20th Century Girl (2022)

20th Century Girl (2022)

TV-PG

netflix

A charming love letter to young love at the turn of the century

7.3

Movie

South Korea
Korean
Drama, Romance
2022
BANG WOO-RI, FEMALE DIRECTOR
Bang Woo-ri, Byeon Woo-seok, Gong Myeong
119 min

What it's about

Yeon-du asks her best friend Bora to collect all the information she can about Baek Hyun-jin while she is away in the U.S. for heart surgery. Bora decides to get close to Baek's best friend, Pung Woon-ho first. However, Bora's clumsy plan unfolds in an unexpected direction. In 1999, a year before the new century, Bora, who turns seventeen, falls into the fever of first love.

The take

Full of charm and nostalgia, Bang Woo-ri’s first feature film is a love letter to the late 90s—and to the heartstopping experience of first love, as high school student Na Bo-ra tries to get to know her friend’s crush Baek Hyun-jin. While at times immature, she comes across as endearing through Kim Yoo-jung’s charismatic, devoted performance. And as the Na Bo-ra goes through all the ways people wooed each other in the 90s—figuring out each other's phone numbers, filming each other through old camcorders, renting out VHS tapes—the film evokes memories of our own first loves. Even with some underdeveloped characters and certain contrived moments, 20th Century Girl is still a stunning picture of young love at the turn of the century.

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