Drama review: Age of Youth

by - 4:15 PM


Age of Youth is a 2016 south-korean drama of 12 episodes by JTBC. 

PLOT: The story revolves around 5 girls, to be more accurate, 5 roommates. Every girl is different, we have Yoon Jin-myung, the a serious and hardworking 28years old college student with more part time jobs than she can count,  Kang Yi-na, seemengly a beautiful rich girl who dates around a lot, Song Ji-won, the life of the party, who likes to gossip and tell stories, Jung Ye-eun, the girly-girl of the grup with a fantasy vision of romance and someone who throws a lot of tantrums, and finally Yoo Eun-jae, the last coming, a quiet girl who rarely speaks her mind because of her shyness. 
Every girl is different from the others and they each seems to have a dark past or secret, something they don't want the others to know..


(Contains minor spoilers) 

The story starts with Yoo Eun-jae coming to 'Belle Epoque', a nice house she'll be sharing with other 4 girls. The start is rough, she is uncomfortable and the other girls don't seem to respect her, almost bullying her, so she often keeps to herself, mumbling. Ye-eun only cares about her boyfriend, sometimes lets Eun-Jae do her chores and eat her food. Jin-myung is almost never home but she leaves notes for Eun-Jae -whom she shares a room with- with an harsh tone and doesn't talk to her at all the other times. Yi-Na doesn't interact much with her, except maybe to scold her on things she did wrong. Ji-Won is not there during that time. 


Eun-Jae feels left out and ponders to leave, all the while worrying about some kind of accident in her past that gives her nightmares and makes her zone-out a lot.  In college is the same, she can't make friends, just a senior always bother her and Eun-Jae doesn't stand him.
Aften one other s*tty day, she finally has enough at home, as she finds out someone ate all her jam, and they're also all having dinner together without telling her. She snaps, finally letting all of her feelings out.

Eun-Jae snapping: "You could at least be a little kind! Not everyone is used to living here like you guys. For me, it's so hard I could die!" 

While Eun-Jae storms out crying, the other girls are left bewildered and guilty. They find Eun-Jae in her bed, talking nonsense with a high fever an they take turns in nursing her. 


When Eun-Jae wakes up fever-less, it's sunday and cleaning day, nobody says a bad word to her instead inquiring about her health. They all chat happily and Eun-Jae is hopeful again, at the end they all tell her jokingly to not keep things bottled up until she explodes. 
Finally we meet Ji-Won, who's back and set back the happy mood in the house, apologizing to Eun-Jae "This all happened because I wasn't here." Things get weird again when Ji-Won announces that she can see ghosts and one lives in the cabinet under their shoes rack, at the entrance. 


The reaction is even weirder, Yi-Na says something like 'So I guess I did kill them then' while Jin-miung mutters there's a person she wish would die. Eun-Jae is shocked by their words but mostly she thinks it's her fault if the ghost is even there. 

A little way later we find out several things:

  • Ye-Eun is dating a douche with an inferiority complex, she does everything and more for him and he just plays along when he feels like it. So she just lies to everyone to keep up appearences.
  • Yi-Na the badass is actually an escort, yup, not a college student nor a rich girl. She dates old dudes that pay her with credit cards. She's also not sorry for that but she feels lonely. She finds consolation in talking regularly to a (creepy) old guy.
  • Eun-Jae starts to get along with the senior who was bothering her -hint: he liked her-. But she still doesn't trust him enough to reveal her impeding family troubles/secrets to him.
  • Jin-miung has serious problems at one of her jobs but she finds unexpected help from one of the staff, who seems interested in her.
  • As for Ji-won, well, she's single and desperately wants to find someone to love her. She's not really lucky though, her exuberance seems too much to handle.

From there on, things gets better between the girls but their life get more complicated, their secret will come out on in the open one way or another and nothing will be like before. Will the girls preserve their peaceful life? Who is the ghost and who's responsible for him? Also, what are the girls' secrets and why are they so important? 


Conclusion: I really really liked this drama a lot. What I really appreciated is that this drama doesn't revolve around a guy, romance or an unfortunate girl that turns her life around after meeting a man -like most k-dramas. Nope, not this one. 
It's a story about five girls, their dreams, their life -and yeah a little bit of romance. But romance isn't all, indeed there aren't many happy ending in that regard for them, but it's fine because they have something else. They created a unique bond of friendship, no sisterhood, between them which is really awesome. And you can't really believe it, because they're all so different compared to one another and even though it seems like they have nothing in common, they get through hurdles and laugh and cry together.

My vote. Kidding, lol, I'll give this drama a good 8

I also loved how different and detailled the characted were from the others, in real situations. About that, there's little to zero sugar-coating: things get bad, really bad, there is no redeeming just moving on with life. Here is another thing this drama teaches you: you can leave your past behind and be happy, build a new life for yourself.
And they do, especially Yi-Na and Ye-eun! They kind of turn their life around, while keeping true to themselves. Also Jin-miung and Eun-Jae find strenght to fight their fears and are a whole lot more confident and happy. *Spoiler in white: Ironically, they are the only ones who find love at end *
Definetely, check this drama out, if you want to see something different about friendship!


Check out the cast here. Below the trailer of the show:


Playlist of the OSTs:
See you with the next review! :p


You May Also Like

0 comments

Instagram