Record of Youth Ends with 8.740% in Episode 16 and Confirms Point of Entire Drama was Mocumentary Military Send off for Park Bo Gum

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• This was the only PBG's dramas I watch entirely after Reply1988. I passed LITM and Encounter because they didnt connect with me from the first few episodes and because I wasnt sold by the OTP.

  But here, despite the quite bland romance and the somewhat dull script, I enjoyed the ride. I didnt FF any scenes. I loved it when it started, but only liked it when it ended.

  But again, it was a youth drama; record of their youth. I wanted to see PBG stars in youth drama and I got it. Also I quite like the ending. They were still young and the road's still long.

  • I watched this drama only because I am a great fan of Park Bo Gum. He's acting was superb but indeed, towards the end, his character seems so idealistic and off! The drama within a drama concept was very good but quite dragging in the later part. Park So Dam acted really badly in this drama but you can't really blame her if the director will tell you to act "vaguely" in scenese. She just can't match the intensity of Park Bo Gum.

    It is indeed a miracle to see ROY achieved high ratings in both korean television and on Netflix (reached #4 WORLDWIDE, highest for a KDrama ever!) despite the bad writing and directing! This is how popular Park Bo Gum is. Don't mistake about it, the success of this drama is practically Bogum Magic to me.

    • I love Park Bo Gum and so any drama he's going to be in I am watching!!! But I felt that this was a very good drama and that all the actors did well.I must admit I wish that it would of been longer and that it would of showed Park Bo Gum and Park So Dam get back together.That would of truly made it perfect.

    • I am across the pond,agreeing with your comment,script writing was terrible,just started watching Park bo gum, cant get enough. Not familiar of your ratings as for the majority of male actors now I see where Parasites director is bringing over Tobert Pattison for his next film. He is doing the next batman. I cant see parasite here in the Uss.

  • Yeah me too. This is his second series that I watched.The story somewhat portrays reality in the field of entertainment industry.I passed LOTM because I was spoiled with all the spoilers while it was still airing.ROY is a simple, realistic drama but still able to catch viewers.

  • You're missing out because after Reply 1988, his turn in Moonlight Drawn by Clouds is really good.

• Another show I was waiting to binge watch until it finished but not sure if I should bother watching. I read that the ending was very open ended with them maybe getting back together but it could also have been 2 friends hanging out. I'm not really into romcoms ending like that but I've also seen people say that the romance was seriously lacking so the ending didn't even matter. The only reason I might end up watching is if I'm really missing Bo Gum in the next 2 years.

  • Watch it for PBG and his mother.

    The ending? Was totally devoid of anything romantic. It was literally like acquaintances catching up. Less interest than let's say high school reunions. I didn't believe it but in the end I have to say the OTP had zero sexual chemistry. Great friend vibes for sure.

    However PBG was swoony in this drama. I am usually not a fervent PBG fan but his clothing style was great here.

    Character- wise he played more interesting characters in his other dramas. Good looking PBG- wise? Watch this drama.

    Plot was P L O D D I N G.

    If those 2 got together again romanticallyI would eat my hat.

    • Wow...you said everything that was on my mind about this drama - about PBG's great "clothing style" and "plodding" plot. Every time PBG speaks, the other people in the frame will standstill and the camera will zoom in on his face. So many close ups and stylishly posed shots. PBG is indeed impressive in this drama. The whole drama is much ado about nothing.

    • The ending is really open to interpretation. There was a lot of symbolism there:HJ's new drama title, PSD wearing the shoes even after 2 years, the parallelism to how they met up the first time and where they at now, they're banter (some say flirting) hasn't changed and that says a lot because it was their personality that made them attracted to each other... So it really depends how you as a viewer might interpret it.

  • A lot of people reckons that it may have a different feel if you binge watched it because you don't end up over analyzing things after each episode. I for one regret that I started watching it midway so I ended up having sleepless night lol!
    I will definitely binge watch this again and for the record I did love their chemistry even though half way through it just fizzles out due to lack of screen time between the two and the direction (writing even) didn't even flesh out their relationship as the focused just shipped from one subplot to subplot. Needless to say the romance side has taken a back seat.

• Wow this drama ironically made me love Park Bo Gum even more. Like dang he can make all of these scenes that were the essence of mediocrity so gooood. He really does have that It Boy charm about him. As for literally everyone else, I already forgot their names.

  • Agree!!! Park Bo Gum was wow in this drama!

  • Totally agree! I’m a newbie in Kdrama, came across ROY on Netflix and just clicked it without knowing who is PBG. From the beginning, already attracted to his superb acting, and made me fell head over heels when he played the mafia guy *swoon*. After ROY, I binge watched Reply 1988, LOITM, Remember You, Encounter ?.

• So I was right all along. I did guess in my old post about the ending possibly ending that way. After the gay rumours was used in the story, I already knew why PBG chose ROY as his last drama. It totally mirrored PBG's experience as an actor.

• Agree. You said it well, looks like a commissioned drama by his agency to send him off to his military service. I didn't enjoy it, but happy for PBG and looking forward to his comeback ?

  • Do you think PBG would allow n agree to act in ROY if his agency commissioned this drama, director n writer rewrite the script just to showcase his story knowing what a upright person he is.

• I have noticed that most of those who said that there is chemistry between the 2 leads haven't watched Bogum's other dramas and those who have said no chemistry have watched. If ROY was made prior to his other dramas, i doubt i will ever support his next dramas. But because he made a mark on me from his previous drama, he had my support.
  Just wondering if Bogum is not casted, how will it fair in the ratings. I guess 1% and will be cut to 10 eps.

  • Chemistry is something that you get or you don't. It's the same as beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Perhaps we can agree to disagree on this. I never bought his pairing on LITM for me something was off.

• Quick review: The title of this drama is really a misnomer. The poster should not have had Park So Dam and Byun Woo Seok in it. They should have just put Park Bo Gum's face. Its not "Record of Youth". Its Record of Park Bo Gum.

  • Long review: This drama did not hit the mark whether its plot, directing, acting or even OST.

    Plot: This was supposed to be a journey of three young people but it ended up being fan service for Park Bo Gum. I think the other two "leads" could have shined more if the story did not incorporate romance. They could have hinted at it but focused on showing us the career journey and family conflicts and triumphs of Jeong Ha and Hae Hyo along side Hye Joon. Some of the lines and dialogues were supposed to be "inspiring" but I found them to be unnatural sometimes.

    Directing: I think they knew towards half the mark that they had no story to tell so they just gathered all the cameos they could find but at the end of the day. It didnt really enhance the plot. He should have focused more on bringing out the intensity from Park So Dam so that she can connect with Park Bo Gum and have some chemistry. There were hints at the beginning when she was a fangirl. Their banter, if the director had honed in on that and kept it that way all the way to the end. This could have turned out differently.

    Ost: Not memorable. No impact. They shouldnt have too many Osts. Sometimes too many Osts can remove the emotional punch of a storyline which this drama was trying so hard to do.

    Acting: When directing and writing is subpar, at least the acting can elevate the drama because this is what we see onscreen with our eyes. As many have said, this was an ensemble production but Bo gum did the heavy lifting. Most of the supporting characters were outright bad, no synergy what so ever.

    • Yes, heavy lifting by his popularity not his performance.

    • Conclusion: Wasted potential. This is a case study of high ratings does not always equal to high quality drama. Remove Park Bo Gum and this would have been in 2% - 3%. Its the same like "Encounter". It had high ratings but no strong hype during and after the drama it just faded away. This is what will happen to this drama.

      Do not watch this if you are a casual kdrama fan. No plot for a supposedly slice of life youth drama, no sizzling or heart warming chemistry for a romance. Dont watch if you are a fan of Park So Dam. Go and watch her movies instead.

      If you look at this year's dramas offerings we have had World of the Married, Crash landing on You, Its Ok not to be Ok, Flower of Evil, Hot Stove League, Hospital Playlist and more..this just pales in comparison. Not cause of genre but quality. Do you like Brahms had its weaknesses but I would recommend it over Record of Youth.

      If you are looking for slice of life I recommend Prison Playbook, Hospital Playlist and if you are really looking for youth drama, I recommend Age of Youth or rewatch reply 1988 where PBG is also the lead but much better in all aspects.

    • I wonder why you didn’t mention 18 Again. The drama is actually good.

    • I forgot one thing. They didnt even try with Park So Dam's styling and makeup. Actors are heavily reliant on their faces because they get alot of closeups and use the face to transmit the character's emotion. She looked washed out when she is actually pretty.

      They coloured her hair orange, maybe it was meant to show she is fashion forward??‍♀️. It didnt work. Traditional oriental faces like hers and Kim Go Eun with monolid eyes look best with natural hair colour i.e black or if they want to colour go for a darker shade like dark brown, auburn etc.

      Her character is a makeup artist in showbiz but her own makeup was so bland. Her outfits were bland. I am not proposing they dress her in over the top outfits like Moo Young of IONTBO or Man Wol in hotel de luna. But she needed more pop. Jeong Ha was an average working youth living in Seoul not a poor country bumpkin.

      I blame the production team for this.
      This drama was a disservice to her. The positive is she has a high rating drama to her filmography in addition to parasite. That means she will have more opportunities and will continue to be booked and busy.

    • When I was watching ROY, I had this thought, "Would this drama be any better if this was a weekend drama with more episodes? Because it looked like it tried to deliver so many things only to come out flat, bland and kinda forced. Same with the otp romance and its characters growth.

    • I think they couldn't decide or couldn't be bothered about what JH really is. Based on the first few episodes I would say that JH will be the type of gf that will keep it together for HJ while the latter goes through all the difficulties and challenges. She is transparent with her feelings, speaks her mind, witty, hard working, ambitious and adores HJ. We never saw anything of that in the 2nd half hence their screen time together just fell flat. On top of that their actions and their dialogue do not match. We are being TOLD that they love and misses each other but I couldn't see their closeness together(apart from a few scenes). I wonder if this is the director implying to us that their relationship became so close yet so far.

  • Couldn't agree more. If you are going to make a drama about PBG make sure you sell it that way.

    Still not cool about the way they treated PSD character and mind you there are plenty of international fans that also tuned in to watch mainly because of So Dam. This is her first drama after Parasite!

    I must say though that i get it now why PBG is well loved. He is beautiful and can act and among his works this is the one that totally impressed me and I feel like he took me on his journey with different emotions. I particularly enjoyed seeing him on all the differnt roles he played on this drama.

• Snooze fest. Kept watching just to see if anything interesting would happen. My favourite character ended up being his old agent, at least he provided moments of entertainment.

• Around about ep 12 even the greatness of PBG couldn't get me to continue watching this paint dry (good metaphor for this drama). The thing is that I KNEW going in based on the description that this would absolutely dullsville and I watched because of PBG and he did not disappoint. But I just couldn't hang in there.

• Everyone's definitely over exaggerating Bogum's acting here. He "pulled it off" because of his popularity, not because he gave a Baeksang worthy performance. He gave his best acting years ago in Hello Monster & Reply 1988, and was decent enough in LITM. Since then, his acting has gone downhill and he seems to be more of a Fanservice and CF celeb. Hopefully he'll be better in the new movie, although Gong Yoo will definitely dominate the screen.

  • You talking like all popular actors wont get flop drama.
    How do you know Gongyoo will dominate the screen when they just busy talking about 'Park bogum' and 'Park bogum' in their pressconf
    Even the title is Seobok (Park bogum character).

    • Don’t worry. Bogummy will do fine in the movie with Gong Yoo. Just like he shined in Reply 1988 and Hello monster. Why? C’mon ladies. Don’t pretend to be stupid. It’s because of the toxic, clingy, needy “Oppa, Oppa” female fans, the poor male actors and singers have to eat their own heart and pretend to be interested in women. Don’t force romance on Bogummy and he will shine in any drama, movie scenes.
      That’s why I hated Boyfriend drama. It felt like Bogummy (child) sexual abuse, if you get my meaning. Again, all because of pleasing you, stupid girls, some good male actors feel stifled and misused in romantic scenes. Leave them alone, let them breathe, let them be who they want to be.

  • I agree and disagree. I agree that Park Bo Gum's earlier work is where he delivered his best performance than post LITM. I think its giving credit where its due for this one. He had 99% of screen time so people can say alot about his acting. The others had little screentime with shallow characterisation so they difnt shine. For the popular part, that might have been true in the first episodes but after that, I guess some of the audience could connect with his character and plot and stayed. The average was 7%. He is Korea's IT boy for sure. But Kim Soo Hyun, Lee Min Ho and Joo Won for example are not far behind in popularity in Korea. Kim Soo Hyun's latest drama averaged at 5% when it was in a prime time weekend slot. Its not low but low for a weekend drama and he is known for delivering consistent mega hits. Same for Joo Won. Lee Min Ho's drama was public broadcast even had combination of writer Kim Eun Sook who never flops in ratings but his drama flopped in Korea this year. I think kdrama is past the stage where only popular actors can make people watch the drama from start to finish. These days its plot, chemistry, acting.

  • Whaaaat? They have been raving his nano acting here in RoY..let's just conclude if Barking comes! Just like people here saying that this drama will tank and so after Roy it has a high rating in Skorea and worldwide thru Netflix..people somehow enjoyed it whatever it they can put their fingers on it be it his popularity or his acting

    • *Baeksang comes...feel free to say "I told you so"

  • Damn looks like I really triggered his rabid fans lmao. His acting is declining and he is getting consecutively worse with every new project he picks. I don't care if other actors have had flops or whatever, I'm talking about bogummie, our resident cult leader, here. I used to think he had a natural talent and a lot of untapped potential, but he's been a disappointment these past few years. Hope he picks it back up in the upcoming movies. And don't embarrass yourselves by comparing Gongyoo's acting with bogum's, for bogum's sake lol
    Also @marina you're definitely an oppa oppa fangirl, u ain't fooling anyone with that act. Try to get some help for that internalised misogyny.