Twenty Five Twenty One (2022)

Un k-drama de très haute qualité

Dès le premier épisode on est aspiré dans l'histoire et attaché aux personnages. Casting et acting exceptionnel. Des acteurs connus et moins connus mais dont leur jeu nous fait oublier leurs personnages précédents. Une production et réalisation habiles qui nous entraînent aisément dans la chronologie des événements qui s'étendent de 1998 a aujourdhui. A l'instar de la vie, on est bousculé par plusieurs émotions fortes ;du rire aux larmes, en passant par la déception, l'amour, la fierté, la colère, l'injustice, ...
La force du drama est le personnage féminin principal qui fait preuve de bcp de force, de résilience, 🌈d'authenticité , de naturel,... avec une intensité qui donne une légèreté a la série qui sinon serait trop mélodramatique à mon goût 😉 sa personnalité éclatante et spontanée détonne avec ce que nous avons l'habitude de voir et cela fait du bien.

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Love doesn’t conquer everything in this world and that's okay

April 3, 2022

2521 is a tear-jerker full of life-lessons K-drama. I know people have been disagreeing and disappointed with how the ending went. But I think, the 2521 ending fulfills the original story that they were trying to convey. The emotional attachment I developed to this drama is unbelievable. I love everything from how the characters develop and seeing how they flourish into their adulthood. Maybe it’s because I am now a college student and that is why I greatly relate to this drama. Yes, it is true that we took high school life too easily and for granted. Yes, it is harder to meet up with friends now that we are old. Yes, people grow apart and that's okay. Yes, it is okay even if you don't meet your friends often. As long as you have each other, you will always find time even if that means every 6 months or so.










!!! MAJOR SPOILERS WITH DETAILS!!!!
- I am happy that Baek Yijin did not die or experienced some catastrophic event.
- I am happy how the girls are still supporting each other even though they have their own lives.

I think I am happy that everyone got the ending that they deserve including Yurim and Heedo's mom. I also think it is appropriate how Minchae's dad is never revealed nor is present-pandemic adult Yijin. I know I may be the minority but I think everything from this drama is just good. I may have bawled my eyes and wished for Heedo and Yijin to be the end game. But given the circumstances of how their relationship has gone down, it is much better for them to go their separate ways. Very realistic and has a bittersweet ending. I also think that Yijin and Heedo's endings is happy to some extent. Yijin is able to revive his family back and has a stable job. Heedo is happily a mom to Minchae, though I can't really say anything about her marriage to his husband as he was not shown in the story. This makes sense because this is about first love and their early adulthood/youth days.

I think 2521 set the standards for 2022 Kdramas. I know the ratings have gone down due to the ending and I understand that people are very frustrated with the ending. But I definitely think it is not rushed, and that it perfectly fits the overall narrative of the story.


So for those who are watching 2521, I hope you learn some lessons and learn to enjoy your youth. Happy viewing (maybe) and prepare some tissues by your side. I may or may not have a breakdown watching episode 16 and while writing this review...

Cheers 🥂

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Bitter Sweet Journey

Production , cinematography, world/year events and scenery were all excellent. The music/OST also was very well done.

LIKES:
The acting of both ML and FL was very good. All the actresses and actors did phenomenal jobs in their roles; the supporting cast, the cast for sporting and news events, all the extras too. The Director did an amazing job for this drama. I felt that the ML and FL had amazing chemistry, but so did all the younger couples. The friendship, love and rivalry flowed nicely throughout the storyline and plot. All the sports competitions and training about Fencing, was the best from all similar dramas. It was as if you were at the competitions yourself as the viewer. The theme of growing up to handle hardship and happiness, while never giving up on hopes and dreams was mostly well delivered. I liked how most of the relationships were concluded. They showed plenty of growth for all the main leads. I enjoyed that the story was based on the diary being read by Na Hee Do's daughter. I didn't notice if there were any "FX". I liked how they concluded or tied in the book store from beginning to end.

DISLIKES:
Baek Yi-jin's mother was very annoying and I wanted her to just shut up. Maybe it was how the writers wanted that character.
Throughout the drama there were some moments that made me say WTF [See spoilers at the end of this review]. The ending felt a little rushed and should've been changed to 2 or 3 more episodes. I think time management became an issue in some of the episodes, especially noticeable in the last 2 episodes. The ending was a little too open, based on what the viewers were fed about the ML Yi Jin and FL Hee Do.

OVERALL: Everything up until the last two episodes was great, interesting and had me enraptured. I would recommend this drama and might re-watch it in the future.

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[SPOILER ALERT ]
I liked that Baek Yi-jin's brother and Seung Wan reunited at the end, to give more depth to their characters.
I disliked that Hee Do didn't show as much growth as Yu Rim. Same with Baek Yi-jin, as a reporter he grew, but as an adult there wasn't much character growth. I was thoroughly annoyed that we don't find out who Hee Do married and had a daughter with. Having focused in the beginning on the fencing and going to the olympics for Hee Do, then at the end nothing of the stress and excitement of going to the olympics and winning gold was shown. In the end I hated that they didn't show Baek Yi-jin and Na Hee Do reuniting (even as friends) at the end and final episode. It made the adult Hee Do seem pointless. Also some of the flashbacks in the final episode, ran too long and they could've used the time better.

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Strong First Strike, but Loses Its Footing in the Last Quarter

Watching this show was an emotional roller coaster ride: in the first three-quarters of the show, the cart climbed higher and higher until it could go no further, limited by the tracks that the writer had laid out for the machine. But then it started its descent, and for me, the train derailed before it reached the station.

It's clear to me that the writer knew exactly where she wanted to go and tried to careful craft a scenario to deliver her message about the elation and tribulations of first loves. For the first part of the show, I was totally engrossed with this plan. The story is told as a flashback of a little girl who read's her mother's diary, and like many other viewers, I was invested in the open question of who the identity of the girl's father - is he the main character of the mother's love story or he is not?! This was a question that kept everyone awake at night when this drama was airing. This was definitely an intentional effect as the series would intentionally omit clear references to the father, going so far as not to even show him on screen and to make dialog ambiguous so that you don't even know his name nor any hints towards his identity. Moreover, it seemed like every little detail of this Kdrama mattered -- it didn't matter if you forgot something, because boy, the writer sure remembered everything, and she often utilized these minutia to extreme emotional and dramatic effect. It was almost a masterpiece.

Almost. For me, the plot past episode 13 took a noticeable decrease in quality: characters started acting in ways that I thought were unearned - the fierce female lead that we had all come to know and love somehow became more passive and willing to give up -- this was a far cry from her "never give up attitude" that had led her to toil so hard to hone her fencing skill. The conscientious, sweet boy who put family and friends above all else suddenly became a workaholic -- he spent most of the first half of the story practicing the little, individual acts of loves for his friends, family, and love interests, and suddenly he's all about sacrificing for the greater good/his career. Yes, people can change, but for me, if we're talking about a television series, we should be shown the change and not have to infer it -- it's just jarring without a proper explanation. Even for side characters, things just started to arbitrarily work out for no discernible reasons - this is a little baffling to me in a story that prided itself on being so clear and clever with the details. The final nail in the coffin for me was dismissing things that we had become so invested in: that mystery we all cared about? Without spoilers, I feel I can safely say: it turns out it's irrelevant. Put simply, it felt like a slap in the face as if we were intentionally manipulated only to increase ratings and not for story purposes.

I don't believe that a story necessarily needs to have a happy end nor needs to have a sad end to be great. But I just feel this Kdrama did not execute its ending in a way that I felt was earned. It pains me to say: this Kdrama started as a 10/10 for me, but quickly destroyed my faith in it with just 3 measly episodes, to the point that I actually think it did the whole story a disservice. There were so many unanswered questions, that I think either the show needed a few more episodes to flesh things out or it needed less episodes to tell a complete tale without the feeling that something is missing. Either way, I can't help but feel there was a missed opportunity here. It's just such a shame.

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BUT SERIOUSLY, WHAT IS WITH THAT ENDING???

Dont get me wrong. I loved the whole series. I even understand why they chose that path. It was titled Twenty Five Twenty One so naturally i expected the story to peak when they were at that age.

But come on!!! Why end it like that? For the better part of the whole series we are being teased to guess who will end up together in a mystery-solving setup - a la the Reply series. And then when it ended it wasnt even hinted who the father or the husband is. The kid is Kim Min Chae, after all so i kinda accepted early on that the father wasnt YiJin but to not answer it rendered the whole present timeline useless. They could have removed the present Hee Do and her daughter and it wont change a thing, because they literally said its not important.

The good:
1. I loved the fencing (sports) main theme.
2. Nam Joo Hyuk. Boy has improved so much, i may be inclined to think his handlers are doing everything to make him a multi awarded drama actor. It almost worked in Start Up, hopefully this is it.
3. Choi Hyun Wook. What a breath of fresh air. I loved him in RB, but he just shined here.
4. Kim Tae Ri and Bo Na as Hee Do and Yu Rim, respectively . Beautiful and capable. Let me get back to this later.
5. The coach, and the mother. I am inloved with Kim Hye Eun, makes me wanna see her past dramas.
6. I liked the fact that it wasnt a fairy tale ending.

The so-so.
1. Kim Tae Ri. She is amazing in this role, but I get it, readers will hate me for saying this. There were some flak for the portrayal of a college student to a high school student love affair, it wasnt May December, but it was enough to make people think that high school HeeDo is way too young for an adult Yi Jin and at moments the idea is kinda cringy. I guess the producers thought, well Tae Ri is older than Joo Hyuk in real life so it shouldnt be an issue. My question however is, will the producers think differently if an early 20-year old actress was playing HeeDo? Also, like i said she did great here, but is there no actress who is younger than Nam Joo Hyuk who can portray Hee Do's emotions?

2. The pacing and length of episodes. 16 episodes of almost 90 minutes each. Sometimes i feel like episodes are a little too long and the last 2 episodes in particular crammed too many issues a little too late. I guess thats how the format is for most asian drama - make the leads break up in the penultimate episode and then cram and jampack the finale to solve all the issues. But goodness i counted a few scenes that were a little too long that could have been used for some other things like how many times HeeDo and YiJin broke up and madeup. I guess they thought extending the drama and the crying scenes will make people cry. My short attention span went a little haywire.


The bad
1. The older Hee Do. The actress portraying the older Hee Do is beautiful and i love the subtle acting that connects both the past and present HeeDo. BUT, is she really needed. Did the story changed by adding her character? Again, the non-reveal of the husband made her character useless, and i felt like that was done to trick the viewers into keep guessing who the husband is going to be. Another thing, Hee Do's mother acted the older character. Why cant Tae Ri do the same?
2. Hee Do's daughter Kim Min Chae. By the name alone, we know she is not Back Yi Jin's daughter. But still, her presence teased us with the possibility of Hee Do and Yi Jin endgame. But alas they thought it wasnt important enough to be discussed. So why do we need the whiny kid.
3. Now back to the ending. The whole series was great overall, but my heart needs closure.

Would i reccommend? Definitely, just prepare to spend some time with it. Am i going to rewatch? Sorry, its just too long, and theres just too many drama nowadays i dont think i can.

Kudos to Netflix for giving Asian dramas chance to shine in a much bigger stage, makes my subscription very worthwhile.

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oh....my.

wow...I know I am not alone in feeling incredibly disappointed in how this drama turned out. what started out as a hopeful coming of age story about growing up and finding your place in the world...ended with an hour of "your friendships of youth are meant to be kept in the past...deal with it :)"

Twenty-Five, Twenty-One started out (and, honestly, continued to be until about episode 14) as one of the most genuine, engaging, and hopeful dramas I had seen in a long time. the characters were charming, but also human, with flaws and development that really made you feel like you were growing up with them. their friendships were the kind that had struggles, but as they grew up, they learned how to navigate these conflicts. it showed the realities of growing up, young love, and finding your place in the world.

and then it totally crashed and burned.

here's the thing, I actually am all for bittersweet, or even sad, endings. I just did not feel like this one did the story justice. it was such a...non-ending, that it felt like a cheap cop-out to get an emotional reaction, which was in stark contrast to the rest of the drama, where each of the emotional moments was in the story for an obvious developmental reason. I knew from the start that this drama would probably not have a "happy" ending, but nonetheless, I was very disappointed in this.

the ending, which provided no true closure for anyone but Hee-Do (kind of), felt like it was communicating a message that any friendship that happens in your childhood is...intended to be left there? that none of the youthful love or hope you have can follow you into adulthood... this, paired with how melancholy adult Hee-Do seems to feel about her life, was incredibly strange in contrast to the other 14 episodes of character development and hopeful storytelling.

all in all, it left a bad taste in my mouth. I feel like this drama was designed to be watched while it aired, and it created great engagement in the audience due to this fact...and maybe this is why the ending felt short. they kept the "mystery" going for too long, in a way that did not leave them time to truly flesh out the ending. I am not sure. I feel like they could have kept the "open ending" concept, and just tweaked it a bit... showing us that some of the friendship group were still in touch, or something...the fact the drama went to such great lengths to keep all the side couples together, and then threw out not only the main couple's romance but also their very long friendship so abruptly... hm. it just felt incredibly out of place and incredibly disappointing.

perhaps this is all a testament to how lovely the first chunk of the drama was! I highly recommend the first 14 or so episodes...but save yourself and do not watch the finale. it is not worth it.

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What a disappointing last two episodes

I have such a mixed feeling of this drama. Up to Ep14, it was one of the perfect score 10 that made me cried so many times. However the ending of this drama was total disappointment. That’s why my review is rather low.

It is well written family drama, sportsman-women ship, school friendship, teenage first love and etc. However the drama created such an anticipation how it will end, then it crashed me. The final episode was total disappointment, especially for ML. It may have been a bitter sweet teenage first love experience for FL, but ML was already a young adult with hardship due to family issues. That is one of the reason why I hoped the ending would be a happy one. It was too much hardship for young adult to down fall financially at such a young age. It would have been much better drama if ML and FL to stay together by overcoming the difficulties. Such happy ending may be a cliché but I will give 10 if this was happy ending.

Oh boy, I just have such a bad taste in my mouth after watching such a disappointing ending. It is funny thought, I do not dislike bad ending like ‘Moon Lovers’. It was such a heartbreaking drama, But I keep watching the last episode over and over knowing I would cry so hard.

Too bad there is no way to make season 2 since characters are already in 40ish. Especially FL closed her chapter, her true love , at the very end. It would have been better if it was an open ending to bring them back together and makes happy ending at season 2. I would liked if ML meets FL at funeral and finding they are still single. Then daughter was their love child. And she was finding their parents love story in season 1. Hmmmmm I should have been the director of this drama. LOL

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Expectation Vs Reality

This drama is not for everyone and certainly not for me. It's hard even to say that I appreciate some of it coz there is no point. The ending doesn't outweighed the journey itself.

It's a hard debate but I found myself feeling disappointed because I felt cheated. I felt that I wasted my time. This whole time for nothing. I felt that the main characters gave up way too easy. But maybe only me coz many seems to like it, even praising this drama as a beautiful-slice-of-life-growing-up story. For me is like no-good-ever-going-to-change-me story. The main characters, no matter how wonderful they are in the beginning are just being selfish. There, I said it. It's true. Don't deny it. You can disagree with me all you want but that is what I got from their so called 'beautiful journey'.

Not that I can't appreciate a break-up story; If it was good and done right, I'd be crying a river. But this drama doesn't. It felt rushed and a cop out. Without any-I-gave-it-all-effort from both sides, they just threw the towels and called it quit. If you can't commit then why even bother to start. Relationship needs work. It's not always a walk in the park. It needs comprimise, sacrifices, give-and-take-effort, hardwork and understanding. When you stumble upon hurdles in your journey together, you overcome it; You don't stop and turn from it right away. Never have I feel so numb in my life. I didn't feel sad when they parted ways, I just felt numb. Empty. Annoyed actually.

Imagine this. You are presented with this wonderful gift. A box which has decorations of many pretty flowers, enchanting ornaments, crystal gems and sparkling ribbons. It has all the beautiful things that you can ever imagine. But then, when you open the box, you find it to be empty. Zero. Nothing. Only a void of space. And that's what this drama represent. Yes, you may keep the 'beautiful' box, but how do you feel about it? Please be honest.

The casts are amazing. The chemistry is off the chart. But the end result is just soo bizarre. It's a shame. What a waste!

There is an old proverb in my native language that says "Hendak seribu daya, tak hendak seribu dalih" which translates; When you really want something badly, you'd give thousand efforts, but if you don't want it, you'd give thousand excuses. That proverb really fits well to this story.

"It doesnt matter where it ended, what matter is the journey". Boohoo! That is such a lame excuse. For me, the journey is what shaped the end, both matter. Period.

As always; Do I want to watch the whole drama again? Hell NO.

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A promising start learning to no where

A drama that got me hooked from the very start. I literally went to what I was 2 years ago, impatiently waiting for the new episodes. But it came out quite a surprise how, the creators can ruin their own creations. I literally have no problem with baekedo not ending together, but they way the drama was messed in the second part, and it began hitting the rock bottom.

Nam jio hyuk has improved a lot as an actor,and Kim tae ri was phenomenal as usual, osts and BG scores were top notch.

This drama destroyed all of my brain cells. But I do not deny the first half was awesome, the youth phase was incredibly relatable.

WATCH THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!

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Ending Unworthy of a Female Lead with such Fighting Spirit

From the first episode, Hee Do has won our hearts with her quirkiness, her conviction and her fighting spirit. She put everything into her passions, whether it’s her love of fencing or her admiration of the national champion Yu Rim, or her love of her manhwa comics. She never gave up, even when she experienced the painful tragedy of her dad’s passing, she continued on. Despite Yu Rim being such a bitch to her in the beginning, her adoration never wavered.

There are a lot of good things to admire about Hee Do and her bold and dorky characteristics. The friendship between her and Yu Rim is very sweet, it’s stronger than their competitiveness and adversary, and the gossips that try to take them down.
Such unshakable devotion to a friend tells me she’ll also love with the same conviction. Her love for Yi Jin would be just as passionate. She believed in him, she’s understanding and supportive. She wouldn’t give up just because they hit a bump in their relationship. Her competitive spirit wouldn’t let her give up so easily.

The ending was very rushed, all within an episode or two and everything changes. The build-up to the end was steady and we see how their relationship develop and grow. Something that grows on such solid foundation wouldn’t just topple so easily. Him moving to New York is a weak excuse for a break up. It made no sense for Yi Jin to move to New York. That they could grow older and grow apart, sure that’s believable but everything happened so quickly that it’s unbelievable.

Hee Do being who she is wouldn’t give up so easily. She’ll keep on fighting for the man she loves.

If the writer is trying to get across that time and youth is precious, for us to grasp it and take full advantage of it, then the long build-up of Hee Do and Yi Jin’s relationship was somewhat misplaced. Throughout the series, they kept the audience playing the game of Did They or Didn’t They end up together. They keep throwing hints that they didn’t, but we still wait with hope that they did. That kept us going, but the ending never delivered. In the end, it was a wishy washy ending for a strong female lead.

The ending feels forced, a device just to make the audience cry.

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