A Drama/Romance That Offers Fan More Than Meets the Eye

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MOVIE REVIEW
20th Century Girl
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Genre: Drama, Romance
Year Released: 2022
Runtime: 2h 1m
Director(s): Woo-ri Bang
Writer(s): Woo-ri Bang
Cast: Kim Yoo-jeong, Han Hyo-joo, Woo-Seok Byeon, Seong-wu Ong
Where To Watch: Coming to Netflix October 21, 2022

RAVING REVIEW: My favorite part of reviewing Netflix films is that you seldom know what you’ll get. I requested this blindly without knowing anything about it, and it was a wonderful surprise, to say the least.

I would suggest that you watch it with the original Korean spoken language and English subtitles. Even though the film does have an English-language dub (which it defaulted to), it’s pretty distracting, to say the least. Thankfully I don’t watch anything (if I can) without subtitles, although there was a time long ago when I hated them ironically enough.

The film takes place in 1999, instantly giving me a warm feeling. I was a Junior in high school, and this film hit many nostalgia points for me. Even though it was a different culture, many things, from the computers to general life in the film, reminded me of what the world was like not so long ago.

It’s so much fun to see films from other countries, especially when you don’t know what to expect. It’s a surprise that I genuinely enjoy every time. By a long stretch, I’ve probably watched more international films this year than I traditionally do.

The movie is about friendship, love, and loss all at the same time and the struggles you face while navigating teenage life at the end of the 20th century. I feel that you might not appreciate it fully unless you lived during that time. That isn’t to say that you won’t enjoy it, but there’s something special about that time that was so different.

I think that the twists of the film offer so much; while some of the acting seems to stall out at times, the story of the overall film makes you want to know what will happen next. Even when you think you know, you tend to be wrong. I love a twist I thought I had figured out for sure, only to be proven wrong moments later.

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