Not your average Kdrama high school rom-com trope
By Adele Lau
Twenty Five, Twenty One (2521) is one of Netflix’s latest Kdrama hits. Even after the show concluded on April 3rd after sixteen episodes, Twenty Five, Twenty One is still highly viewed as Netflix’s Top 10 TV Shows in Hong Kong Today, ranking 8th.
The main cast includes:
Kim Tae-Ri as Na Hee-Do
Nam Joo-Hyuk as Back Yijin
Idol group member from WJSN’s Bona as Ko Yu-Rim
I watched the show while it was still ongoing from the first episode release, February 12th, releasing two episodes a week.The romantic high school Kdrama trope is something we’ve all seen and at first, I thought most of the scenes would end up being predictable. However, it was a pain to wait weekly because of the plot twists that would occur at the end of every episode, especially towards the end of the sixteen episode mark. What makes this show so special was that the side characters and friendships were equally as important as the lead couple.
Twenty Five, Twenty One, goes back and forth between two timelines, 1998 and 2022, creating a parallel between South Korea’s International Monetary Fund dilemma and the present day’s COVID-19 crisis. The series started with 40-year-old Na Hee-Do (Kim So-Hyun) taking her daughter Kim Min-Chae (Choi Myung-Bin) to a ballet competition. Hee-Do reminded Min-Chae that winning isn’t everything and that the most important thing was for her to try her best. Min-Chae thought otherwise, mentioning that if she didn’t win, all of it was for nothing.
While backstage, waiting for her turn, Min-Chae watches her ‘rival’ perform flawlessly, making her doubt herself. She ends up walking out of the competition and later getting disqualified. Hee-Do tries to teach her daughter what winning truly meant but Min-Chae says she will quit ballet because she doesn’t feel like she is good enough.
The scene goes back in time to 1998, Min-Chae visiting Hee-Do’s childhood home where Hee-Do’s grandmother (Shin Hyun-Sook) lives. Min-Chae looks through her mother’s old possessions and finds an old journal. She reads through it and starts to learn about her mother’s 19-year-old self’s aspirations, ambitions, frustrations, and relationships.
As the series progresses, Hee-Do has a strong goal to become an Olympic fencer; starting as a high-school fencer, she works her way up by training as hard as the Olympians. She looks up to Yu-Rim who has won gold the previous year, representing Korea. Along the way, Hee-Do meets Yijin, a first-time job seeker in his early 20s.
Over the course of the sixteen episodes, we watch relationships fall and friendships flourish. We also follow the professional and personal aspects of Hee-Do and Yijin’s life. Patiently waiting to see where they will end at the age of 25 and 21, which the title foreshadows, the flashback narrative ending and consequently their relationship coming to a close too. Although the break-up is expected, the way it comes about, shocks. The distance Hee-Do and Yijin have to endure throughout the majority of their relationship is already a glimpse of everything not working out.
Besides the story of the lead couple, Hee-Do and Yu-Rim’s friendship starts off as rivalry and later leaves us with an emotional wound. The love and admiration they have for each other gives the audience chills. Towards the end of the season, in Episode 15, their constant tense competition leads to their final showdown, Hee-Do and Yu-Rim competing against one another as best friends representing different countries, after Yu-Rim’s family's financial difficulties cause her to represent Russia. In the end, rather than shouting victoriously, the pair give each other a long heartfelt hug and apologise to each other for not keeping in close contact.
For some, the ending was beautifully executed, in the most bittersweet way.