Wednesday, April 1, 2020

"Age of Youth" drama season one: Episode one recap





 Air Dates: July 22nd to August 27, 2016 on JTBC, Friday and Saturday nights at 10:30 pm
Rating- 1.31%, ratings are low due to JTBC being a cable network
Video at the top is a promo for this episode, will have a new one for every post

Also goes by the title of 'Hello My Twenties'

Main Cast:
This first episode we only met the five major female characters along with a few others briefly so will be adding on to this once new people enter the scene.

 The five roommates

Park Hye-Su as Yoo Eun-Jae.... twenty year old freshman at college majoring in psychology, a rather timid gal who was picked on by her new roommates in the beginning

Han Seung-Yeon as Jung Ye-Eun.... the 'starlet' of the apartment house who always has to have her way, she's a 22 year old junior majoring in nutrition and constantly lies to make herself more impressive to others

Park Eun-Bin as Song Ji-Won.... also 22 years old and is a dance major, we didn't meet her until the final eight minutes so will hold off a bit on her bio

Ryu Hwa-Young as Kang Yi-Na.... the third roommate who is 22 years old, her major is art and is known as the apartment's 'exhibitionist' and may be considered a 'hooker'

Han Ye-Ri as Yoon Jin-Myung.... at 28 the oldest of the rooommates, she's that old because she's been working part time to help support her family and pay her tuition.

 The rest of the cast, we did see a bit of these three so once someone gets introduced will be adding to the list as mentioned

Shin Hyun-Soo as Yoon Jong-Yeol.... college student and Eun-Jae's soon to be boyfriend?
Ji Ii-Joo as Go Do-Young.... Ye-Eun's boyfriend
Moon Sok as the owner of Belle Epoque apartment building

 Not sure how I want to do these recaps, my usual way of having the events in chronological order or having a small section for the five roommates. Think for this first recap will do it that way, introducing the main characters and giving a bit of bio about them. Have only watched the first episode, that's my pattern now which is to recap an episode before viewing the next one. So even though there will some important bio info and details there are eleven more episodes to go so sure much more will be learned.




 Before we get to the introductions will have a brief overview of the series. It takes place in the Yeonnam-dong section of Seoul which is supposed to be a hip area. Most of the action will be taking place at a college whose name hasn't been mentioned yet but the majority of the scenes happen at the Belle Epoque apartment house. There were four students living there whose ages ranged from 22 to 28, they were looking for a new roommate as one had moved out.
 Filling that void is the twenty year old freshman Eun-Jae and most of the first episode revolved around her, don't know if that'll be the case for the rest of the series. The four girls had been roomies for a while and were set in their ways, the new girl Eun-Jae kind of disrupted their carefree ways from day one which actually may not be a bad thing. Most of the details and such will be in the intros, we'll go in order from least amount of screen time to the most.




 That's Ji-Won above who we didn't meet until the 55 minute mark of this 63 minute episode. She's played by Eun-Bin who is the major reason I'm viewing this show after putting it off for so long. Though we didn't see her until the end her role will be a huge and important one. So not too much info to give on Ji-Won at this time though one thing we did learn is she loves to consume beer. Yet when the girls had a mini party to celebrate Ji-Won's return she was the first one to pass out. Plus as you can see above Ji-Won may be a bit of a psychic who can see... ghosts? Right after that above comment she passed out so don't know where her ghost seeing will be headed, she's a dance major and the roommate of Yi-Na.




 Second of the five to be introduced is Jin-Myung and didn't realize how few screenshots I took of her. She was the most mysterious of the everyone in the first show, not that Jin-Myung is odd in any way but so much of her is unknown and not just to us viewers but also to her housemates. At 28 she's the oldest of the females living in the Belle Epoque building and who knows when she'll graduate. For eight years Jin-Myung has been attending the unknown school which I hope whose name will be revealed to us at some time.
 A major reason for Jin-Myung still going to college at that age is because she's also been supporting her family. Currently she's working nights at a French restaurant which means she can only attend the university part time. Being the oldest at the apartment building means Jin-Myung is more mature than the others and is a bit of a motherly figure. She had been roommates with the woman who had left and has been assigned the new gal to the building. Jin-Myung has rarely seen her new roomie who is Eun-Jae but she's still all over the young girl's habits. Jin-Myung has constantly been leaving sticky notes all over the place for the new girl telling her what to do such as shutting off lights quicker, not wasting water, not talking on the phone when she's sleeping, etc. Still much to learn about her but that's the case for all of the roommates.




 Though she had a good amount of screen time think the gal we learned the least about was Yi-Na. She's a 22 year old art major who is known around the apartment for being an exhibitionist, she's not shy about how scantly she dresses and Yi-Na is an attractive woman so it's fine with us viewers. That's her with Ye-Eun in a few pics above, during this first episode the pair got into a major fight that ended up with them rolling around on the floor. It appears the two of them fighting is common but they also seem to make up rather quickly.




 Fourth roommate to introduce you to is Ye-Eun who has the second biggest role in the drama. Only three screenshots right above but bet there's at least twenty others scattered through the post and she is the best looking of the five. There's a rule at the apartment building which states no men are allowed, that hasn't stopped Ye-Eun who invites her boyfriend over when no one is around. As a matter of fact he was there when Eun-Jae first moved into the building and it was all Ye-Eun could do to have him escape unnoticed.
 Ye-Eun is also 22 and is a senior majoring in nutrition, though the most attractive she's also the most stuck up of the five. What Ye-Eun wants Ye-Eun gets even if she's in the wrong, such as stealing her the new gal's bottles of homemade jam. She also has a talented way of usually making herself appear innocent when it's usually her that's guilty, such as stealing the jam but also borrowing other's clothes and various other incidents which should be happening in every show.
 Ye-Eun is played by Han Seung-Yeon who mainly goes by the name of Seungyeon. She was a former member of Kara and after watching this show thought about doing some solo posts for her. May in the future but will put it on hold for a while as Seung-Yeon hasn't done all that much the past two years. She played a 22 year old in the show but her age at the time was 28.




 On to the final roommate who appears will be the star of the series. That's Eun-Jae who is a twenty year old freshman at the university majoring in psychology who happened to be stuck being the roomie of the oldest living at the building. As mentioned there's so much more that we'll be learning about the five as time goes on but do know that Eun-Jae has come from the county side, few of her new friends treat as she's a completely naive country bumpkin. Eun-Jae is a rather quiet gal who doesn't stick up for herself or least didn't at first but she had a major outburst at the end.
 Eun-Jae's background appears to be a rather dark one as she has no parents and grew up with her uncle, as the show ended we also heard Eun-Jae say to herself that she's killed someone! That was during a mini drinking session when the other girls seem to have finally accepted Eun-Jae, that was after her major outburst when she just couldn't take the abuse that the girls were throwing her way. Such as the sticky notes Jin-Myung had been leaving her but especially towards Ye-Eun. She may also have a budding relationship with an older student named Yoon, not sure where that may go so will skip over that until the next recap(s).
 As mentioned Ye-Eun had been stealing all of Eun-Jae's homemade jam, blamed her for washing some of Yi-Na's clothes which weren't supposed to be, getting Eun-Jae in trouble at the library and really making the newbie's life so miserable. That outburst at the end, mainly directed to Ye-Eun, seemed to gain Eun-Jae a lot of respect from her roommates or at least it appears so for now.
Eun-Jae's character is one of the most likable ones I've ever seen in a long time though it's only been one episode, really hope she continues to have more screen time than anyone else.




 Eun-Jae is played by Park Hye-Soo and she's someone who I really like and would wanted to have some posts for. But for some unknown reason she's disappeared for the past two years and have no clue what she's been doing, she's still young as she won't be turning 26 until November. Just took my week break from viewing dramas, really needed it to clear my head. Actually watched this episode before the break took place but now am back and looking forward to the rest of the series. This format with having a segment for each of the five characters seemed to work out well, don't know if that will work for the upcoming shows but would like to continue in this style.













































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