20e-Eeuwse Jongen en Meid (2017)

The set up of the show makes it easy to watch. It doesn’t make me work too hard. These people are nice.
Things happen, get resolved, victories occur for sad looking people. The show gives a lot of respect to its characters. No one is unnecessarily shamed. The media scandals look like they’re going to be a big deal but they eventuate to nothing, so I was relieved.
The girls in this show are great. Of course, they have their stupid, weak moments. But there are so many shining moments when they are just being normal adult women that we so rarely get to see in Korean dramas. I really like there isn’t someone constantly telling them off or telling them they’re stupid. Even if Young Shim keeps turning up late (WHY?) her boss just is chill.

Also the level of English in this drama is really good. Both the leads can successfully pull off speaking in English. Han Ye Seul is particularly stellar.

Gong Ji Won – male lead
Kim Ji Suk looks very sleek. It was really nice to get so much of him on my screen.
Gong Ji Won is very much a character that you’d see as a second lead syndrome kind of guy. I really love his gentle acting. He’s so sweet and manly at the same time a real winning combination. I liked how mature he was and secure in his identity. He’s so wonderfully easy going and not petty at all. Even when he’s upset, or jealous, he doesn’t take it out on anyone. I like how you can see his vulnerability even as he tries to hide it.
He is really nice to the women in the show. Treating them with respect and giving them compliments.

Sa Jin Jin
Sa Jin Jin has it all. Money, fame, beauty and a wonderful relationship with her parents. And she’s not boy crazy. I love how she schools her emotions and restrains her thoughts when she’s working. Professional woman for the win. Also she can hold her liquor. OMG. She is definitely one of my favourite heroines ever.
It’s always great to have a composed and successful woman who is good at what she does. She’s not bitchy (though she can be tough). The drama shows how kind she is without being preachy about it.
Her parents are the kind and sensitive type who try and figure out carefully what their daughter needs from them.
I like that Jin Jin didn’t care what she looked like in front of Ji Won and she wants to be his friend.
Even with Jin Jin’s misguided crush on Anthony, I like that she wasn’t fanatical about it even though she is his fan. She just went out of her way to do little kind acts that he could choose to ignore. This girl has got so much dignity. She doesn’t have to be sly or use any manipulation to “snag” the person she “loves”.

Parents
The drama seems to take great pains into showcasing different styles of parenting.

Young Shim’s parents = mum pushover nice + dad super mean
Ah Reum’s parents = dad pushover nice + mean mum
Jin’s parents = nice dad + nice mum

I like that Jin Jin’s mother didn’t ship Jin Jin and Ji Won. Or at least not openly.

Friends
I appreciate that the girls were all different shapes and sizes. When reviews stated that the friendship was good, I wasn’t sure how good a friendship it would be. But it’s the chemistry and the camaraderie that makes these girls’ silly conversations and interactions stand out to me. They’re not funny, or deep, they’re just natural and comfortable, and that’s what makes it so meaningful.
I like that everyone has respectable jobs and they’re all in a stable stage of life.
Sometimes, they’re too busy for each other, but the girls have good instincts and know when one of them needs a pick-me-up.
Ji Won fits surprisingly well into the rag tag bunch of friends. He reacts, and responds with as much interest and enthusiasm as them and he plays along with their jokes and stories.

Romance
I always appreciate a normal meeting between romantic characters. The relationship between the two is so simple. He likes her, she likes him. They are so blissfully comfortable with each other. Yay. I actually haven’t seen childhood sweet hearts reunited, so it was nice to see how Ji Won was remembering how much he liked Jin Jin when he was a teen. Ji Won is very straightforward in his romancing and his intentions with Jin Jin. He’s not pushy at all though, and in fact rather the slow. He’s in it for the long haul. I also like that the drama explains the reason he’s going slow, it’s also because of his past and the fact that Jin Jin is so gaga over his brother. The push and pull of the romance is really perfect.
I like that their relationship isn’t rife with near misses and awkwardness. Jin Jin really shares stuff with Ji Won in a happy way.
I really like that he doesn’t laugh when she’s embarrassed, he feels bad himself because that’s what love is.
Another win: consensual kissing.

Young Shim
Young Shim’s family is small and quiet with a grumpy father. Young Shim is so sweet and loyal to both her parents despite her father being so gruff and mean to both his daughter and wife. I like how Young Shim looked out for her mother. Young Shim can also drink – good job show.
Even though Young Shim is the shy one, she’s also the studious one. Once she gets a job there aren’t a lot of workplace dramas of her getting abused verbally by her boss (just the cleaning lady) so that’s great.
I really liked her functional relationship with her boss. He has such a nice face when he talks.

“Sunbaenim, by any chance,     would you like to eat with me from time to time?”
“Mondays and Thursday? If that’s okay with you.”

Ah Reum
Ah Reum is kind of the throw away character. But I like that she’s good at her job. And when she makes a choice she sticks with it. She is quite pathetic, but when she decides to move out, despite all the bumps and potholes, she’s happy with her decision and she copes. I loved that. I also became interested in her love line as well and the compromises they had to work out with each other.
I especially appreciate that her more pathetic character didn’t have a smashed kiss, and that she was also credited to be romantic and worthy of a slow mo/replayed kiss as much as I hate them.

Anthony
This actor is a bit of a flat face. I feel like the other actors were giving their all to provide him with some chemistry but he was so emotionless and expressionless. It was a strange dynamic of not knowing how the brothers felt about each other’s relationship with Jin Jin. It was like they were both hesitant to go forward but couldn’t help themselves.

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