now, if i had a penny for every time shin hye sun starred as the female lead in a romcom drama in which:
there is a number in at least one of english translation of the title(s)
the male lead has vehicular ptsd relating to an incident in their shared past
there is a psychological age gap
she has a talent for music
she has had to wheel the very drunk male lead back home
i'd have two pennies, which isn't a lot – but even then, i'm still building up the parallels between the two in my head. i just know there'll be more to come.
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I been watching Shin Hae Sun’s dramas lately. Just finished Thirty but Seventeen and I loved it so much. I cried during the whole last half of the last episode and I don’t even know why lol.
My favorite is how they pretended like she was going to leave, like happens in so many dramas, and then they decided not to do the last episode break up/time skip thing.
Everything was so cute, the ending was perfect. I can’t believe that movie Senior Year was based on this lol. Also I didn’t recognize Ahn Hyo seop AT ALL till I looked him up.
Super cute, totally recommend.
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Still 17 / Thirty but Seventeen (2018)
Overall, I liked this melodrama / romcom though I had some quibbles.
The premise is basically: "what would it be like if you went through a coma and skipped all of your late teens and twenties and woke up 30." I've seen this in a few movies (Big, 13 Going on 30, etc.).
Those movies used unexplained magic to cause the inciting incident. But the people who made this show decided to use a horrific accident where their best friend gets killed, their family abandons them, and the main character starts the first episode confused and homeless.
This is a pretty good example of the differences between Hollywood and K-drama-land...
What Worked
There were strong performances here, but Shin Hye-sun really carried this show. The premise could easily have turned maudlin or overly cute but Shin Hye-sun kept things grounded when they needed to be, while still making you empathize with the character.
The other characters were also pretty interesting (especially Jennifer!), and the writer and actors put alot of care into making them seem real when they could easily have been boring or flat. Even the antagonists (the jealous former rival, the handsy son-of-a-client, etc.) were mostly interesting, or at least fun to hate.
What Didn't Work
They shot this by splitting the (usually) hour long episodes into 35 mins, for commercial break reasons. This caused some issues with pacing / plotting. They also liked to tease the audience by dropping clues about connections that would move the plot forward, only to have the characters suddenly turn away from the "clue" and bury it for 4-5 episodes (or more). It makes sense for them to do that, in that it keeps the audience hooked and was much more common before binging / streaming became popular, but it still annoyed the crap out of me.
I also disliked the inability for the "adults" to have a serious conversation in the first half of the drama. Again, this was mostly for plot reasons, and had some justification with the past trauma aspect of the show, but it was frustrating. Another thing I disliked was the attempted love triangle thing between Yoo Chan and Seo-ri. They did a good job of handling the arc overall, but it just didn't land for me.
The Performances
Shin Hye-sun as ("still 17") Woo Seo-ri. I loved this performance. The overall arc for the character, which is basically "poor little orphan makes good" isn't groundbreaking, but Hye-sun managed to keep the character fresh and fun to watch. And that made the moments of sadness hit even harder.
Yang Se-jong as ("poor trauma boy") Gong Woo-jin. Another good performance. I liked the chemistry he had with Hye-sun's character, but what made this work was the way Yang Se-jong managed to portray the slow change from weird mountain man shunned by society, to hardworking family man, while still keeping the core goodness of the character intact.
Ahn Hyo-seop as ("the good nephew") Yoo Chan. This guy was fun to watch, and made a great foil (comedic and emotional) for the two leads. I especially liked the way they showed his differences in language (from living overseas part-time) and his upbeat attitude overall. The show would have been much more depressing without the lighter moments that he brought to it.
Ye Ji-won as ("the housekeeper") Jennifer. This character was straight out of a Wes Anderson film, and I loved the decision to play her that way. I liked Ye Ji-won in her role as the quirky mom in Introverted Boss but this was much more fun and memorable. I don't know that kdramas really need more housekeepers with martial arts skills and an encyclopedic memory of weird facts, but I for one would enjoy more characters like that.
Jung Yoo-jin as ("noona boss") Kang Hee-soo. I liked her in Romance is a Bonus Book and it's nice to see her in a more laid-back role. Enjoyed her interactions with Seo-ri and Woo-jin.
Lee Ah-hyun as ("absent mother") Gong Hyun-jung. Not in very many episodes, but I really enjoyed the scenes she was in. Just a cool character.
Ahn Seung-gyun as ("quirky coworker") Jin Hyun. He was fun to watch, but I never understood what his deal was, other than just being young and quirky.
The Rowing Crew. These guys were fun to watch, but kind of interchangeable.
Yoon Sun-woo as ("the doctor") Kim Hyung-tae. The actor did okay with what he was given, but it was basically another fake love triangle which I didn't like, followed by some minor character stuff which was only kind of interesting.
Wang Ji-won as ("the rival") Kim Tae-rin. I have mixed feelings about the character. I liked the sort of flashback / arrested development thing, but I feel like the resolution to this was maybe too fast. But the actor did a good job and I felt some real feels at times.
The Bad Client. I hated this guy, which shows that he did a good job. A little bit of a stereotype, but (like with loansharks and fascists), I never get tired of seeing this type of guy get what's coming to him.
So-ri's Family. Not really memorable, but they did a good job for the most part.
TL; DR:
It's billed as a romcom, but it's at least equal parts melodrama. Frustrating and endearing at times, but it's worth watching just to see Shin Hye-sun and Yang Se-jong at work.
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