What a view | Record of Youth tries to scratch the superficial surface of K-drama – does the Netflix show succeed?

Korean dramas often seem to reside in that treacherous land called Superficiality Central, with its mushy terrain of romantic angst, familial verbal fisticuffs and social-media spite.

And surely few businesses can be as emotionally puddle-deep as acting, modelling and make-up, three worlds that collide in Record of Youth (Netflix, season one now streaming). All the above are puréed into this rite-of-passage tale in which the dreams, ambitions and perceived limpness of Seoul’s millennials clatter into the traditional values of their disapproving elders.

Now, this might sound like a baloney sandwich, but let’s hold the derision dressing for a moment. Agreed, it can be a challenge to see beyond extended scenes of pretty-boy metrosexuals having their make-up done, not least when the make-up artist is herself rendered as the glowing apogee of fresh-faced female pulchritude. But is there more to the show?

Yes. Sa Hye-jun (Park Bo-gum) is a fledgling actor not content with middling success as a model. Still, he finds himself caught between two stools, with his acting career stranded on the launch pad and modelling jobs becoming scarce.

So he waits tables and takes jobs as a bodyguard to pay his way, all the while praying for his big-screen big break – and hoping to defer military service. Not that his extended family is happy with this, considering him a burden who should just join up already and leave the rest of them with more to eat.

Meanwhile, Hye-jun’s best friend and rival model, Won Hae-hyo (Byeon Woo-seok), has enjoyed more success, thanks, it would seem, to family connections and his coming from a swanky neighbourhood. Not that loyal chum Hye-jun would ever hold either against him.