Amazing? yes amazing!!
I've watched all the reply series but i must say this one was on a totally different level from the others.
I loved the fact that the main focus was not just on the love triangle or "who the husband is" but also on the side characters (were there any ? Everyone had their own spotlight.) and family, friends, about growing up and every other thing that one experiences in life. Nothing seemed forced or boring(even thou the episodes are long) time seemed to pass away so quickly.
Loved each and every character present in this drama from the teenagers to parents and every character and episode touched my heart. By the way Park Bo Gum was way too cute and Ryu Jun Yoel was way too smart and sexy. Want to take both of them with me!
Talking about love triangle. I didn't care about it that much. I mean of course i wanted to know who the husband is badly but never got frustrated about the secret thing. if she would have end up with the other person in the triangle i would have been equally happy but in the end i was satisfied of her choice as' he' really did deserve her.
Music? didn't i tell you everything was perfect. Music only alleviated my emotions. . Always fit for the situation.
And ya i do have regrets but it doesn't affects my love for this series. Those are just small things that i personally wanted to see 'cause i'm still craving for more.
Even thou the series was great but there were points that were a bit dissapointing in the end. It was like the ending could have been better.
For rewatch value i cannot go through such long episodes and feel such complicated emotions again plus im not good in rewatching stuffs but i wont stop watching this with my siblings or make them watch this series.
In the end, a must watch! I bet you'll seriously enjoy this amazing roller coaster ride of all types of emotions and crave for more and more (If you like a pure slice of life drama and root for the correct guy- but it didn't matter to me- i liked both of them)
ENJOY!!!!
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This review may contain spoilers
one-of-its-kind
well i must start by thanking the MDL community for ranking this drama so highly. this is the kind of drama that would've easily slip off my radar had it not been for the high rating. even then i really had a trouble deciding to start watching this because of the massive running time for each episodes!!! though i noticed some problems that make me unable to score it a perfect 10, it was definitely an enjoyable ride and i left the drama feeling hugely dissatisfied because i wanted to stay with them for a bit more!now, before i explain the things that marked down the score of this drama for me, i will begin by saying the positives.
first, my most favourite characters are actually all the mothers. i believe that Mi Ran, Il Hwa and Sun Young are all perfectly cast for their respective roles. in fact i think they are perhaps the real backbone to the story, i connected with all of the mother characters before i even find myself gravitating towards their teenage children. call me an outlier but my most favourite friendship of the drama was actually not the 5 gang, but the mothers LOL. they really carried the drama for me, alongside their husbands. i truly appreciate a father's special episode, and especially how Dong Il's relationship development with his daughters totally broke me in so many different ways.
which brings me to the gang of 5. i began the drama thinking ahh, this drama is so tacky and the characters are brash which reminds me as to why i don't usually like to watch high school or youth stories ever. and i had the thought of what if the drama began as them at the point of attending colleges but then i understood why they went against the idea is because the boys have started living away from their parents. so yes, as someone who began rather unimpressed with this feeling of having 'generation gap', in the duration of 20 episodes they have succeeded in making me a convert and grow immense affinity for them all.
as with the love triangle between Duk Seon, Jung Hwan and Choi Taek, i find that this part was one of the most well-done parts of the show. i thought the slow build up of their relationships was brilliant, the way she actually liked Sun Woo first, and then upon finding out that he actually liked Bora, hated it so much but was able to let go of her feelings when Jung Hwan started showing interest towards her more than as a friend. the confusion of Duk Seon, the hesitance of Jung Hwan, the honesty of Choi Taek and how both of the boys never confessed their feelings to her for 6 years because they didn't want to ruin their friendship, i loved it all. i am also more on #teamTaek because i loved he has never hesitated to confess among his group of friends about his real feelings towards Duk Seon. i did feel utterly heartbroken for Jung Hwan obviously, but in any realistic situation she can only end up with one of them so.....
also, my secret weapon for the drama, Sun Woo and his cute little sister Jin Joo! i loved when he always finds himself kissing her on the cheek and how she's always unbothered by it lmao. i love how smart he is, and how he is an all around Mr. Nice Guy. what i still don't understand even after completing the drama is that how did he end up liking Bora in the first place. i hated that the director even cut him short when he was trying to explain the reasons he liked Bora when he was trying to win over her. if only i could see Bora from his eyes, i definitely would have been more accepting of their relationship, LOL~
now, moving on to the weaker parts of the drama. i do think that the middle parts of the drama have started to fizzle down a bit. i can give several examples to explain this. first, out of the three siblings of the gang of 5, i do think that Jung Bong has had the most individual screen time of them. and i believe this was a bit misplaced. i don't mind his relationship with Duk Seon's friend Man Ok and also the scenes when almost the entirety of the episode was centered around him (the congenital heart surgery). i meant the scenes where he was going to the temple without a proper context and many extended scenes of him literally doing some unexplained stuffs in his room BUT studying. i find those scenes frustrating and should have been given to Bora instead. other than No Eul, i believe Bora was the second most under-utilized character in the whole drama, and it was a pity that the writer didn't give her a clear trajectory for character growth (refer to the spoilerful thoughts on the finale below)*.
No Eul was another important support character which i think they greatly mishandled. first of all, i really wanted to know why do they decide on casting someone who visibly looks older than Duk Seon to be her younger brother? because i didn't find that they tried to make that part funny without it being disrespectful. and secondly, when they showed how he has such a beautiful voice in ep. 16 and was later on pursuing musical gig, there was no further exploration on that except some minor conversations between him and his father about him travelling around to perform.
the more noticeable weaker parts of the drama was this: that the passing of time in the drama were filled more with rather mundane day-to-day life things, made 'worse' by an era characterized by simplicity. what i mean was that, there were nothing too dramatic that would have added more spice/flavour to the drama. and i don't mean to want very typical dramatization commonly found in k-dramas like the amnesia trope LMAO, but a more toned down dramatization of sorts to spice things up a little bit. everyone in the neighbourhood grew up well and healthy so it was kind of, boring? i don't know, LOL. i wished the writer had some sort of bigger misfortune happening than the protest arrest to Bora, that would have made her much more humble and reliant on her parents' love, support and protection.
**SPOILERFUL THOUGHTS ON THE FINALE
1. i cried really hard in this episode, but it definitely didn't feel like the most perfect ending. i have to say that i was disappointed that they make Bora gift her father a shoe bigger than his actual size to wear on his wedding. i think the writer had to go down this route because they haven't given Bora a proper character development during the running of the show to begin with!!! i kinda had the inkling that the writer wanted to imply that the reason Bora was so nasty during her college years was because of her immaturity, but i think not. i see that more of a combination of immaturity and plain rudeness. my hypothesis is that, if only they have given her a proper character development, the tears she shed when bowing to her parents at her wedding wouldn't be so full of regrets, rather sadness that now she's leaving her parents' home forever.
2. i also think that the final scene when all the families finally moved out of the neighbourhood to retire someplace else, they should have extended that a little bit towards another episode. in fact i think the wedding of Bora-Sun Woo should not have been the drama's ending. i had a bitter taste in my mouth when they didn't show how Duk Seon and Taek will finally confess to their parents about them dating. even if they had to fast forward to 6 years into the future, i think extending this to another 2-3 episodes would have sufficed it. then we could have also seen the early stages of Bora-Sun Woo's married life, and if they were to already have a baby.
3. the snippets into the year 2015 felt nothing but a huge misfortune. first, i believe they should have just cast Hyeri and Hye Young to play their 40 y/o version selves and leave Duk Seon's husband out completely. the way Taek behaved in his mannerisms in 2015 felt more like Jung Hwan to me (or many of us), that it's hard to believe anything but that such a huge misstep was a joke. and only when Taek was revealed to be her husband, they should have had a scene of the gang of 5 reuniting with special makeup effects showing that they are now in their 40s. i was just mad that we didn't get to see this part.
finally, i can see why this drama can be very charming to some people and end up being one of their ultimate favourites. as for me, i do think if i am a native Korean watching this weekly during its airing time (so that i wouldn't be so affected by the exhaustion of bingewatching), i might have scored this a perfect 10. this was a really great drama and i really haven't seen anything quite like it anywhere else :)
p/s Bogum stop attacking me with your utterly gorgeous Colgate smile pleaseeeeeee. i'm dying over here, I CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF SEEING HIS BEAUTIFUL SMILE. i might watch Encounter for him LOL. okay bye, done rant.
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Honestly, this drama is every bit as good as the reviews say it is, if not better. Every single actor from the youngest to oldest, totally shone. I laughed more than I can remember laughing for a long time, and I had tears running down my face at other times. There was not a single moment of boredom, even in the quieter scenes, because it is so well written, produced and acted. And the ost just adds the cherry on top. I can even forgive that my own choice of ship for Doek Sun lost out!
The most devastating part for me was the end because I loved every single character so much I felt I was losing friends.
I can't recommend this highly enough, and am actually half way through watching it again, and its making me laugh and cry just as much.
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In comparison I did really like 1997, but was not a fan of 1994. In either regard this one passed them both in spades for me. Even though I had it spoiled for me who the husband was before I started watching, it didn't take away from it at all. I compliment the writer for being much more progressive in that manner. 1997 it was obvious who the husband was. 1994 was less obvious, but they still heavily skewed it toward who it was. This one didn't feel obvious at all until the later episodes, and they even skewed it away.
The writer said that they wanted the audience to focus more on the family/friends aspect rather than the whole guess the husband thing, and that makes sense given the last episode doesn't give much focus to it. Which I am fine with, even though it's a slight disappointment that we at least didn't get a scene of them telling their families about their relationship, and would like to have seen the overall reaction from everyone. Oh well, doesn't take away enough for me to lower my score on this, as I just completely fell in love with this show. This show practically portrays every theme you can think of when it comes to family and friendship, and does so in such moving ways.
As for the acting, everyone was great. Hyeri did a fantastic job, along with everyone else. I don't have a single complaint about any of them.
This is my 92nd completed K-drama, and only my second perfect 10 score. It will definitely be hard for me to stop thinking about this one for a while.
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All the characters in this drama are written beautifully. I love every single of them, everyone has their own story to be told.
This drama has been a wonderful emotional roller coaster for me. As a family-romance-comedy drama, it did make me feel all emotions. I laughed a lot. And at some times, I was made burst in tears. This drama successfully made me cry in more than 5 episodes. The whole story is so touching and heartwarming, and also very realistic which anyone who watches it will find it relatable to our lives.
All the songs featured in the drama scream perfection.
I will definitely rewatch this drama. Reply 1988 is that kind of drama that you will not forget forever. I find difficulty watching another drama because I end up comparing them to this, lol.
This drama surely is flawed, but my love for it is 100% that I would give it 10 for all categories.
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This review may contain spoilers
family centric slice of life, didn't particularly enjoy it
Reply 1988 - 4/10Reply 1988 is a relaxing show that is meant to be enjoyed on an evening with tea. It is something to watch with friends and family as nothing serious happens, it's a slice of life really close to reality.
Slice of life is one of my favourite genres, but did I enjoy this show? Nope. Because this show is stagnant. It's a plateau where NOTHING HAPPENS. it starts off well, it had me captured for the first few episodes because it showed alot of social background of people's lives in 1988 then I became indifferent towards it in the middle and almost wanted to drop it. The ending was pretty nice too, but not for me to love the show or save my low ratings.
My strife with this show is its repetitive nature in terms of situations, jokes etc. It shows little to no growth, I also didn't have any emotional connection to most of the characters, I didn't hate them nor did I love them. Some characters I outrighted hated them for most of the show aka the female leads sister / bora.
Another thing is even if you miss one or 2 episodes or a few scenes literally u miss nothing. Most scenes are insignificant and so many fillers. Most scenes are meaningless and show some dumb things some character does that is apparently supposed to be funny, but I didn't enjoy it. we had a goat sound for all the funny scenes, it was a little annoying though I didn't hate it but it wasnt pleasant.
I want to compare this with another slice of life made by the same producer, that is hospital playlist. Hospital playlist shows lives of people in a hospital and it shows reality, doesn't repeat situations or jokes, it has very lovable characters unlike the frustrating ones in this one. It is extremely insightful to people's life while visiting hospitals and the staff. It is 100 times more wholesome than reply 1988. It has not made me lose interest and is always relaxing.
I would have enjoyed this show alot more if they showed a bit more about the social problems and setting at the time period of 1988. I felt like they showed more of the shows, singers, ads and celebrities popular at the time which I couldn't relate to as I'm not a korean person, but I understand why the koreans loved this show. It's probably one of the reasons why I didn't enjoy the show.
*spoilers BIG SPOILERS SKIP THIS IF YOURE WATCHING OR PLANNING TO WATCH OTHERWISE NO POINT* the love triangle was just sad. I hated the guy she ended up with. He's the most boring character I have ever seen in my life. He had no charms according to me. He is sleepy, tired and stressed all the time and playing his lousy game. Not very street smart either, he needs help tying his shoes? Really now? He's handsome but that's nowhere a reason to ship the two.The second lead was relatively more interesting and had some life in him but he is just a coward so idk but I did ship them more than the one she ended up with. Basically I dont ship her with anyone especially not with the male lead.
Also the fact that they dragged this show to 21 episodes for literally no reason made no sense to me. This show had nothing much to show that justified it to be so long.
Now to the positive aspects of the show that saved the dying rating. This show showed EVERY characters life, there were no side characters, everyone was main. This was nice! It showed everyone's problems, lifes and touched upon lives of older and younger alike.
The music of the show including osts and the old songs was IMPECCABLE. I learned way too many good old songs because of this show. This reason single handedly increased the ratings by 3.
I really dont recommend this show to be an ideal slice of life or in general to anyone, but there are tons of shooters for this show who seemed to have really enjoyed it, so i guess it's your choice as I'm part of the minority who didn't enjoy this high rated show.
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This drama is about friendship (theme that I personally adore), family and neighborhood. The whole production (story, cast, music, editing, cinematogpraphy, etc.) grab the viewers to live in it.
The story been told well. The plot was keep its path to be reasonable without forgetting its value as a tv drama.
The actors/actresses are casted perfectly. They brought the roles alive and make us feel like already know them personally. It's an awesome idea and also a great job to create various characters unite in one production. I could feel Dukseon's feeling as a middle child of girl-girl-boy siblings, and my parent also work at a bank. I can relate her feelings and situation personally. I believe that the other roles also present our own self, our friends or our family. Their acting feels real that could make us live with them. I gave a bold perfect score for them. Thumbs up!
For every new song (ost.) that came out from this drama, I search it right away. The sound-track and singers were selected perfectly. Even though those were remake songs, they'd been delivered well. All of the sounds (music, ost., sound-effect, etc.) placed at the right moment. They're impactful and increase the story value.
It's good to re-watch this after finish it once. Why? Just to remind you what's really going on, and also to help you understand the whole story in case you got confuse. For me, personally, I'll re-watch this again whenever I miss those roles.
ps. Guys, just in case you feel disappointed or frustrate in the middle of watching this drama, I suggest you to keep on watching until the end.
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Moving and heartwarming drama
Can I just say that Park Bo Gum is an excellent actor? I started watching Love in the Moonlight (but got sidetracked) so this was really my first time watching him. Can I just say how effective he was in that scene where Sun Woo came in the room excitedly to tell Taek that he reconciled with Noona Bo Ra and Dong Ryong and Deok Sun were inside the room as well? That scene where Sun Woo was hiding behind Taek and Taek denied that he knew about it? He was laughing and denying it at the same time. Superb acting there because I can really see myself with that kind of expression. Some acting in dramas are exaggerated but Park Bo Gum's acting in that scene was SPOT ON. Out of all the Bogummy scenes in the drama, this is my favorite and the scene with Deok Sun's dad in Ep. 2 comes as my second favorite. Way to go Park Bo Gum! He is to me the best Korean actor ( and I am huge fan of other Korean actors) with his most expressive eyes. I AM NOW A FAN!Was this review helpful to you?
This is perfection, no wonder it was the highest-rated Korean dramas in cable television
This drama teaches so many things about life, family and friendship and little life changing gestures that I just cannot express in a mere review how perfect it was, from the beginning till the end.I won't say who the female leads ends with but once you re-watch the drama or think back at many things, everything starts to make sense. I wonder if there are still people who don't know who Duk Seon's husband is, but if you don't, and even if you do, please just watch the drama anyway. It is really not about the ship, this is just a particular aspect of the Reply series, just one aspect among many other more important ones
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Let me introduce Ssangmun-dong
There is so much to unpack in this series. This is definitely one of those series wherein after you watched it, you'll never be the same person before you watched it. You just kinda grow and mature with the characters.The story. I love how it has a little bit of everything: friendship, family, love, career, decisions almost everything that life offers. The depiction is too relatable that even after watching it I felt like it has become a part of me.
The characters. I just love the dynamic of how everyone interacts with each other. The chemistry of the entire village is unmatched. The friendship among the 5 Ssangmun children. The variety of each and every family. The uniqueness of everyone which made the story even more colorful.
There's so much I wanted to say about this series but I felt like my words can't justify the whole beauty of it.
I definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to watch a light-hearted, funny and lesson-filled drama. 31 hours of my time is so worth it for this series.
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I'll start talking about my favorite character, Seong Deok Seon (Lee Hye Ri). Lee Hye Ri it's an incredible actress, and I'm very happy that she had the opportunity to shine again recently with "My Roommate Is A Gumiho", but Deok Seon is my favorite female lead these days. The charming of this character to me is to see how Deok Seon represents the most part of the teenage girls that lived in the 80/90's. Her strength and kindness were touching so many times that made me think about many things that I do in my life and the way how I see my youth. This girl will be unforgettable.
All the boys were also amazing, but I have to emphasize my Master Choi (Park Bo Gum), that started as a moron but turns out into the most incredible guy, with great strength and maturity that made me cry and smile all the time. Seon Woo (Go Kyung Pyo) was the bomb that I was expecting would explode, but nothing happened. His personality seems quite repressed for me, even more than Taek sometimes, and I wish could see a little explosion there. The same for Dong Ryong (Lee Dong Hwi), which clearly acted as a support role between the friends, which we can see even in the appearance of his parents. He was so fun and necessary sometimes, that I felt his character was a little wronged. And, of course, my major frustration here, the moron Kim Jung Hwan (Ryu Joon Yeol) - yes, I'm still enraged -. Guys, seriously... I wanted to root for this guy, but every time he disappointed me with his double actions, and uncertainness... His speech in the penultimate episode was the synopsis of his attitude, and that drove me crazy. I understand the motive, but at the same time it isn't justifiable for me. The ring scene... oh my gosh...
This show is far away beyond romance, and I remember a lot of "Go Ahead". See the interactions between the families and friends and how the things going on was incredible and each character marked me in a certain way. I wouldn't take off anything from this, it was everything perfect. To say something bad, I just made the episodes a little shorter because some had almost 2 hours, and it was a little hard to keep up the rhythm, but if you like big dramas, you gonna love it.
This one is another chosen one for me (★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★★★). This drama will give all kinds of emotions to you and any second will be worth it. I have to say that, even being better produced and more elaborated, the 1997 is still my favorite one :D
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