“My Youth” Episodes 1 And 2 Review

JTBC’s newest drama “My Youth” is finally here, starring some heavy names. Lets talk about the premiere of the newest romance drama.

So, the drama is about four people who reconnect with each other from their past and this shakes their life. Its led by Song Joong Ki and marks his first drama since the massive hit “Reborn Rich,” and he’s joined by Chun Woo-Hee, an amazing actress. Lee Joo-Myoung and Seo Ji-Hoon make up the 2^nd couple in this drama.

For starters, I am just happy there will be no sort of infighting between the four of them as it seems to be set for two distinct couples.

Firstly, I feel like there was a considerable effort to make this drama feel as homey as possible. The color grading is superb and so inviting. The editing is so done so well too. The director is doing an excellent job.

“My Youth” is written by Park Si Hyun who is the one responsible for the fan-favorite classic “Run On,” another healing romance drama that I see being discussed on online spaces relatively frequently. I can tell its the same screenwriter behind them.

The premiere was lovely and well put-together, but rather predictable.

It introduced characters so well without overwhelming people. The screenwriter did a good job on that front, its always a pet peeve of mine when introductions are done sloppily.

The plot itself is rather…. Standard. Its not particularly interesting in itself or even unique, this can go in either direction. It’ll either feel nostalgic and sweet, or rather repetitive because it essentially can be both at the same time. It doesn’t mean I believe its bad, but its quite basic. The two set of couples reuniting from their highschool days with unhealed wounds and what seems to be either the man or the woman in one of the couples who never managed to get over their love interest 14 years or so after it ended, is as repetitive in this space as it can get.

This type of plot has been repeated and quite frequently too. The trope of past lovers or love interests isn’t my favorite and is in my opinion one of the most annoying over-used tropes in almost all recent kdramas too. If you watch any Kdrama right now, there is more than a 70% chance the couple in the drama is previously acquainted and share a past, even if brief. In most cases, its either overwhelming emotional or traumatic. Regardless of what it is, they share a past and that past brings them closer together.

Having said this, Park Si Hyun is good at writing dialogue and setting up conflicts between characters which will have to do the heavy lifting in my opinion since none of these characters are particularly interesting to me, yet.

I liked how the story delved right into it and I expect to see this repeat next week too.

Now onto the casting and the chemistry.

So far, I think both couples look cute together. I would’ve never imagined Joong Ki with Woo Hee but they make for a cute pair. Their on-screen chemistry is fine and you can tell they put a lot of work into it. I haven’t seen much of the other pair but I do love Lee Joo-Myoung. I think she’s immensely underrated.

This is also notably Joong Ki’s first comeback drama since what I believe was his marriage and baby, or babies. He rarely picks simple romance dramas, if at all, since his rise to Hallyu fame. So this choice of his interests me. He usually chooses scripts that feature romance, but there is even more at stake; this makes his decision to opt for a simple romance youth drama rather unique in nature.

The ratings for the drama are not good, its 1%, and generally speaking, such types of dramas don’t do as well, but lets see if Song Joong Ki’s power can change that.

Overall, while quite expected, “My Youth” is up to a cute start, lets see how the story unfolds next week.

Have you seen “My Youth” yet?