Record of Youth

What a wonderfully touching drama!

Oh My!!! What a sweet drama Record Of Youth is!
I'd had it on my list for a long time and just never watched it....but after watching the magical Park Bo-gum in Encounter I decided to move it up to the top of my to-watch list.
I was a bit nervous as I don't usually go for "sad endings", and had read a review or an article that said the main couple split....but I was extremely happy to see that the actually end leaves the door wide open...(now I'll keep my fingers crossed for a Record Of Youth 2!!)
I thought the drama dealt beautifully with the angst of growing up and finding your way in the world, it also dealt beautifully with the different styles of parenting and how it affects children and it dealt beautifully with friendships and how relationships develop and change.
The show was incredibly cast, all were perfect in their roles, but I want to call out Park Bo-gum, Park So Dam, and Byeon Woo Seok for truly portraying their characters and their character's complexities so well.
This is a series I will probably buy on DVD as it is one I will likely watch over and over and won't want to lose access to it! I absolutely recommend watching this magical drama!

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Park Bo Gum supremacy - you cannot convince me otherwise ( joking)

I am not sure why this has so many negative reviews, but I suppose everybody relates/sees things differently and that's perfectly fine. Please don't hate on people for having a different opinion than yours, it is important to respect each other's thoughts even in the free world of the internet. :)

I really liked how well produced was this drama. The frames and camera shots were very raw and honest. The whole story itself had a mature kind of vibe to it, even though it was a romance. The plot did not focus only on the love story of the main leads. It also showed their own progression and growth, I guess that's what you call a coming of age type of drama. It helped the plot develop organically.
I also liked the idea of the past-present alternation, how it started with something that happened ( a momentum) and how it all goes smoothly to show how the story got there. It is indeed a really interesting POV. It makes the viewer feel included in the plot as to say "you are here with us too. Let's see what happened so far. How did we get here?".
I will always have a soft spot for Park Bo Gum, but he never ever disappoints. I believe he is one of the most expressive k-actors out there. He looks genuine when he cries, and I mean not the ugly forced crying that looks like someone splashed your face with water. But the emotional sensitive one. I just love how he takes a character's story and just makes it his own life. He gets immersed in the story and the role. And no matter how "serious" or dangerous his character may be, he will always look like soft marshmallow boy. This world does not deserve such a pure soul.
But, his dramas are all worth watching. No matter who he co-stars with. His aura will make everything shine gold.

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I could not believe the disappointment I felt

Generally speaking I love coming of age dramas, as I am as well doing so hehe.

This one though felt really hypocritical.

At times really unecessarily painful, at other times really bittersweet and at other times completely out of touch with reality it felt like a big joke when I finished it.

Up until episode 10 I would say I had so much fun watching it but I think after that it just decides it wants to look realistic when the whole premise from the beginning is far from it. And yes maybe I am biased because of whatever it is that happened that I didn't like, but they really had it all just to let it bleed to death.

It feels as if the only well written part of this is the male lead and his family, everything else seems half-hearted and dishonest, with some honourable exceptions. Especially the way the female lead acted at times makes me think it was most definitely the script to blame because sodam is overall quite the actress.

Anyway I would HONESTLY not recommend it.
Unless you just wanna see bogum, that was the sole reason I finished it anyway. Yeah that's all.

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Fun watch but left me irritated.

I absolutely hate endings like this and breaking up in the 15th-16th episode. The leads have fought so hard to be where they are in the relationship. But let's do some incredibly lazy writing and have them break up for some incredibly stupid reason.
The series started off really well, then got slow in the middle, and then you could see the breakup coming several episodes back. I could watch it build up and was so disappointed. Give the couple a real reason to break up, and then don't put them back together in the last five minutes or show them overcoming their issues.
I also had trouble with the FL and second ML having a relationship. She knew he liked her, but instead of cutting it off and moving on, she continued to lead him on. It was an emotional affair - cheating.
I found the second couple's relationship much more realistic. They had to hide their relationship from the parents and finally broke up because of it, and I found both of them charming.

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My First Healing Drama

The haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate.

I swear I almost didn't watch ROY for all the bad rep it got here on MDL. I am so glad I ignored all that and watched this beautifully written show. Obviously, I wanted to watch PBG and PSD on screen again...both incredibly talented actors.

I love going into a show with as little info as possible...most of the time, I want to be surprised and I want the story to tell itself so I was pretty amazed to discover that this was less of a romance drama and more of a slice of life piece. If you love poems, this is the kind of show that opens up your mind like poems do - with the weight of the words and the waves of emotions. This show was my first ever healing drama. It reached down deep and my own emotions came to the surface.

This could only have happened with the great acting, particularly by Park Bo-Gum as Hye-Jun. We all sort of want to achieve sth really really badly. It doesn't usually matter why...you just hope that you could live a life where all your dreams could come true. But what ends up happening to us is life and the reality that everything comes at a cost. This very real aspect of life was intertwined so intricately into the show and came to a head when An Jeong-Ha said to Hye-Jun. "are you happy now? You have everything that you ever wanted..," (I paraphrase).

I will admit that I am not a big fan of slice-of-life. I come to dramas to escape reality but this show has an underlying note of hope and that's why at the end you are grateful that all your projected emotions bring a sense of "its okay..it didn't work out the way I thought it would but that's also okay". I have had it said that there were far too many side characters that were not well developed. In my opinion, we had a healthy dose of the different relationships with family and friends and with co-workers and with people you just happened to meet so that we had a beautiful picture of the whole. I still appreciated the growth in Hye-Jun's family and how that affected him.

I could talk the whole day about this drama so I'll just summarise here that this was top-notch acting from the leads, the writing and dialogue were superb and it was slice-of-life the way slice-of-life should be done plus the music was beautiful.

9/10.

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Not Enough Of A Return On My Time Investment

The relationship between Hye Joon and Jung Ha was the central pillar of this series. I slogged through all the episodes (lots of fast-forwarding during the last couple) and felt robbed of a romantic ending, my expected reward. I have a hard time swallowing the "realism" of the ending when the entire story is a fantasy to begin with. Yes, there were a few foreshadowing moments and it was clear that Jung Ha wasn't really ready for a long-term relationship. I guess I don't take much joy from depictions of failed relationships.

Too many product placements! Hurrah for BMW and Subway, among others.

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Interesting and had a good start! Lackluster ending, unfortunately, and almost none of the character arcs had a good wrap up. I think this drama was meant to be more slice of life than it advertised itself, and than it began. It almost had the semblance of a plot.

However I feel that things came too easily to the main couple, that they lacked chemistry except for in one scene, and that the hardships the ML went through were extremely unrealistic and overplayed. It's not a waste of time to watch this, but I can't fully recommend it and it's definitely not worth a rewatch. Unfortunately somewhere in the middle it lost all the momentum it had built up and went into rapid decline.

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Reflective but lacked the spark I needed

I have nothing negative to say regarding the story and the characters. It is a solid slice-of-life with a coherent and easy-to-follow plot. The series portrays the challenges of a young man trying to carve out a path in modeling and acting while dealing with his family's disapproval and the harsh reality of the industry. On the other hand, we see a girl striving to become a professional makeup artist while facing loneliness and a hostile work environment.

Reflections

The story invites you to reflect on how difficult it is to pursue dreams with unpredictable outcomes, especially when compared to "safer" options like office jobs or military service. Furthermore, it bluntly exposes the dark side of fame: how the pressure of rumors and defamation can destroy a career that took years to build in just a second. Even the romance feels grounded; it shows us that their individual careers can become an obstacle and that, sometimes, the greatest act of love is understanding that going separate ways is the best option, trusting that there will always be new beginnings.

Personal Verdict

However, on a personal level, the drama felt slow—to the point of boredom. The characters are relatable, and you can truly empathize with them (cheering for their triumphs and feeling their sorrows), but the pace is so leisurely that the level of excitement and intrigue remains quite low.
I realized that this series isn't designed for pure "time-passing" entertainment, which was my initial goal. It’s not a story that will make you laugh out loud, bite your nails in suspense, or go crazy over the romance. It was a learning experience for me, but I wish it had been something more than that.

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had potential but fell flat

loved the main cast!! but there were sooo many characters to hate lmfao the balance among characters that i liked and disliked was not good or i’d have given it a higher rating. i was too annoyed with some characters in every episode to fully enjoy myself

there were also lots of plots happening and i know the point is to show growth and character development but i feel like i didn’t get enough from hyejun and jeongha. i wish we dived into their relarionship more before we showed hyejun getting busy and them distancing from each other. we barely get any indication from either of them that their relationship is being affected by hyejun’s fame/schedule bc neither of them really discuss their issues w each other like a normal couple 😖just a couple sad glances and sighs here and there. a missed call and scenes with haehyo stepping in bc bro is so jobless 😭😭 it’s so frustrating that they don’t talk things out but i might just be biased bc i hate when couples don’t properly communicate w each other lmfao

anyway it was a decent series and i absolutely love the brotherhood of the 3 main male leads. i wish jeongha had more support from women so she could have her own people to lean on without having to be too independent, but i know it’s part of her character. it would’ve been nice to see her open up to her friends too and learning how to count on other people without getting the ick from what her mother has been like

this was my first park bo-gum exposure and i’ll be tuning in to his next projects!! officially a fan now hehe :p

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I was disappointed and I just wanted more

There is nothing wrong with a drama being overdramatic, as long as the overdramatic adds to the storyline or actually pertains to the story. In this case, I felt like there was too much drama that was just somewhat meaningless. The male lead, Park Bo-Gum or Hye-jun, after starting to get famous kept on running into problems and honestly, after a while it just got boring. I did not feel like it added to his character or make him a stronger person, just a huge lack of character development.

Let's talk about the poster for the show itself, I felt was not really even focusing on who the show was really about. The poster makes it seem like its about those three characters mainly, when in reality, it was really about Park Bo-Gum's character, I mean even at some point the female lead gets pushed to the side. Speaking of the female lead, Park So-Dam or Jeong-ha, there was also a huge lack of character development with her or really any other character in the show. Specifically with her, we were clued into her family problems and how those issues have lead to her being cautious when it comes to romantic relationships, but those issues were never addressed. The FL continued to just be in the dark alone with her own thoughts and continued to be upset alone while the ML knew nothing about it because he assumed she was fine and that they were happy together. That was what made me hate their relationship even more, they never really knew what the other was thinking because they never spoke about their problems or when they were upset. Byeon Woo-Seok or Hae-yo, the last person in the poster for the show, I thought in a way was the only character to actually change. Hae-yo is depicted as being in love with the FL even though she has a boyfriend, but he continues to just be her friend. As the ML gets more popular than he does, we start to see a change in Hae-yo's character, we see him struggle jealousy, anger, reality. We finally see him come face to face with the fact that he has not made it this far on his own but because he has had a helping hand the whole way. He was the only character I felt actually developed over the course of the show, he struggled very much with self esteem issues and being insecure but near the end, he started to realize that he wanted to take total control of his own life, and he proceeded to do so.

Overall, I felt the show lacked in some areas. It was fun to watch at the beginning but I would say that at about episode 8 or so, it just went down hill from there. But I mean everyone has their own opinion. :)

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