Netflix "20 Century Girl " is a Korean romantic love film released in 2022. It is directed by Fang Youli, and the actors are Kim Yu-jung, Bian You-seok, Park Jung-woo, and Lo Yun-ri. The plot tells the story of Paula, a 17-year-old high school girl, secretly approaching the boy she secretly loves to observe his personality and various living habits. Unexpectedly, she was moved by another boy in the process. Faced with this sudden relationship, can she complete the task smoothly?
Retro style Korean movie
In recent years, Korean film and television works have become popular in retro style. Whether it is the popular Korean drama " Snow Flowers ", " Twenty-Five, Twenty-One ", or the warm and touching movie " Miracle: A Letter to Tong ", they all use the background of different eras to stir up the long-standing emotions hidden in the audience. This time, Netflix Korean movie "20th Century Girl" is no exception. With a youthful love that took us through the time and space tunnel together, we will look back at the past first love that makes people feel moved but troubled and entangled.
20th Century Girl's Actor's Leading Character
In the film "20th Century Girl", "Bola", the heroine played by Kim Yu-jung, was a 17-year-old high school student in 1999. She lives in central Korea and is known as the "Ancient Capital of Thousand Years of Culture". She runs a video shop at home. There is a good friend Yeondo who has grown up with her since childhood. The two are close and talk about everything. One day, Yandu needed to go to the United States for surgery due to heart problems. Although the two were about to separate, she also delivered an important task to Paula before leaving.
A few days ago, Yandu met her dream lover who made her fall in love at first sight. When she was about to go abroad, she entrusted Paula, the heroine of "The Girl of the 20th Century", who stayed in South Korea, to investigate everything about the boy named Bai Hyun-jin for her. Since the two happened to be in the same school, in order to help their best friends assist and check whether they pass the exam, Paula acted like a matchmaker, and this also began the story of the movie "The Girl of the 20th Century".
The development of the story of girls in the 20th century
Netflix movie "The Girl in the 20th Century" has a strong campus love. Although the school adopts men and women to class, it cannot stop Paula from launching a detective search on campus while the get out of class is over. Among them, from height, shoe size, interests, taste, BBCall number, to whether he has a girlfriend, these behaviors that are no different from secret love also make Paula look like a girl who is deeply trapped in love and has pink bubbles on her head at any time.
Therefore, in the love atmosphere that permeates the entire film of "The Girl of the 20th Century", she joined the school's radio and television club and met the heroine Paula, the target brother "Yun Hao". She originally wanted to further investigate the enemy situation. Unexpectedly, the two of them filmed interviews and produced news broadcasts needed by the club. With this ambiguous feeling caused by being together for a long time, she accidentally developed a new student relationship without realizing it.
Turn in the plot of the 20th century girl
However, the plot of "The 20th century girl" has a turning point in the middle of the movie. Yan Du, who originally thought she liked "Bai Xianzhen", told Paula after he recovered and returned to China that he had made a mistake. It turned out that the two actually fell in love with the same boy. Such an obsession made the already very troublesome youthful secret love, because the third person, especially the heroine's good friend, suddenly intervened and turned into a more complex and difficult love triangle.
On one side is her good friend who just came back from the gate of hell, and on the other side is her first love lover who has a good impression of each other. This puts Paula, the heroine of "The Girl of the 20th Century", in a dilemma. She must make a choice between being loyal to her friends and bravely pursuing love. If she follows her sincerity, she may lose her best friend in her life. So even though she feels painful about this and has just tasted the beauty of her first love, she still chooses to give up this short-lived relationship.
The key role played by Han Hyo-joo
But is this really good for the heroine Paula and her friends? Will sacrificing one's consideration in order to help others will not cause harm to the other party? "The Girl of the 20th Century" takes people falling in love during their school days, but they clearly like it but cannot say it. They can only silently pay attention to the other party's "secret love" in the distance as the core of the whole film. In the end, they also tell us the importance of communicating with each other and truly conveying their moods and ideas through the regrets and backfires caused by this troubles and entanglement.
Therefore, in the 20th century, Paula, who has left regrets in the opening of "The Girl of the 20th Century", played by Han Hyo-joo, who has worked in Seoul for many years, learned that his hometown received the video tape and recalled the past in high school. In the 21st century, which has been many years after many years, Paula, who has grown a lot from this first love and has become more mature and sensible, seems to be able to face these feelings.
The meaning of the ending of the 20th century girl
I like the presentation of people's inner private emotions in the whole movie "The Girl in the 20th Century" for people's inner private emotions. Whether it is the entanglement of misunderstanding by close friends or ambiguous objects in teenage years, or the nostalgia for the past after the incident, and the relief and growth after letting go of pain, setting the background in the millennium, the generational alternation, and the video tape is gradually eliminated, symbolizing the turning point between the new and the old. I believe that it can awaken the past memories deep in our hearts and arouse the audience's resonance with this story.
Does the 20th century girl evaluate it as good?
Overall, "The Girl of the 20th Century" is the first feature film work of Fang Youli, director who swept through major Korean film awards with the short film "Mrs.Young", based on 1999, and centered around the fact that they had not been disturbed by too many technological products at that time, people still had a sincere youthful campus love affair with each other, and used a video tape full of stories to evoke various memory clips from many years ago. In the nostalgic atmosphere of the whole film, they fully portray the various ups and downs of love and friendship in our youth.
Not only did Kim Yu-jung, who was born as a child star, made a perfect interpretation for the protagonist, but even Han Hyo-joo, who played a key role in the film, finally played the finishing touch with her amazing acting skills. Perhaps the story itself does not have too many ambitions, and can only be regarded as a sketch that can bring people a light warmth and healing, but just that it can remind us of those scenes in our minds, the purpose of the director should have been achieved.
