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Pierce Conran

Lead cast: Song Joong-ki, Chun Woo-hee
Latest Nielsen rating: 2.8 per cent
K-drama stars Song Joong-ki (Reborn Rich) and Chun Woo-hee (The Atypical Family) join forces for the hazy and nostalgic romantic drama My Youth.
Focusing on a former child star and an actor’s manager, the series comes smack bang in the middle of a particularly busy season for Korean entertainment industry narratives, following last month’s Aema and My Troublesome Star, and ahead of this Friday’s You and Everything Else.


Song plays Sunwoo Hae, a former child actor now living far away from the limelight, working as a florist and doing some other part-time jobs.
Chun is Sung Je-yeon, who works at the Feel Entertainment management company, where she manages actress Mo Tae-rin (Lee Joo-myoung, Like Flowers in Sand).
Tae-rin was Hae’s co-star in a popular sitcom they appeared in as children, and Feel Entertainment is looking to bank on that popularity by getting Hae to appear in a new programme alongside Tae-rin. The trouble is, he will not answer their calls.
Je-yeon just so happens to have been Hae’s high school classmate – and maybe more – but she has lost touch with him.
However, one day she notices a familiar bracelet on a flower shop’s Instagram post and goes to visit the store, hoping that the wrist belongs to Hae.

It does, but during an awkward meeting that hints at the complicated and clearly unresolved emotions they shared during their school years, Je-yeon makes her pitch on behalf of Feel and is soundly rebuffed.
Undaunted, Je-yeon soon finds another work-related meeting to show up in front of Hae, when she learns that a popular TV producer is trying to arrange a meeting with the writer of his daughter’s favourite book.
The novelist is secretly Hae, who used a pen name when he published the book in school, and Je-yeon is one of the few people who know this.
She suggests the fan meeting and this time Hae accepts, only to later realise that Je-yeon is once again trying to use him to advance her own career.

Following this pair of fraught adult reunions, the flummoxed former classmates end up sharing a drink together when Je-yeon visits the eatery where Hae works in the evenings.
She starts drinking without him, waiting for him as he waits tables, while we are transported back to their troubled school days.
His child actor days already behind him, Hae’s teenage years were lonely ones, with no mother around and deadbeat dad Sunwoo Chan (Jo Han-chul, Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha) only showing up to ask for cash, until one day he drops off a much younger half-sister, whom he never comes back for.
Around this time, Hae transfers to a new school for his senior year, where Je-yeon is one of the top students. Je-yeon comes from a rich family, but trouble is brewing and her family soon goes bankrupt.
Also in the classroom is Kim Seok-joo (Seo Ji-hoon, My Lovely Liar), who in the present is a popular radio voice and is quickly positioned as a potential love interest for Tae-rin, who seems to recognise him.

The chance connections do not end there, as in some flashback scenes Hae’s father also starts dating Kim Pil-du (Jin Kyung, Black Knight), the CEO of Feel Entertainment.
Following the sturdy narrative drive of Song’s most recent TV hits Vincenzo and Reborn Rich, My Youth’s lackadaisical plotting flits languidly between past and present, contentedly delivering clichés and star wattage in lieu of substance.
As such, fans of Song and Chun, who are encouraged to play to their strengths in tailor-made but admittedly undemanding roles, may find something to enjoy here. But for everyone else, the aimless nature of the series may prove trying.
With its bifurcated structure, the series opts for ham-fisted mystery over clarity, with characters seeming to act awkwardly or strangely in the present because the story is denying us crucial backstory.

While this mystery creates some narrative conflict in the present, it also means that we do not have a clue who these characters are. Though vaguely fitting into familiar stock character types, their behaviour in the present feels unmoored.
We also get confusing asides, such as Je-yeon’s proclivity for carrying around a small fire extinguisher in her handbag, a loudly eccentric accoutrement that feels at odds with her relatively straightforward character. The show is likely to clue us in on this prop’s history later, but for now it feels contrived.
Yet the most important thing for viewers of My Youth will be to follow how Hae and Je-yeon navigate their current awkwardness, resolve their past miscommunications and progress hand in hand into a future romance.
And with Song and Chun on deck, there is still some hope that they can steer this ship through these early stormy waters.
My Youth is streaming on Viu.


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Song Joong-ki and Chun Woo-hee star in this romantic drama about a former child star and a talent manager that gets off to an awkward start


Song Joong-ki and Chun Woo-hee star in this romantic drama about a former child star and a talent manager that gets off to an awkward start.


K-drama My Youth: Song Joong-ki, Chun Woo-hee in hazy and meandering romance series

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Song Joong-ki and Chun Woo-hee star in this romantic drama about a former child star and a talent manager that gets off to an awkward start

Song Joong-ki and Chun Woo-hee star in this romantic drama about a former child star and a talent manager that gets off to an awkward start