Below is a review of tvN “Twenty-five twenty-one”.
Finally, a refreshing, lovely and positive youth drama after a long time. Moreover, it is a sports one. Against the backdrop of a more dramatic sport than an actual drama, we examine the charm of this delicious drama “Twenty-five, Twenty-one,” which combines different aspects of young people’s dreams, friendship, and love.
Na Hee-do, a girl who pushes for her dreams and her sport with her own strength
“Turn tragedy into comedy, and you’ll feel better.”
Na Hee-do, a bold girl who advances fearlessly toward her dream of becoming a fencing athlete, and her biggest charm is to “do everything recklessly” in the words of the male protagonist Baek Yi-jin. She looks up to Ko Yu-rim, a girl who is of her same age, a national team athlete and gold medalist, like an idol. In order to be forced to transfer to Taeyang High School where Ko Yu-rim is studying, she fights with her school bullies and intervenes in a gang fight, but life is not as easy as she thinks.
The bully girl, who she quarreled to fight, worries about Hee-do that she is an athlete who will win the medal in the future but does not take care of herself in the future. The police even mistook the bully girl for a victim, after they saw her asking if Hee-do, who voluntarily waited for her, was okay. Hee-do, who went to the nightclub only to be caught by the police as she was still minor, met Baek Yi-jin, the unfortunate son of a rich family, and received unwanted help from him.
Hee-do’s only dream is to become the world’s best fencer and Ko Yu-rim’s rival. In addition, 18-year-old cheerful girl Hee-do can’t wish anything more if she can watch her favorite cartoon “Full House” right away. Positive incidents and accidents continue around Na Hee-do, who is always full of energy because she does not look sideways or back and only runs forward. It’s more fun than expected to see the main role of a sports drama, which are usually male protagonists, being a woman! The best charm of this drama is you, Na Hee-do!
The serious young man Baek Yi-jin fell in love with Hee-do.
He was once the son of a chaebol family, and was someone richer and happier than anyone else in the world. The twenty-two-year-old handsome young man, Baek Yi-jin.
However, due to the bankruptcy of his father’s company, his family is scattered, and debtors come to Yi-jin to urge him to take responsibility. The heaviest burden on Yi-jin, rather than the responsibility to quit school and become his family’s breadwinner, is the sense of debt that even innocent people are in debt and in difficulties because of his father. So Yi-jin promised to the debtors who grabbed him by the collar, saying “I will never be happy.”
To Baek Yi-jin, Na Hee-do, a reckless girl, suddenly appears one day. Yi-jin, a good young man who cannot turn a blind eye to the burden given by his father or generation, finds a moment that glitters from Hee-do, who is fearless and sometimes rash. Hee-do suggests to Yi-jin, who declared that he would never be happy.
“You said so. I’m against what you said, that you won’t be happy at any moment in the future. But you’ve already promised them, so let’s do this. You’ll only be happy when you play with me from now on, and when we’re together, let’s be happy secretly for a while.”
What did Yi-jin think of Hee-do’s suggestion? When Yi-jin, who reminds himself to not be happy, realized the considerate heart of Hee-do when she told him, “Let’s be happy secretly”. He couldn’t help but fall in love with Hee-do, who is 4 years younger than him. Since then, Yi-jin has shown himself as a person who always follows Hee-do even though Hee-do is still an 18-year-old girl who hasn’t known what love feels like yet.
It doesn’t need a cliché villain character like
Many viewers also experienced the generation of HiTEL and Nownuri (old PC communication networks). Perhaps that’s why many of them are glad to see Hee-do and Yu-rim chatting under nicknames “Rider37” and “Injeolmi”, respectively. Without knowing each other’s faces, the two have built a strong friendship through online conversations, but in reality, they argue a lot. Born as the daughter of a poor family, the 18-year-old girl Yu-rim has endured many heavy days to play fencing, an expensive sport, and meet the expectations that others put on her as a member of the national team. It’s even lonelier for Yu-rim since she has no one to share her feelings with. Hee-do’s appearance in front of Yurim as a rookie fencing athlete makes Yu-rim nervous and somehow feel that Hee-do is going to dethrone her. However, Hee-do proudly says that she wants to be Yu-rim’s rival and helps Yu-rim whenever she might get hurt. Yu-rim hates Hee-do so much but looking at Hee-do, who is so generous, Yu-rim feels even more painful as she can see herself at the bottom.
In typical dramas, Yu-rim might become a villain character by being Hee-do’s rival in love or fencing. However, this drama made a clever decision not to follow the cliché. Yu-rim is also just a teenage girl. She wants to do well in fencing and meets all expectations, but it is true that things are too difficult for her to handle. Yu-rim was the best fencing athlete. However, through the process of meeting Hee-do and other friends, with conflicts and reconciliations, Yu-rim has grown up not only as an athlete but also as the human Ko Yu-rim herself.
The best way for fencing players to understand each other is to hold their swords and aim at the other. Just like how athletes figure out each other’s playing habits, game management methods, strengths, and weaknesses by attacking and avoiding each other’s swords, people in human relationships and friendship also get to know each other more deeply through the process of direct confrontations, conflicts reconciliations, and understanding. There were full of conflicts and competitive spirits between the two girls, Hee-do and Yu-rim, but after understanding each other’s situations, they eventually make up and create a true friendship.
Three words that young people really need at the moment: En garde – Prêt – Allez
“Twenty-five Twenty-one” borrows the formula of tvN’s hit TV series “Reply”, but twists the cliché of existing dramas to add refinement to the story of the 1990s. In this drama, Hee-do and Yu-rim hold umbrellas as if they are swords and stand at the front to save their friends from danger, while friendly boys Yi-jin and Ji-woong carefully comfort the ones they love. Let’s say goodbye to the old format of a wealthy prince saying the poor girl!
Just like all works based on sports materials, the main keyword of “Twenty-five Twenty-one” is also “growth”. This is a lively yet well-made drama that shows how the three characters: Hee-do, who loves fencing but was said to be not talented, Yi-jin, the young man whose family was destroyed by the IMF crisis, and the national team member Yu-rim who has grown up early to endure the loneliness and burden of being a gold medalist to help her poor family, grow up together with love and friendship.
In the drama, there is the line, “The IMF era has stolen our your dreams”. However, Hee-do tells Yi-jin, “The era takes away my dreams but also gives me opportunities”. This drama has somewhat shown support and comforted the hard-working young people nowadays with Hee-do’s remark, “I lose in most of the matches, so I tend to turn tragedies into comedies in order to not be frustrated”. That’s why the 3 words in fencing, En garde (On guard) – Prêt (Ready) – Allez (Fence), are what young people really need at the moment.
