20th Century Girl (2022)

Movie with rich storyline and characters

So, I had this movie on my watch list for a long time (since it's release), not knowing anything about the story and never had the time to watch it in one go. I even considered it watching in chunks while riding the subway on my way to work.

Well, I'm glad I didn't. I finally got the time on christmas day and the invested time was worth it. After the first couple of minutes I also had to look twice, since I clearly didn't expect Kim Yoo-Jung in the main role, but I was even happier after my mind accepted it was true, since I really like her. The story then proceeded and I was on an emotional rollercoaster - I did go through all emotions the story presented. I was once again catched off guard after the major plot twist. Up till then, I believed it was an easy school romance story line but well - it was not. Once I swallowed the twist, the story then was easy going till the end.

So, in general: I liked this movie. Does it have flaws? Yes, it has. My main critique is the changed actress for Na Bo-Ra in the two timelines. Even though I do understand, that Kim Yoo-Jung is rather young and probably not suited to play a mid to end 30-year old women and maybe even can't depict the cool-headed and distanced emotions Han Hyo-Joo can, I would have just loved her to see it in that role. I see two reasons for that:
a.) Kim Yoo-Jung had more than 95% screentime of all Na Bo-Ra scenes, so it feels kinda ungrateful, that she can't do the last 5%
b.) It would be a huge chance for her, since she mostly played air-head, short-tempered characters, and I would have loved her to see and expand her acting spectrum with a different role, and these 5% would have been a great and forgiving possibility.

So, the change of the lead actress makes the end worse than it could be. For 1:45 hours or so I felt with Na Bo-Ra, because Kim Yoo-Jung did a great job. But then, from one scene to the next (and only for the last minutes) I have to connect with a different actress? That's not cool. If the switch would have been done after 1h or so, it wouldn't have been such a great issue.

Otherwise, the story was well written. All actors did a great job depicting their specific character. All of them felt alive and important for the story. None was expendable.


To sum it up, I rate it as 10/10 personally, but it should have been a 9.5 due to the changed actress.

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DONT WATCH IF U CRY EASY

To be honest, this started out so cutely like it was a pretty casual condensed drama. I really thought the ending would circulate around the fact the the ML and FL do long distance then he comes back but NO. I fast forward to my girl Bo-ra getting ghosted but then she gets invited to an exhibit. I really thought that she would finally meet up with Woon-ho but then no i saw a death year. I WAS LIKE OH HELL TO THE NAH THIS BOY DIDN'T JUST DIE. SPOILER he did. AND it was so unexplained like whatttt. I had to google and ppl are saying he had an accident on the way to the airport and things like that. Nonetheless, i cried buckets and it made me actually upset. 1. because of the sheer sadness of it. and 2. because literally who expected that punch in the heart and 3. the most unclear situation. Lowkey, it seemed like the end was a bit rushed but the vhs was so cute i cried for a good 10 mins. To sum up, its a pretty good watch but I dont like watching sad endings. I watched it for the hype and I prolly wouldn't watch it if i knew how it ended. ♡qualifiedkdramer♡

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Predictable

Cliched, predictable high school drama with some very beautiful young people. Bo Ra promises to look after her best friend's crush while she leaves the country. Predictable situations ensue, but you don't mind it too much since the main leads are so darned beautiful. I loved Bo Ra's relationship with her father the most. I wish they had given their banter a little more airtime. I was hoping the love triangle would give way to a close friendship--sort of like a three musketeers relationship, but the writers had other ideas. I hate to say it, but the unoriginal plot, and depthless supporting characters made this a bit disappointing. The acting was okay, but I think they could have gone a little further in raising the stakes. It general, a very sweet teenaged movie.

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I knew the ending already thanks to Tik Tok, and I still started bawling my eyes out 45 minutes before the movie ended. This was such a sweet and pure depiction of first love, I wish I could have seen even more of the characters because they were so fun and likable the second the movie started. Oh to have such friends like this, to be in the broadcasting club, to eat plums straight from the tree, to have a school field trip at the ocean, to get drunk with your friends, to drunkenly confess your feelings, to have payphone conversations with your first love, to send emails back and forth with your best friend/crush... the list goes on. This broke my heart in a million pieces. To think Bo Ra never got to read Woon Ho's letter because he dropped it in the rain, or that it took so long for her to find out what happened after years of feeling disappointed. It'll take a while to recover from this one ?

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Overall, a cute film about first loves with angst, drama and a few twists and turns thrown in.

Just finished this and true to form… the ending sucked ??. I don’t know what it is about Korean films and dramas but they are so good… they just keep sucking you in until you get to the end and then 85-90% of the time, they just miss the mark. I mean like nose dive off a cliff miss. Not to mention the fact that I thought this was a drama and only realized it was a film when some one mentioned it and asked didn’t I wonder why I had been watching it so long.. I did not and after watching a certain scene, I was left wondering how the show would move forward for 9 more episodes?? Good thing it was a film because I would have been pissed having watched 10 episodes of a drama only for it to end the way it did… ?
The characters were likeable for the most part and a few got on my nerves at times but overall I enjoyed them and they played their roles perfectly. The story line was pretty good as well… made me reminisce on my first love and kept me interested.. until that nose dive of an ending. Overall it was a cute film about first loves with angst, drama anda few twists and turns thrown in.

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NOT a "lighthearted" coming of age story like Netflix described :( Pass if you don't want to cry

I was in a depressed mood and when I saw that this was listed as a "lighthearted" movie, I thought PERFECT! I'll watch of fun quick romance. When the Male lead didn't stopped replying to the female leads emails and then she didn't hear from him for years it never even crossed my mind that he was dead because, again, this is listed as a LIGHTHEARTED romance on Netflix! LIES. Towards the end when she go the invitation to the exhibition I was actually thinking she better kick his but to the middle of next year, because he has no good excuse for ghosting her like that (no pun intended). Then I saw the image of the plum tree and bench with his birth and death day, and in front of my husband and two toddlers I cried out so loud, it startled them and then burst into tears! Whoever considers that light hearted must have a heart than can bench press a house, because this movie placed about 10 tons of heartache on me. I stopped the movie right there and DNF'd it. Even writing this review makes me want to lower my rating. So just to be clear, this MAY be a great movie to some people, but I HATE these types of stories. Life is hard enough, I don't want to watch them on tv, which is the time I spend escaping some of the hard things I have to see and hear through my line of work.

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A bit sadder than my expectations

I've always wanted to watch this one but was reluctant due to its sad ending. Lovely Runner has boosted my motivation to watch it and i must say i had a gist of the ending but it had affected me more than i thought it would.

The story is cliche but its execution was quite alright, the movie hits a very nice nostalgic note due to its setting which made me like this movie a lot especially with its beautiful visuals. It started so wholesomely with its romcom and silly 2nd hand embarrassment moments that i was surprised on how in its last few minutes it had shifted on a much sadder note. As pleasing as this drama has started and how smooth it was with its pacing id say that the fact that Poong woo ho's death was porely handled as it had been left unfairly unexplained despite its importance to the movie even during the conversation between bo-ra and his younger brother.

Overall this movie was good as long as i ignore the little things. I'm certain it might take awhile for me to recover from this one haha.

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