Youth of May (2021)

MAY the tissues be ever in your favor...

Korea's May uprising was a violent and conflicted historic time that is hard to tackle down for both it's importance within history, but also for the losses and misfortunes it caused as well.

The fact that here they included a romantic plot right in the middle of such events makes it even more sorrowful and bittersweet. It's not surprising that we were expecting to suffer all through the drama based on such real life events that followed, and specially if they were going to make us feel empathetic towards the characters.

HeeTae was hard not to love from the start, hardworking and pacifist to a certain point but brave and through to his own believes, ready to sacrifice himself for those he loved and cherished. A broken and lost boy who grew up to be a man facing numerous responsibilities and hardships. A college student who dreamed of performing on stage with his mom's guitar, a guy who returned to his hometown to fulfill a promise and that ended up falling in love at first sight in that fatidic month of May.

A month of revolution. A month of misunderstandings, of youth and pain.

How can we not fall in love with his lovable and selfless character? How can we not suffer with him through his personal journey here? His devotion and passion, and his rightful persona was bright like a light in the darkness ahead and a beacon of hope for most there. Without realizing he indeed helped change the lives of many in there, being for the better or the worse.

MyungHee the strong and stubborn young woman that by helping her best friend out, met her soulmate in a small café. The girl who seemed like a pushover but who had big dreams to study abroad when accepted in college with a scholarship. Hardworking and fearless for her convictions, with a strong sense of justice and duty for her work as a nurse. A big sister, a lost daughter, a girl who just wanted to be useful. Devoted to those whom she carried in her heart. It was almost poetic the way she led her path to the unfortunate circumstances it took in the end, tainted in crimson and white. Nevertheless, she made her choice of what she already feared it would happen. That fear that reigned through those uncertain days in the month of May.

Their choices led to their fate.

Albeit not the one many would like to see, it was predictable in a way.
This story wouldn't have the typical happy ending most always yearn for.
Despite the sadness, it's realistic. Given what happened back then, this worked.

Because they represent the departed and those left behind.
The losses people suffered, and the sorrow they carry in their hearts.
It's symbolic too in that sense, mainly the final speech at the end.
Those left behind and brokenhearted, were left living a half life.
Empty shells mourning for the souls of their loved ones who died in May.

I also really liked the character of SooChan, he was a kindhearted man who loved MyungHee earnestly and although not reciprocated, he never forced his love. Rather he cared for her and his own sister, he was a family oriented man, but also a kind soul who wasn't afraid to jump to the frontline to stop injustices. Although he considered himself to be a coward, at some point given his status and affiliations that helped him out when his world crashed down in those bloody days. He showed his willpower, and strength by giving and helping the survivors alongside his sister and with the help of their father. Although a struggling family in the story because of the predicaments that tangled them with HeeTae's family, the 3 of them united at the end only proved how the rich can in fact give back to the poor in times of need. It could almost be seen as a criticism nowadays.

Because one single act of kindness, creates an endless ripple.

SooRyeon often infuriated me and other times annoyed me, but over all there was a character development in her. A newfound strength that she only gained by learning from her own mistakes, and to what they caused to all of those around her. She was passionate for justice and the rights of the people, and she fought for her own beliefs. Even thought coming from a wealthy family, she joined the crowd to rise the voice of people to be heard. Her carelessness created havoc among the plot and a handful of characters that were affected by her impulsive decisions. However, she had a fire in her that wouldn't be put down.

HeeTae's father was the face of the many monsters in there, although not the one entirely behind all of those operations. We can say he represents blind evil, greed and hypocrisy well enough. Controlling his older son like a puppet, or having him on a short leash like a dog while ignoring the younger was the view of a cold parent working for a side he considered to be right. Evoking rights, even if it meant using torture and killing people. Quite hypocrite of him to be aiding to the killing spree of countless people, ordering executions in a light way as if it were nothing but pawns in his chess game, but when it came to see one of his sons hurt by one of his reckless decisions suddenly it mattered. The only flaw here is that his ending isn't satisfying enough. More than being abandoned by his "family", he deserved to know the lenght of suffering he caused to many people.

It's a ride filled with angst, but also an awakening of what happened back then.
Every country has it's own history of revolutions here and there, some even more violent, it's always different.
And yet the feelings are the same. In the end, when there's conflicts, there is losses. There is blood. There is pain.
This was no different, it only had a few moments of romance so we could root for their happy ending or fleeting moments.

The acting was on point. DoHyun always amazes me with his grace when it comes to express emotions in his roles.
I enjoyed seeing everyone in their roles, and I am happy to see SangYi for the first time on a main role, Hope to see more of him.
The OST is sad and warm. Ideal to listen with a cup of tea, on those lonely days.
My favorite song is definitely Starry Night by RyeoWook. His soothing voice appeases whoever listens.

Do not expect a light romance history within these 12 episodes. It's love in the middle of an uprising.
Also it has personal conflicts in between and a couple of misunderstandings, and it's all in the month of May.
It's an ephemeral love story between two young souls who tried their best to make it work despite the course of events.

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Bittersweet drama which will deliver tears

Let's keep it short, shall we? In a nutshell, this drama exceeded my expectations and here's why...

CAST:
The whole cast was brilliant and very skilled! I'm a huge fan of Lee Do Hyun and I've also seen several dramas from Go Min Si so I knew that they wouldn't let me down and I was right! Their performance individually and together is beyond amazing. We can see and feel the chemistry they've together. I hope we can see this pair together in their future projects ^__^

STORY: It was beautiful but heartbreaking story of two soulmates. This drama attracted my attention from the first episode (bc I knew it was gonna be a sad story lol) and it kept me on the edge through the whole drama. I did have some moments when I was a bit bored but then something interesting happened and I was on again. The characters were enjoyable and the plot was pretty well made. I also think the ending fits perfectly for this drama.

For me this drama isn't perfect but it made me feel emotional which is all I am looking from a drama

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Bittersweet , Heart flustering and Painful

The show opened with great premise the setting set around the show indicated what the show mainly focused about ,the uprising, from the beginning you’re pulled to get deeply involved with the characters and their stories, the main lead’s embodiment of great virtue with good morals which is hard to find in a show his representation from the very start amazed me and had me falling, our female lead is a strong character facing hardships from a young age not like your stereotypical female who needs all her problems solved by the ML and needs sympathy A BIG NO!!? she might be struggling and in a difficult situation but doesn't need viewers to piety her character, she is embodied with bravery and courage, the side characters started initially as annoying but later on you will come to understand their stance their situation and how realistic the selfish portrayal is of them and the way they acted are justified .

The romance drew me in and hit me hard the beginning of falling for the one who you’re not supposed to happens to be going against the odds for love which in between is showcased is hard as how both leads struggles to found their footings and stray away for a while to test their love for each other and how beautifully and realistically they realize they can't live without each other their love without even saying a word can be demonstrated by the way they glare at each other how intimate and vulnerable they are to each other and how understanding they are of each other which displayed reality of love in life that love is not easy it has it's ups and downs but they are the things what makes it worth it.

The show focused upon how people who lost their loved once in the uprising were left alone unable to process without their loved once throughout their lives and how one month affected their whole life how scattered they became how nerve wrecking they felt the constant urge to not live anymore but have to continue to struggle and pull yourself for the loved once who would want them to live how hard it is to survive and have constant insecurity of loss how vulnerable certain circumstances make you.

The director and production did a great job the whole 80's setting was exceptionally executed and without a doubt should receive their reward for such great work from the beginning I just loved the scenes the tone and how emotionally it was showcased just astoundingly.

I watched it while it was airing from episode 1 and still can't get over this masterpiece give it a try if you're looking for great chemistry and storyline but buckle up for emotional scenes and how realistic the execution is and from episode 8 onwards has major violence so bear that in mind but also from episode 1 till 6 had great character development and romance scenes from 7 to 8 it gets heavy and last episodes are bittersweet and but worth it.
HAVE GOOD LUCK WATCHING AND LUCKY YOU THAT YOU DON'T HAVE TO WAIT A WHOLE WEEK FOR EPISODES!!

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There was an attempt, I guess...

It seems the drama excuses itself way too much and too often under the umbrella of "real life events" which denotes for a lazy writing. Moreover, the antagonist in the drama is portrayed as an omnipotent being who possesses an uncanny awareness, insight, and control over everything and everyone. Practically a god! It undermines the believability of the story and weakens the conflict by eliminating any sense of balance or potential for meaningful character growth and development. This kind of characterization is only passable for makjang shenanigans, mindless action or goofy adventure flicks. Instead of crafting a compelling tragedy, it turned into an extensive series of self-inflicted misery, unreasonable maneuvers and forceful entanglements. This is not how to make a tragedy!

The brothers playing the big turning point for the climax were only brought to attention in the last 2-3 episodes. How do you expect the viewers to care? While some of the support characters may receive attention initially (or eventually like the brothers) but they ended up being underdeveloped and lacking depth. Their presence feels inconsequential and fails to contribute meaningfully to the overall story. Either give them a proper investment or don't waste unnecessary scenes. The 12 episodes run already feels too long! Despite dealing with potentially emotional and poignant themes, the drama fails to delve deeply into the emotional lives of its characters. Instead, we got a superficial, quick and dry cuts that were barely sufficient to progress the story.

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Watching this drama feels a bit like walking on a thin line over a valley that gets deeper and deeper for every episode.... Keeping your emotions constantly ready to fall... and even though you know someone is going to die you neither know when, how and though you may have a clue you do not know who it was (or they were) that died.

This drama has a little bit of everything I like in a drama, it has sweet, sweet flirting, bad ass woman, evil parents, corruption, conspiracy, war, confronting abelism, domestic violence, activism, forced marriage, sports, friendship... As well as tackling issues of inequality in every aspect of life. I especially loved the way this drama portrays the different consequences rich v.s poor people face for their activism and so called illegal actions and demonstrations a topic that never seems to get outdated (so are the others).

This drama has an amazing pace and build up. with every episode adding parts to the complexity of the situation and adding new dimension to the escalating conflict helping the the viewers to gradually get in to and understand the the plot. Not one single moment was boring and my ayes where more or less constantly moist.

I often (not always, and not only) judge a drama over its ability to ability to awaken my emotions and this one did just that I felt sorrow, angst, anger, suspense, fluffy inside (tho they did make me cringe once or twice) and made me fall competently in love with this cast. The acting here was top notch, and so was the writing making it feel real. There was not one single character with annoying dialog, mimics or flat no matter how small their side-part was (not guest rolls). I did of course want to knock some sense in to people, screamed nooooooo once or twice at the screen but that is to be expected.

The cinematography was gorgeous and the music fit perfectly as well So yes I loved it and I gave it 10 well deserved stars.

So... If you are more of the no romance war type or if you are looking for a fluffy happy romance move along there is nothing to see here.... But if you are a sucker for tragedy and fluff like me this is defiantly worth a watch.

P.S. I like the fluff too, especially after watching something like this i need to cleans my soul with some pure fluff before moving on.

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One of the saddest kdrama

A drama about the truth of Gwangju uprising. It breaks my heart that this drama happened in real life. The way they treated the people back then.

The story is well writen.
The lives of the two leads is hard. They did everything to be happy together.
Almost every episode makes me cry. Myung Hee experienced a brutal death. They didnt even bury her or tell her family about her. She doesnt deserve that.

Lee Do Hyun's character also breaks my heart. The fact that he doesnt know where to find his woman. He waited alone for 48 years without knowing what really happened.

This drama is one of my fav drama even though I cried a river about the ending.
Prepare a tissue before watching this drama.

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Expectations Vs Reality.

Before i say anything else, I'll let y'all know that for me(someone who's watched countless dramas prior to this) this was most probably the hardest drama I have ever had to rate.
Honestly, i could've given this a 10/10, but at the same time i could've given it a 1/10.
Why? Reason being the ending.
And I'll j leave it at that.

Getting into the review, this is basically a reality check of a drama trying to tell us how irl even the "MCs" or protagonists don't get the ending they want always. cuz irl there rly aren't any protagonists to begin with. everyone gets treated alike in this life and there're no "chosen ones". One sad and tragic but real story. Leaves you pondering.

P.S. A friendly advice. Prepare some tissues if you chose to watch the entire show. All the best!

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A beautiful love story

It's definitely my favorite drama of 2021. Their love story is so beautiful, it reached deep into my heart. The actors portrayed their characters well to the point that it feels like I'm watching a real couple's life, instead of a K-Drama. Because of how good the actors' acting skills are, I can feel exactly what they're feeling when I watch the drama. When they're happy, I feel happy too. When they cry, I cry too. The OSTs are also very good and very poetic, if you look up the lyrics. I still have a hard time moving on from this drama even though it has been a few months since i finished it, I think a lot of Youth of May viewers also feel the same way as I do.

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Too tragic for a drama. Made this into a docuseries instead?

Please forgive me, regional folks, this is not meant to disregard or disrespect your history and the tragic horrors behind it.
This is more a reminder for me to never watch this again.
If I had read that this was so Tra gic, I would've never watched it.
If truly this particular romance was so tragic, I would've preferred to see the actual people, their real names, careers etc.
In short it could have been a true story or a true documentary which are made very aesthetically now.

To take history, put your own spin on it again is fine.
But to take history, put your own spin on it, heavily load it with beautiful romance and then kill the lead is like pulling the rug from under our feet and bring us crashing down, breaking our teeth, heart and everything else.
Not acceptable for me.

So yes, it was a tremendously beautiful drama - music, cinematography, costumes, hair make up etc of the '80s, and every actor was stupendous.......but sorry, the ending destroyed it.

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terrible main characters ruined a potentially good drama

I have been following this show since the day it started and now that i finished it i can say that this was one of the worst experiences of my life. I actually liked the first half of the show the setup for the romance seemed very interesting but as the show went on it just seemed stupid. Let's talk about what started to go wrong. Around halfway through the story myunghee and hee tae's "conflict" didn't even feel like a conflict at all because it would get resolved so easily and they'd get back together and the same thing got repeated over and over again so i really don't see any point of the conflict and not like the conflict was different it was the same thing just done too many times. Next, let's talk about how hee tae and myunghee are the most terrible and selfish people i have come across. When the gwangju uprising started they were busy trying to run away from that hospital even though they could clearly see how terrible the state of the country was and hee tae being a doctor and myunghee being a nurse just couldn't care less about any of that. Like that seemed very odd to me aren't main characters should be more empathetic than that? They didn't have any sense of humanity or responsibility in those trying times at all and it was actually very upsetting because these characters were shown as good, conscientious people from the beginning? Now let's talk about how myunghee was terrible to her dad and never even tried to understand his part of the story she just needed someone to blame for her dumb mistakes so she just took it out on his dad and i would have understood if his dad was a terrible person like herself but he seemed like someone who was trying to make it right. Then, let's talk about how myunghee didn't even care about her family all she cared about was her god forsaken romance with hee tae. When hee tae was kidnapped she literally kept acting like a brat and hence his dad and brother had to face the military which lead to his death but this whole time she literally didn't seem worried about them and didn't even cared that they got into all this because of her bratty behaviour but she was busy planning her marriage with hee tae. And all of this would have been understandable if they had some deeper romance going on they literally met each other 2 weeks ago and suddenly they want to risk it all for each other sorry but i am not buying that? Moreover, we kept seeing the side characters risking themselves so hee tae and myunghee can have a good life together which imo they don't deserve but myunghee and heetae didn't even care about anyone else but them. And they kept justifying that with bullshit reasoning that how being selfish is okay because they love each other? I wouldn't have any objection with them being selfish if these characters were originally like this and if the other supporting characters didn't act like they are they second coming of jesus but i think the show intented hee tae and myunghee to come across as good people which i really didn't see. Also the show couldn't wrap up anything well we don't know what happened to the side characters and a lot of things with that. Moreover, it is shown as hee tae is madly in love with her but he couldn't even bother to find myunghee's dead body and pay her respect? So yeah idek what to say anymore but that's what i think don't watch this terrible show.

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Me causou um grande impacto

Youth of May foi uma escolha cega pra mim. Embarquei nesse drama porque amo obras históricas. De início, eu esperava por um melodrama, mas me enganei completamente: a história é veloz e dinâmica, a cada episódio cumpre o que promete sem enrolar. O que me encantou, desde o primeiro episódio, foram os dois protagonistas. Eu não esperava tanto carisma! O brilho nos olhos dos dois me pegou de jeito e suas personalidades capturaram minha atenção.

Hee-Tae e Myung-Hee são dois batalhadores e TEIMOSOS (muito muito teimosos) jovens coreanos. Ele sonha em se tornar músico como sua falecida mãe, ela quer estudar no exterior e ter uma vida melhor. O drama começa com os dois fazendo de tudo para conquistar o que tanto querem. Nesse meio tempo, suas vidas se cruzam e é aí que a beleza da história começa: os dois juntos em cena são uma bomba. Sério, eu não sei como aguentei. Eu me DIVERTI TANTO com eles. Ainda estou impressionada com a química desses dois atores, que entregaram tanto. Desde a primeira cena, ficou claro pra mim que eu iria acompanhar aquele casal até o fim.

Com o desenvolvimento da história, logo a realidade bateu na minha porta: será que havia um final feliz esperando por Hee-Tae e Myung-Hee? Não vou contar se sim ou se não, mas já adianto: eles lutam por isso. A cada episódio, cada brecha do roteiro, lá estão os dois, superando as adversidades e se agarrando à mínima chance de felicidade. Não só eles, mas todos os jovens que viveram naquele maio. Aquelas pessoas acreditaram e berraram pela liberdade do país, mesmo quando os sonhos delas foram chutados e arremessados para longe. Quando parecia não ter esperança, elas ainda acreditaram.

Junto com eles, eu também acreditei até o fim.

Quanto ao Hee-Tae e Myung-Hee, para mim eles sempre serão um dos melhores casais de drama. Estou orgulhosa do quanto cresceram ao longo da história. Obrigada por serem teimosos e não abaixarem suas cabeças, meus jovens de maio. Meu coração se alegrou e chorou junto com vocês, acreditem❤️

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This is basically a romance set during the 1980 Gwanju protests. I thought that the Romeo and Juliet couple, beautifully acted by Lee Do Hyun and Go Min Si, pulled all of the appropriate heartstrings. But the characters surrounding them leaned melodramatic and simplistic. The evil villains, for example, were simply evil, whose evil acts were motivated by evilness. The troubled relationship between Kim Myung Hee and her father did not resonate with me because the whole thing seemed kind of over the top but, at the same time, petty. The Lee siblings’ characters had little depth or complexity. And the Gwanju protests and why and how everything went horribly wrong seemed to be simply background noise, albeit terrible background noise, to move the love story along.

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