. Woo Jin is very talented in drawing, striving to study at an art school in Germany. He always carries a drawing case with him, decorated by Pororo stickers from his young nephew. One evening he catches sight of a girl his age standing in the middle of a crossbridge, reaching her hand up to the sky (Seo Ri). He sees her a couple of times after this and starts getting fascinated by her, even to the point where he draws her. He doesn’t know her name until one time he sees her wearing gym clothes that say ‘No Su Mi’. Unaware that this is actually the name of her friend she always borrowed her gym bag from, Woo Jin accepts her name is Su Mi. When they meet in a bus one day, he is determined to talk to her and give her his drawing. However, when she asks him for directions, he only manages to tell her to get out one stop further and flees when her friend gets on the bus and interrupts them. Still determined, he runs after the bus, only to see it get into a terrible accident. In the news that night, ‘No Su Mi’ is mentioned as one of the casualties and Woo Jin breaks down, blaming himself for telling her to stay in the bus for one more stop.
In the meantime, while her friend Su Mi tragically didn’t make it, Seo Ri has fallen into a coma.
Then the story skips to 13 years later. Woo Jin has turned into a succesful stage designing architect but is nevertheless a loner, someone who doesn’t communicate with others and keeps out of people’s business as much as possible, even if that sometimes causes him to look like a pervert.
Seo Ri wakes up, the memories of the accident from when she was 17 still fresh in her brain, but her body is now 30 years old. Her whole world as she knew it is different, nothing is where it’s supposed to be (both houses and buildings and people) and no one knows what happened to her friends and relatives. During her rehabilitation training, she escapes from the hospital and runs back to the only place she knows: her old house.
However, the person living there now is Woo Jin – with his younger nephew Chan (played by Ahn Hyo Seop) and housekeeper Jennifer (played by Ye Ji Won).
Since Seo Ri has no place to go, Woo Jin initially agrees for her to stay with them for some time, but as things keep happening and progressing, she becomes part of the family. Of course, eventually Woo Jin and Seo Ri fall in love as adults – and this is before they even figure out the truth about their history together.

I would firstly like to comment on how well this drama was structured.
The build-up was good, nothing was rushed in the development of both the characters and the plotline, all plotlines were wrapped up nicely. It was a very enjoyable and wholesome drama to watch and it’s been a while for me since I truly watched a series with a constant smile on my face without any major criticism. Very well done to the writers and the cast.
Even though of course, as always with K-Dramas, everything and everyone turned out to be connected in some way, it didn’t bother me at all. It still somehow felt natural and it was also nice that there were no genuine bad people in the story. The characters all reacted really naturally and realistically to the situations around them and nothing felt weird. My compliments.

I would like to say something about the cast and characters and their relations to one another before I go on to elaborate more on an important theme and message I picked up on.

I’ve written several reviews about dramas with Yang Se Jong and I have to say, he’s beginning to grow on me as an actor. I think he portrayed Woo Jin very well, a traumatized young man who hides his wounds and fear of ever interfering in people’s lives again with a distant exterior.
Woo Jin has lived 13 years of his life haunted by what he’s done (or thinks he has done) to Seo Ri. He gets panic attacks whenever he has flashbacks or sees scenes that remind him of the event (especially when adult Seo Ri appears and reminds him a lot of the girl from his past).
These panic attacks were filmed quite intensely; Woo Jin would start sweating, he’d have to grab a hold of something in order to keep himself standing and would completely lose focus in his flashbacks. Even though he’s shut himself off, the bus accident still pains him deeply, his trauma is apparent. We can really see the pain in his eyes during these attacks.
The only thing that struck me as a bit off was that when it came to the bus accident, he only seemed to care about Seo Ri’s fate even when it turned out that other people had died as well. It seemed like he only blamed himself for what happened to her and he only cared about whether Seo Ri lived or died. When he finds out Seo Ri is the girl from his past, he hugs her, and thanks her for being alive while she’s literally mourning her dead friend at that moment. That was the only thing that seemed a bit tactless to me. But Yang Se Jong performed really admirably.
I’ve also seen several dramas with Shin Hye Sun, but this was the first one I saw where she was the female lead and boy did she deliver. I am so glad to have seen this side of her acting, she’s played so many different roles, both the shallow second female lead roles as the sweet angel-like side character roles, but this was really good. She showed so many emotions, so many expressions, and found a great balance between Seo Ri’s 17-year old mind and newly found 30-year old adult self. Her acting was just really natural and adorable and it was a pleasure to watch.
I saw Ahn Hyo Seop in Queen of the Ring, but I honestly didn’t even recognize him from there. But that is probably mostly because his role there didn’t have the depth and emotional development as his role as Yoo Chan. As the ever so cheerful nephew of Woo Jin, his closeness with his uncle is endearing. We first see them together in the flashbacks before the accident, where Chan is only 6 years old. Chan is the only child of Woo Jin’s older sister and he’s been taking care of him a lot since she has to go abroad for work a lot. They are really close. Chan is probably the only person Woo Jin acts warmly towards after the trauma. Chan really cares about his uncle and their scenes together are always warm and positive. Ahn Hyo Seop did a great job as the energetic and athletic puppy.
The only thing I can’t help but note is that Yang Se Jong and Ahn Hyo Seop are only 2 years apart in real life. Woo Jin and Chan are supposed to be 11 years apart. In the flashbacks we see 17-year old Woo Jin doting on his 6-year old nephew. In the rest of the series we see bromance between two guys who are clearly around the same age. I don’t know, it just didn’t feel like they were 11 years apart, unless Chan had to look older than this age. Either Chan didn’t look like 19 or Woo Jin didn’t look like 30… I’m not sure. I guess this is a bit dangerous when actors are supposed to play characters from another age. Yang Se Jong is 26 in real life and Ahn Hyo Seop 24, so they both had to portray different ages. In any case, that’s why I didn’t realize Chan was the little boy in the beginning because I was expecting a much younger looking kid. They both performed really great, but age-wise I kept thinking that one of the two might’ve been better off cast by either a younger or older person.
*However – and I will return to this point later – I wouldn’t be surprised if the casting did this on purpose because the theme of ‘acting/looking your age’ came back in more than one way in both the characters and the series.*
Besides this, Yoo Chan becomes the second male lead because he starts falling for Seo Ri even despite their 11-year age gap and he’s eager to become an adult, but he finds that he can’t force nature and some things are not meant to be. When he discovers his uncle and Seo Ri are dating, he is hurt but he never gets angry at them and backs away smiling through his tears. I really liked how he still confessed to Seo Ri to get closure, he showed real maturity and strength in that scene. He did really mature throughout the period of the series, even though maybe not in age.
Lastly for the main characters, there’s Jennifer (officially named Hwang Mi Jung). Another greatly layered role by Ye Ji Won, who I know mostly because of her extra-ness. She always gets the role of a lady who is kind of crazy in one way or another, so it was really nice to see her back story as Jennifer. Jennifer is the mysterious, almost robotic housekeeper in Woo Jin’s house. Despite her usual cold and emotionless demeanor, she takes care of everyone with her badass (though poker-faced) moves and exceptional cooking skills. However, we find out that she’s had a tragic past as well. It turns out that her husband was one of the casualties of the same bus accident Seo Ri and her friend were in. I think it was even established that No Su Mi and Kim Tae Jin (her husband) were the two deadly victims of the accident. Losing him when she’d just gotten pregnant, Jennifer/Mi Jung started neglecting her own health, causing her unborn child to become malnourished as well. So she basically lost both her husband and her child (indirectly) because of the accident.

It’s interesting to see that in the end, when we learn about Jennifer’s past, it becomes clear how similar Woo Jin and Jennifer are. Caused by the same accident they shut themselves and their emotional feelings towards others off in their own ways. Woo Jin simply stops caring about other people or even invading their privacy and also develops an occupational disease in which he randomly starts measuring objects in the streets, even benches while people are still sitting on it and such. This is also related to his profession as an architect who mainly focusses on designing stages for events and performances.
Jennifer even made an English name for herself, started reading a lot and quotes that wisdom whenever she gets a chance to. Her robotic and emotionless way of speaking and her straight strut give her an almost non-human vibe in the beginning. It was nice to see that, after everything was settled and she came back to visit, she’d gone back to her old self, not strapped into a tight uniform but in a dress, her hair loose, and she was talking more freely, smiling and making jokes. Both she and Woo Jin are cured from their trauma in the end, after both getting closure.
As I said before, it was so nice to see that everyone and everything got closure. Usually there’s always at least one thing that doesn’t get solved in a drama, but they wrapped everything up really neatly, I keep repeating myself because I’m just so satisfied after finishing the series.

Some other side characters that played roles in the development of every main character: Woo Jin’s two colleagues at his studio, his college friend Kang Hee Soo (played by Jung Yoo Jin) and Jin Hyun (played by Ahn Seung Gyun). These two were mainly busy trying to get Woo Jin out of his shell to act normal. Woo Jin would sometimes randomly change his mind and turn on their customers if there was something he didn’t agree with, and his colleagues were there to attempt to keep him on a leash. Of course, as Seo Ri starts working with them temporarily, they become a closer team as well.
Then there’s Chan’s two best friends, Han Duk Soo (played by Jo Hyun Sik) and Dong Hae Bum (played by Lee Do Hyun). These two were mainly comic relief characters pulling mischief with Chan and invading his house, but also standing by him when he’s feeling down.
One person from Seo Ri’s past who’s still around is Kim Tae Rin/Rin Kim (played by Wang Ji Won), who used to be in Seo Ri’s classical music orchestra and was always jealous of Seo Ri. Her mother pressured her a lot to be a better violinist and Seo Ri disappearing actually worked out for her as she finally got her chance and she is now a professional violinist. When she meets Seo Ri again, in the beginning she’s a bit guarded and bitter, but in the end she comes around and tries helping Seo Ri out with the possibilities that she has.
Seo Ri has one friend remaining when she wakes up, Kim Hyung Tae (played by Yoon Sun Woo), her classmate who had a crush on her since high school and has always remained by her side while she was in a coma. Although displaying ambitions to become a hiphop singer when he was young, he becomes a doctor and he keeps frantically searching for Seo Ri after she escapes from the hospital. When they eventually meet again, he feels like a stranger to Seo Ri no matter how he claims that they used to be friends. This connects to another theme I would like to discuss further on.

I would also like to compliment the two young actors that portrayed Woo Jin and Seo Ri as kids, respectively Yoon Chan Young and Park Shi Eun.
They were both such cinnamon rolls and they did such a good job.

I want to talk a bit more about the relations between the main characters.
First of all, Woo Jin and Seo Ri. When they first meet as adults, Woo Jin as an oddball who doesn’t want anything to do with anyone and Seo Ri as someone who is lost in a strange new world and just looking for some familiarity, they don’t start off great. But Seo Ri’s innocence and positive attitude gradually reels him in. She literally opens newfound windows for him (I loved how they pointed this out in the final epilogue) and made everything brighter for him. She literally lets the sun in, not only in the house, but also in his heart. The writers wrote them as a really well-fitted couple. Although Woo Jin sometimes has trouble expressing his feelings, and when he’s worried about Seo Ri he tends to lash out at her or just forbid her from doing something without explaining that he’s trying to prevent her from getting hurt, which results in him looking like a jerk. But then either he himself or Seo Ri would come running back to talk about it and clearing things up. It’s great that everyone talked to each other, because one thing that always annoys me in series is when people are fighting over a misunderstanding and don’t talk or listen to each other.
Because initially we only see Woo Jin’s point of view, we get the impression that the whole thing -him falling for this girl and she getting into the accident ‘because of him’- all falls on his plate. We initially believe him when we see that he tells her to stay on the bus and we understand why he feels guilty. Even though he went on with his life, he has never let go of that guilt and pain. When he and Seo Ri finally have the confrontation in which he tells her everything, and we are suddenly shown Seo Ri’s point of view, it really put things into perspective. The harsh thing about guilt is that you never think about the other person, the only thing you can focus on is ‘it’s because of me, because of me, because of me’, which was exactly what happened to Woo Jin. But then Seo Ri starts telling him about the fact that she knew him from way before he noticed her, and that she actually had a crush on him too. She only asked him directions on the bus because she wanted an excuse to talk to him; she was going to get off on that stop anyway, so he really wasn’t to blame for anything at all. There was one thing she said to him that really resonated within me as a viewer, which was something like: ‘I was in a coma for 13 years, but it seems like your time stood still all this time as well.’ They were both victims of the accident, in a way. They were both caught in it for at least 10 years, unable to escape from what it had caused them. The way they came clean to each other like that, in an honest confrontation in which no one blamed anyone, was really strong and really mature. They found a common ground within each other which solidified their relationship.
Let’s move on to the relationship between Woo Jin and Chan. As mentioned before, they have been close since childhood. Chan is someone who keeps Woo Jin human, if he didn’t have Chan it would’ve probably taken him much longer to learn how to lean on other people. Chan always reminds him of the good in him and is always there to support him. He is the little ray of sunshine in Woo Jin’s life until he meets Seo Ri. Chan is an irreplaceable pillar that keeps Woo Jin standing and vice versa.
The relationship between Seo Ri and Chan is a bit more symbolic than just the second male lead who doesn’t get the girl. I think they get along well in the beginning because Seo Ri’s mind is about as old as Chan. They level well as if they were the same age. This is also probably why Chan doesn’t see their relationship as a problem and occasionally forgets that she’s already 30. But on the other hand, it’s important to note that Chan is literally at a place in his life that Seo Ri has skipped. His youth, his energy and how he enjoys life without worrying too much about the future – he is a symbol for the time that Seo Ri has lost. And although Seo Ri seemingly isn’t bothered by his age and never stops to think things like ‘oh I wish I was his age again’, it still occurred to me that it might me a plausible insight.
Lastly, I would like to say something about the relationship between Woo Jin, Seo Ri and Jennifer. As mentioned before, it turns out that Jennifer has been an indirect victim of the bus accident as well. It is shown that she is one of the people outside of the hospital that young Woo Jin bumps into on his way to check what happened to Su Mi/Seo Ri. I think Jennifer both has ties to Woo Jin and Seo Ri. Her time has stopped as well since her husband died. She has been shutting herself off from human emotions and contact the same way as Woo Jin. No one knows where she came from or how she became this mysterious robot person. She suffered, like Seo Ri suffered, but while still being alive and conscious. Seo Ri lost her best friend, Jennifer lost her husband and eventually her child. She suffered a trauma, just like Woo Jin. There are a lot of similarities between different characters in this drama.

I would now like to discuss the ‘age’ theme that I’ve mentioned before.
Of course, the main storyline revolves around Seo Ri, who wakes up as a seventeen year old in a thirty year old’s body. At first I thought it would be something like that romantic comedy movie ‘Thirteen to Thirty’ in which a little girl suddenly finds herself as an adult through a magic spell or something. But I was relieved when they kept a realistic view in the series. When Seo Ri wakes up, she is seriously distressed. She suddenly finds herself in a body she doesn’t recognize and with 13 years of her life just gone. She can never get her time back. And there’s nothing comical about this realization.
The story shows the harsh reality of someone young and promising (I forgot to mention this before, but Seo Ri was a gifted violinist with prospects of studying in Germany and becoming a professional musician) losing everything in one go. Everything she knew, including playing the violin; her greatest love and talent, is snatched away from her. When she enthusiastically picks up the violin as a grown-up, the lack of practice for 13 years forms a serious obstacle. Everyone she knew is gone, all the buildings she knew have been renovated or completely disappeared – she finds herself in a strange body and a strange city, completely lost with who she is.
It was heartbreaking seeing her go through all that by herself, just thinking, ‘what about my 18th birthday? What about my twenties? What about my studies in Germany, my violinist career? What about my first kiss? What about my youth?’; the mercilessness of time. A lot has happened in 13 years.
The way Seo Ri responded to what had happened to her was really realistic. This is not just a bizarre event – she literally missed out on half her life. Who wouldn’t go into an existential crisis after something like that. All she remembers is how to be a seventeen year old, which is now not deemed right because she should be an adult.
However, I think a big message the series carries with it was that age doesn’t really matter. Besides what I said earlier about Chan looking older than he should, one of his friends, Duk Soo, is often mistaken as their rowing team’s coach because he looks a lot older than 19. There’s several examples of characters in the story that show deviation from their actual age. Even the old lady at the hospital who keeps giving Seo Ri candy seems to be still a child at mind.
I really loved Seo Ri’s resolve in the last episode. A situation arises in which Woo Jin suggests she pursues a career as a musical therapist. As it’s something that seems to fit her perfectly, Seo Ri has been thinking the same thing, but starts hesitating when she finds out it will take about 7/8 years of studying to achieve a degree. Seo Ri initially worries that she’ll be too old when she’ll finish those studies and instead debates on going to Berlin to fulfill her childhood’s dream of becoming a violinist, suggested to her by Rin Kim.
In the end, she still chooses to go to college for the musical therapy career, and this to me was a sign of her truly letting go of her 17-year old self and focussing on her adult life. And the whole ‘you’re never too old to start learning / you’re never too old to pursue new dreams’ was really great in my opinion. I identified with her a lot in this moment, because I also often worry about my age standing in the way of all the things I still want to do. I think it was a really great message to end the series with.
Both Seo Ri and Chan are faced with two good options for their futures, and they both choose to study more before they plunge into professional careers.

Before I finish, I wish to point out some strong moments/scenes that really impressed me. Firstly, the bus accident itself. In the drama called Just Between Lovers (one of my all time favorites), there was an accident involving a collapsing department store. Actually, I think the same girl who played young Seo Ri also played the young version of the female lead in that. Anyways, it was filmed so realistically I actually got goosebumps while watching. This bus accident had the same effect on me. The build-up of it, we see how the weather worsens and some tires on a truck in front of the bus get loose, how all of a sudden everything is upside down – I found myself literally gasping when the bus flew into the air and fell, even when you saw some people inside hit their heads against bars. I just want to say how incredibly realistic it was filmed and how much it impressed me.
And I found the ending in which it turns out that the original driver that had caused the accident had been paying Seo Ri’s hospital bills for 11 years (ever since her uncle and aunt stopped supplying) and came to her and Jennifer to apologize on his knees for what he’d done one of the strongest plots/scenes in the series. While Seo Ri and Jennifer were screaming at him for what he’d done, I actually felt sorry for the guy. I mean, it’s not like he did it on purpose, yes, he shouldn’t have drunk, of course, he should’ve paid closer attention. And then for one ‘mistake’ to take away the lives of a young student and a soon-to-be father, two people with both so much left to live for – this guy has been feeling guilt almost the same way as Woo Jin for 13 years. In the end he turns himself in to the police, and his confession, although very emotional, really does help Seo Ri and Jennifer get closure. After this, they are able to move on with much more ease.
Also, the whole situation in which Woo Jin finds out Seo Ri is the girl he’d held for ‘Su Mi’ and Su Mi is actually her dead friend and he is first happy that the girl he liked is still alive but then starts feeling guilty again for taking away her youth and Seo Ri finds out on her own what’s bothering him, was really well structured. I was just so happy that everyone figured stuff out by themselves and forgave each other. And then the moment came where Woo Jin had poured his heart out and Seo Ri is like ‘And what if you didn’t know the whole story?’ and reveals that she actually liked him too way before he did and he was in no way to blame for her staying on the bus because her asking for directions was just an excuse to talk to him and she always got off on that same stop anyways — that was just such an emotional relieving scene and it didn’t only take away the tension between them, but it also took away Woo Jin’s feelings of guilt, the guilt he’d been feeling for 13 years and the way he looked at her while she told him all this and everything was just amazing. Very well written, very well acted out.
One very last thing that I can’t help but find a little worrying: I really hope Korean hospitals are this lax with monitoring their patients. It should’t have been possible for Seo Ri to sneak out; a patient who just got out of a coma of 13 years – I was surprised they didn’t guard her any better. So that was one thing that I found a bit unrealistic. But hey, that was about it.

I can’t emphasize enough how happy I was with how everything was tied up in the end. The relationship between Woo Jin and Seo Ri, the relationship between Chan and Seo Ri, Woo Jin and Seo Ri finding out the truth about each other, Seo Ri relieving Woo Jin of his guilt, the search for what happened to Seo Ri’s aunt and uncle who’d seemingly abandoned her after she got into the coma, the driver who caused the accident coming clean and turning himself in… Every detail, from the past relations to they keychains, everything was really well written and very well-paced, all the plotholes were filled, and there was closure for all.
It’s really been a while since I was this satisfied with the ending of a K-Drama. It was also really nice to see that, no matter how extreme the event happening to Seo Ri was, it still worked out for her and the series still ended with a positive message: never let yourself be limited or defined by your age. You and you alone decide what you want to do. Of course there are age limitations for some things, but you’re never too old to learn new things and take on new challenges. All in all a very recommendable watch!

I’ll be back with a new review soon! Bye!

Disclaimer: this is a review, and as such it contains spoilers of the whole series. Please proceed to read at your own risk if you still plan on watching this show or if you haven’t finished it yet. You have been warned.

Individualist Ms. Ji Young
(개인주의자 지영씨 / Gaeinjuuija Ji Young-ssi)
MyDramaList rating: 7.5/10

Okay, last one for this week! I didn’t realize I put several short dramas in a row on my list in this order!
This one was on my list since I saw several gifs of it on Tumblr (it’s been ages since I was on Tumblr, so it’s been on my list for ages as well). It looked good and cute and I love Gong Myung so that’s how it piqued my interest.

This drama only has 2 episodes, but they are both about an hour or more long, so it felt like watching a movie in two parts.
The story is about two people who are both lonely but deal with it in opposite ways. On the one hand there’s Na Ji Young (played by Min Hyo Rin), the ‘individualist’ from the title. Ji Young has felt alone since her childhood, her parents never cared for her with love and were always just fighting each other and telling her to grow up. She decided it would be better to pretend like nothing mattered to her, because she thought that maybe that way she’d become happy. From a young age on, she stopped relying on and socializing with other people. She ignores basically everyone, even her neighbors and colleagues at work, and acts rudely when people try socializing with her. She’s always pushing people away. On the side, she’s seeing a psychiatrist.
On the other hand, there’s Byuk Soo (played by Gong Myung), who is lonely but disguises it by always surrounding himself with other people. He acts overly spontaneous and social, in the hope that people will stay with him. He was adopted as a child and has always been partly discriminated by his adoptive family.
The two opposites live next door to each other, Ji Young on 704 and Byuk Soo on 705. They’ve never really communicated with one another, but when they do it’s mostly Byuk Soo trying to converse and Ji Young ignoring him. One night, the two get tangled up in a situation in which both Byuk Soo and his girlfriend and Ji Young and her boyfriend break up. Actually, Ms. Girlfriend breaks up with Byuk Soo and Ji Young breaks up with her boyfriend. After that, Byuk Soo falls into a pit of loneliness that he attempts to fill up with posting happy and motivating pictures of himself on social media and faking a smile.
One night, when he decides to watch a late night movie as an excuse to cry by himself when no-one is watching, Ji Young shows up for the same movie. As it turns out, she regularly goes to late night movies because she doesn’t want to run into other people. They end up watching it together and Byuk Soo gets his hopes up about befriending Ji Young, but Ji Young doesn’t want to have anything to do with him.
After a few situations where they had to take refuge in each other’s room, they become a little closer and one time when Ji Young is on medicine, she even asks Byuk Soo to sleep with her.
The relationship remains ambiguous, because everytime it seems they get closer, Ji Young is still the one holding back and pushing Byuk Soo away. In the end, though, she has to admit she likes him romantically and they start dating.
This ends when she finds out he read her diary and tried to get her to make up with her parents without knowing anything about their situation. Ji Young relapses into her trust issues and says a bunch of hurtful things to Byuk Soo, like that she never loved him and she never believed he liked her.
However, in the period of time that they were dating, she had been feeling happier than ever. She realizes this after Byuk Soo leaves her side and feels regret, but she can’t reach him anymore because she deleted all his contact details after the painful break-up.
The series ends when Ji Young seemingly recovers and acts nicer to other people. She finds out from her psychiatrist that Byuk Soo came to check on her health and in the end they run into each other and hug and HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

Now, apart from the layered characters which I will say more about later, this drama deals with a very serious mental health problem. Ji Young is not just a loner, she is seeing a psychiatrist for a reason. She takes medicine. What she went through in her childhood is not to be taken lightly.
I won’t get too personal but I once had a friend with similar issues and I can say that I could really understand this story from both sides. I’ve been Byuk Soo (only not in a romantic relationship) and I know how hard it can be to have someone you care about pushing you away all the time. That’s why I watched this series with mixed feelings and occasional flashbacks.
Ji Young has the tendency to sometimes not grant herself to be happy. She claims she’s happy on her own, that being on her own without anyone’s love or help is what makes her a mature adult, and that she was born like this. And she doesn’t accept Byuk Soo’s help because in the end, when you have these kind of issues, no one from the outside can help you, only you can help yourself. And when you’re not capable or even motivated to help yourself, you will start accepting that you are meant to be miserable and alone and you’ll stop accepting any help or hope other people give you.
Her psychiatrist was pretty direct in this, she would cut their meetings short saying ‘I can’t help someone who can’t be honest to herself’. Because what Ji Young truly wanted, inside, is to be happy. And eventually she has to accept the fact that Byuk Soo is the only one who has ever made her feel that way.
All in all, these kind of mental health issues are no joke, they can drag you down a very dark and lonely path. I haven’t seen a lot of dramas dealing with this theme and certainly not with someone like Ji Young as a main character. So I want to express my compliments that there are also series like this one, that don’t explain ‘moonshine and rose petals romance’, but a deep and hurtful romance that still perseveres in the end.

Let me talk a bit more about the characters, especially Byuk Soo since I’ve already said a lot about Ji Young. I can’t repeat enough how much I adore Gong Myung, he’s such a cutie. His portrayal of Byuk Soo was very innocent. In his desire not to be left alone he almost literally becomes a little puppy begging people not to leave him. It gives him an immaturity and a naivety, which again places him directly opposite of Ji Young. His innocence and naivety, combined with his need for attention and love is what ultimately makes him a bit too greedy. He is very eager to get to the next level in his relationship with Ji Young, even though he still doesn’t fully understand what Ji Young is going through. When he reads her diary and starts involving her parents (which, I agree, went too far considering he didn’t know what had happened between them and he should’ve gotten Ji Young’s permission/approval), he does it because he cares for her and genuinely thinks it will make her happy – he’s just trying to help. But it backfires because it causes Ji Young to relapse into suspicion and distrustfulness.
I think both characters had mixed up ideas of being an adult, that became clear in their break-up where they both accused each other of being immature in their own ways. There’s no proper way of being an adult. Being alone and independent -even self-enforced independent pushing people away because you’re convinced you’re strong enough by yourself and don’t need anyone else- is not what I would call being a mature adult. But I also wouldn’t call clinging to other people to fill up your personal voids a mature or independent thing. Being an adult is not defined by things like that, it’s different for everyone.
But hey, they were breaking up and those were just some of the nasty things they said to each other in the heat of the moment. It happens.

When Ji Young harshly pushed Byuk Soo away in their break-up, I honestly felt slightly annoyed with her. I know that overreacting is also something that happens in such situations, but I still couldn’t help but think she was being really harsh. She even almost left the kitten he got her on the street (that moment was unforgiveable). But in the end, when she calmed down, things got better. She started being more honest to herself and that bettered her relationships with the people in her daily lives as well.
And Byuk Soo’s love for her was so strong that he inevitably came back to her and accepted her back with open arms without even expecting an apology.

I still need to say one last thing about the other characters. Of course Ji Young and Byuk Soo are the main characters, but the side characters were very important too. Not only did they demonstrate how Ji Young and Byuk Soo’s behavior was received by their surrounding peers, but they also helped in putting things into perspective. There’s always going to be people around you, whether you care about them or whether they care about you or not. In the beginning, the people around the two main characters were mostly depicted as obstacles. In Ji Young’s case, she saw her female nurse colleagues as pointlessly small-talking people bent on socializing. Byuk Soo saw his peers as people who could fill up his voids – and maybe he didn’t even care about them personally, as long as he wasn’t alone.
But that shifted. Byuk Soo starts to become aware of how he’s truly perceived by his colleagues, how they don’t care about him and only call him whenever they need something from him. He finds out his little sister still doesn’t feel comfortable with him joining their family vacation. He is suddenly hurt by the truth and realizes this is not what he wants people to think of him.
Ji Young gradually gets a bit more friendly with her colleagues once she decides to get better and this does miracles for their relationships. Even when she’s in a bad place and starts crying in the staff room, she still allows one of her colleagues to hug and comfort her, which is a huge step from how it was in the beginning when she wouldn’t even let anybody touch her.
Both main characters learn from the side characters where they stand and how they can fix their relationships. The side characters were definitely important for the drama.

lthough I appreciated the occasionally heavy topic of Ji Young’s issues, I was still happy that the series had a happy ending. In the end it was about healing and coming to terms with oneself. Ji Young started accepting herself, and that’s how Byuk Soo also forgave her in the end. He never made her feel like a sick person who just had to start loving herself, he was just waiting from a distance until she was ready. She needed that time to heal on her own. And Byuk Soo was always the type to storm off angry and then still come back because he couldn’t give up on her after all.
I think it was great to see a love story between two people who you’d probably never expect to end up together in real life.
My favorite part was definitely the period when they were dating, because they were so friggin’ adorable and Byuk Soo picking her up to carry her across the rain puddles was one of the most precious things ever.
And that KISS. Can we talk about that amazing kiss? Okay, now THAT’S what I call a KISS. THANK YOU.

I’m planning on watching some more regular-sized dramas next, so I won’t be uploading this many reviews per week as I did last week, lol. I prefer to take my time to fully watch a series and form my opinions on them.
I hope you’ll keep up with me!

Disclaimer: this is a review, and as such it contains spoilers of the whole series. Please proceed to read at your own risk if you still plan on watching this show or if you haven’t finished it yet. You have been warned.

Short
(쇼트 / Syoteu)
MyDramaList rating: 6.5/10

I’m on a roll watching series, did you notice? But the ones I’ve watched in a row now all were relatively short ones so that’s why the reviews are so regular these past weeks.
This one too, ironically it’s already called ‘Short’ and it also only has 4 episodes. I saw it pass by somewhere one time and thought it would be interesting to watch a sports drama since I usually don’t watch sport-focussed series.

Short is about two short-track skaters, Park Eun Ho (played by Yeo Hoi Hyun) and Kang Ho Young (played by Kang Tae Oh), two complete opposites who are forced to commence training together to become national athletes and eventually participate in the Pyeongchang Olympics.
Park Eun Ho is the only son of the director of Kangbaek, the skating agency he’s a part of. His father (played by Yoo Ha Bok) has always been very strict with him and Eun Ho has lost his love for skating because of the pressure and the disappointment his father treats him with whenever he doesn’t win first place. Even when he does win, it’s never good enough for his father.
On the other hand, Kang Ho Young is a cheerful guy from the countryside with a genuine love for skating who blows everyone way with his speed in an amateur race. He lives with his grandfather and his late father also used to skate. Ho Young is spotted by coach Son Seung Tae (played by Yoo Ha Joon) and recruited to the training program at Kangbaek.
Eun Ho and Ho Young meet for the first time in the locker room and immediately get off on the wrong foot. When it turns out they’ll be training at Kangbaek together, they both initially loathe the idea. Especially when their coach tells them they need each other to find their balance. Eun Ho has the techniques but lacks vigor, Ho Young has the speed but lacks the technique.
They both move in at the house of a fellow skater, Ho Young’s friend Maeng Man Bok (played by Noh Jong Hyun) where he lives with his mother, sister and cousin.
Man Bok’s mother (played by Park Joon Myun) is a warm woman with excellent cooking skills who takes the boys under her roof and at the same time runs a restaurant by herself.
Man Bok’s sister Man Hee (played by Park So Eun) has a crush on Ho Young.
Man Bok’s cousin Yoo Ji Na (played by Kim Do Yeon) ran away from America to take an audition in Korea to become an idol. Both Ho Young and Eun Ho fall in love with her.
All in all, the story is about the rivalry between Eun Ho and Ho Young in both sports and romance, but also about how they eventually become friends.

In the beginning I thought this drama would be different from regular K-Dramas in that it would really be about sports, but with the introduction of Ji Na as the love interest, it turned into a more typical drama after all. For me, the whole fighting over a girl part didn’t really need to be a part of it, I was more interested in the sports part since that’s why I wanted to watch this series.
And of course, when I found out there were only 4 episodes I was wondering how they would fit a whole story within such a short series.
In the end, I think they did very well. However, I would have liked a little more build-up in the bond between the two guys. We see them mostly together at the house, eating and sleeping under the same roof and their rivalry in wooing Ji Na is clear, but I actually felt like I needed to see more of them together at the skating rink. There was constant talking about them training together but I don’t think I saw much actual training between them, just them racing each other in matches.
Also, I couldn’t really get a good idea of how ‘fast’ they were going because more than half of their races were shown in slow motion. I suppose the people shown racing from a distance were actual skaters and the slow motion was meant to show the actor’s faces, but still. It only made it even more obvious that they weren’t the ones actually skating.

I saw Kang Tae Oh in My First First Love just before this so I knew his funny side but I also really liked his character in Short. He was a genuinely nice guy and a loyal friend, who wanted to skate because he loved it and not because he wanted to be the best at it. The scenes with his grandfather were my favorite, I think. I think Eun Ho fuelled the feelings of rivalry in him because he himself was so focussed on winning rather than enjoying the sports, that Ho Young wanted to show him how wrong he was about that.
I knew Eun Ho’s character by face, but I can’t remember what I’ve seen him in. In the beginning his character seemed really angsty to me, the tension was clearly visible and you could see how little joy he took from what he was doing. It reminded me a little of Page Turner, where the main character was pushed by her parent to keep playing the piano, but eventually lost all pleasure in playing because it became all about winning.
I could empathize with Eun Ho in that he became sick of skating and tried to quit but wasn’t allowed to. In the end, being surrounded by Man Bok’s family and Ho Young, he gets that feeling back and ultimately even patches things up with his dad.

Man Bok’s family gets its own plot in the series. His mother has a huge debt going because of some mysterious woman who ran away and left all her unpaid money on her (? – I didn’t really follow what that was about). Anyways, some woman owed a bunch of loan sharks a lot of money but since she ran off Man Bok’s mom, as co-owner, was forced to pay off all her debts. When she wasn’t fast enough, the loan sharks even came to raid her restaurant.
In the beginning, Eun Ho’s father is very strict about Eun Ho staying anywhere else besides home, so he asks his manager to find out where his son’s staying. When he discovers Man Bok’s family, gradually he warms up to the idea after finding out about Man Bok’s mother’s incredible cooking and he agrees to him staying there. During their visits, the manager notices that the mother is in financial trouble (he overhears some phone conversations etc.) and he starts blackmailing Man Bok that he will pay off all his mother’s debts if Man Bok lets Eun Ho win the next race.
In this, Man Bok becomes so desperate he lets himself get injured on purpose during trials, resulting in Ho Young staying back to help him and Eun Ho winning. When everyone finds out this was done to make Eun Ho win, everyone initially gets mad at Eun Ho and his father even though they had nothing to do with this and also did not agree with the manager’s tactics.
In the end, Eun Ho’s father offers Man Bok’s mother a job as cook for the athletes during the deciding matches, paying her enough to cover all debts at once and she happily takes it. Eun Ho and Ho Young both make it to the national team. Man Bok fully recovers from his injury, all is well.

Let me know elaborate on the whole Ji Na love triangle.
First of all, for Kim Do Yeon (former IOI, now Weki Meki member) this was probably her first time acting in a drama. She is an idol in real life, (I remembered her from Produce 101, which is also where I knew Chae Yeon from My First First Love from) so I guess the most convenient role to give her was an aspiring idol, so she could show off her singing and dancing skills in the drama. Her acting was natural enough, but it didn’t make a big impression on me. Her only goal was to pass an audition and in the meantime she would occasionally appear during the guys’ match, cheering them on with Man Hee. You only ever see her with Man Hee, the whole family, or the guys. We don’t see her as an individual person hanging out with friends. I hate to say this, but to me it really felt like her only purpose in the drama was to be ‘the pretty girl’ to create a love triangle.
As a character she fell really flat. We only see her from the perspective the guys see her, almost a bit objectifying. I didn’t get any personality from her, she was simply the love interest. Also, the way the guys felt about her was only made clear through outward signs. There was never a true moment of connection between any of the three, they just both thought she was pretty and with that they started pursuing her.
In the end, Ho Young comes closest, because he has several ‘moments’ with her (aka the slow motion ‘she loses her balance and he catches her so she doesn’t fall and they stare into each other’s eyes’ trope) and he is the one who asks her out, on the condition of him making the national team. She doesn’t even answer his question, but easily states she has to go back to America because she didn’t pass the audition. In that scene, Ho Young was looking at her like, ‘wait but don’t you remember my confession?’, I found it kinda weird she ignored it like that.
But the series ends with Ji Na still returning because last minute she got called by an agency who wants to take her in as a trainee so she can stay in South-Korea. There is no further closure to their romantic relationship.
Man Hee eventually notices Ho Young is only interested in Ji Na and switches over to Eun Ho, because she finds out he’s having a harder time than Ho Young. The way these two end up seems more like a couple than the other two.

Overall, it was a nice change in genre from the dramas I usually watch and it definitely gave some insights in the world of ice skating as an olympic sport. I didn’t, however, learn that much about ice skating techniques or anything like that. There wasn’t much explanation about the sport itself, I felt like you already had to know something about it to watch it. When the two main characters were racing together it felt as if I was watching a match on TV, I felt quite distanced from it. As opposed to feeling like I knew more because I now had more knowledge about the world backstage the matches. I would have liked more scenes on the training process and bonding between Ho Young and Eun Ho rather than their awkward attempts to impress Ji Na. She felt a tiny bit like a distraction from the sports part and I thought that was a bummer.
Besides from that I think all actors portrayed their characters well and the series definitely had potential. I may also have liked it too be a bit longer after all, even though the ending didn’t feel rushed (despite the 4 episodes).

I think the main story of the series was the bond between the two guys and I get that they wanted to show multiple situations in which their rivalry would become clear. But for me, the first episode, their first meeting was enough to establish their relationship. In my opinion the series didn’t need a girl to show how two completely different guys could end up as friends and teammates who depended on one another. It could’ve done with a little more build-up in the relationship, but apart from that I didn’t think it was too bad.

I will know return to my sappy regular dramas focussed purely on romantic human relationships (kidding, still love them), but I will definitely be open to another sports drama if I discover one again.
Catch you later!