twenty-five, twenty-one
a review on aging, youth, friendships, love, etc.....
spoiler free!
I began the year with an unexpected, exciting new obsession: Korean dramas.
I took the easiest, most expected route in getting there: by watching Squid Game season two—the first of which I had been influenced to watch in 2021 by the buzz swarming around me, virtually and in real life—and consequently developing one-sided crushes on a couple of the actors who, at that point in time, only existed in the model of their characters on the other side of the television screen.
Would it be considered superficial if my newfound interest was sparked by silly attraction? It may start off as a crush yearning to be explored, but so does everything else, doesn’t it? Does every story not revolve around love? Romantic, platonic, familial, and the ones that cannot be condensed into phrases or words. As a storyteller, I believe so. It is love that drives us. The relentless urge to know more, to love more—it is love that will take us to places we can never return from.
I hadn’t expected to fall in love with Kdramas as much as I have. The format, the storylines, the culture…I admit I’m a little late to the scene, but I also sit comfortably in the knowledge that its lasting effect on me is because I have already gone through the experiences and emotions that are being televised to me, which gives me the capacity to appreciate them in their entirety. Such is the case for the most recent drama I’ve crossed off my watchlist, which has impacted me so deeply that I needed to express it in some way or another.
Twenty-Five Twenty-One. “In a time when dreams seem out of reach, a teenage fencer purses big ambitions and meets a hardworking young man who seeks to rebuild his life.”
From the initial logline, there wasn’t any kind of shocking punch that gravitated me into watching it, no catalytic event with an aftermath I needed to know about right away. Since my socials are now flooded with Kdrama content, I was even a bit spoiled as to how the story would end. In fact, the reason I did watch it was to move on from another Kdrama (Weightlifting Fairy, Kim Bok-joo), where both love interests are played by the same actor (Nam Joo-hyuk, who I was also beginning to develop a crush on).
That is typically how my watch process has been like. With limited series being the standard format for Korean television, I was consuming multiple completed storylines in the span of just weeks. I was immersed into realistic yet fictional worlds with realistic yet fictional characters, only to be pulled out of them in just 16 to 20—albeit long, movie-length—episodes. To ease the process of moving on, I find comfort in watching new dramas that have the same actors I am already comfortable with so that it doesn’t feel like I am in a completely different place.
Twenty-Five Twenty-One takes place in two different time periods: 2022 and 1998. In 2022, an adult Na Hee-do is shocked when her teenage daughter, Min-chae, decides to quit ballet. In an act of rebellion, Min-chae hides away at her grandmother’s house, where she discovers Na Hee-do’s diaries from when she was a teenager. As she reads the entries, the story of Na Hee-do’s youth is told across the span of several years, from 1998 to 2001.
In 1998, an 18-year-old Na Hee-do is desperate to switch schools after the IMF crisis forces her school to drop their fencing team. Aspiring to become one of the best, her love for fencing is also driven by her love of Ko Yu-rim, a girl on the national fencing team who she has been a long-time fan of and attends the same school she wishes to transfer to.
In the midst of her schemes, Na Hee-do befriends 22-year-old Baek Yi-jin, a young man whose once prosperous family has been torn apart by the IMF crisis, leaving them bankrupt and out of luck. Baek Yi-jin struggles to become a new adult as he works multiple part-time jobs in an attempt to reunite his family and get back on his feet.
Since the story stretches across several years, there is so much about the plot and characters that can be discussed. And as much as I want to, it would be a disservice to reveal what happens instead of encouraging others to take the time to watch it for themselves. After all, it is only 16 episodes, and the journey of which time passes in such a condensed period is one of the elements that plays a part in consuming the viewer in its own special world.
What I can say is that this is a story about life, simply put. It is a story about youth, friendships, family, dreams, and love. It takes a more realistic approach to storytelling than other dramas, which is either loved and appreciated or jarring and unwanted. As much as I want to escape from my own reality, the most significant stories are the ones that reflect and comment on our real, everyday life. Everyday life can be painful and mundane, but it can also be so, so beautiful.
Watching this drama forced me to revisit the emotions that were uncomfortable to experience the first time around. I was 21 again, in a brand new place, meeting new people, going out to places I had never been before, staying out until the late hours of the night. I was having the time of my life, and I was going through the worst period of my life at the same time. I was laughing, making timeless memories, and crying alone in my room, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders.
Growing older is a topic that has no longer been creeping into my life—instead, it is loud and outspoken, making itself known. I’m at the age where I feel myself getting older, despite still being so young. The age where people tell me that I’m old and are only half joking. The age where my friends and I get together and realize how much time has passed by, and how quickly, and no matter what we do, it keeps going by.
Twenty-Five Twenty-One embraces this passage of time. It shows the strength and invincibility we feel in our youth, believing that these moments will last forever, that if we try hard enough, things will stay the same. It shows the peace that comes with aging, with having a life different to what we imagined, and the acceptance of change. It is a kind reminder that while nothing is really forever, neither are these strange, inevitable emotions. Heartbreaks that feel like the end of the world are only temporary pieces of time. Resentment fades. We will forget some things, get over some others, and we will be okay.
The greatest comfort and pain that Twenty-Five Twenty-One has given me is how it conveys first loves. The experience is one that, when it happens, you don’t quite realize it. You don’t know just how long this part of your life will stretch on for until you are at the end of it, tormented by a single question: how did we end up here? First loves are bittersweet, even when they cause a lot of exhaustion and damage, and mine certainly did.
But after finishing the show, I found myself thinking about the person and the relationship with a kinder lens. This doesn’t take away from the suffering I felt throughout it, the desperation I had to relieve it, the self-loathing that made it impossible to stay away. But in light of the drama’s overarching message, time passes, even when I thought it never would. Some memories are fading, some details that I thought I would never forget, and there is nothing I can do about it. And while things may not last forever, there are some things that will stay with us forever. I will never forget my first love, the friendships I built and lost, the joy and heartbreak of my youth. And I accept this, wholeheartedly. In the same sweet breath, I will never be forgotten, too.
Twenty-Five Twenty-One is like a dear friend I am grateful to have crossed paths with. It is a body of work that left me dazed with its last episode, sobbing uncontrollably in the dark as if I had been a character in its story with nowhere left to go. Even days after finishing, I am still in this profound limbo, stuck in my own reality but not being able to think of anything else. Watching clips from the show clenches something inside me; hearing the soundtrack intensifies those emotions all over again; every piece of media or art I consume hereafter feels subpar in comparison.
Time will pass, and so will this all-consuming aftermath, but the way this drama made me feel is something I will carry in my heart forever.
One more thing: dreams may seem out of reach. Sometimes all we can hear is the chattering of the world around us telling us it’s not possible, that it’s better to cut our losses, give up while we’re ahead, settle for something else. It is our responsibility to find the voice within ourselves that is hungry for nothing else but the dream itself, and to scream it without inhibition, to feed it the desire to push us toward the path of no return.
