A Look Back At The Understated: Reply 1997

Shin Won-ho does not view human interaction the way the average person might. Imbuing his moment to moment character dialogue with a quirky zaniness, capturing the eccentricity of conversations, especially between youngsters his stories most often focus on. The innocence, the unknown, the awkwardness of adolescence is a difficult thing to capture effectively in a storytelling medium, even harder for a viewer to be reminded of the things that they did or did not do in the penultimate time before childhood and adulthood begin to blur together.

The Reply series has always seemed to me like somewhat of an anomaly of the Korean drama space. Works that not only draw in the average viewer but one whose creative muse is wholly unique beneath its similar trappings of ensemble casts, romance, and melodrama. The familial dynamic going beyond that of blood and encompassing the bonds of our youths through the lens of family as well, and the brief times we spend so intimately close to one another at such a vulnerable stage of our lives. Through the vision of Shin Won-ho's idiosyncratic style as a director, a unique and beautifully bizarre work begins to come into focus.

Reply 1997 makes its individuality known immediately by setting itself in Busan, a city at the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, not Seoul. The dialect, the culture stand out as immediately different. While it's hard to call any city "quaint" in comparison, there is a tangible silence in comparison to its contemporaries, while not a small tight-knit community by any means, the density is larger, the distance further between us and our story, allowing us to breathe easier and see more.

The story centers on the lives of six friends, as the timeline moves back and forth between their past as 18-year-old high schoolers in 1997 and their present as 33-year-olds at their high school reunion dinner in 2012. With all of the domestic and international 90s nostalgia one could hope for. These kids aren't stressing about tests or trying to get to the top of their classes, they're more concerned with concerts, cinema, sport. The same way so many of us recall education as being secondary. The classrooms are just a vessel for the characters to be fleshed out further, rather than create a familiar space of school-related drama.

As a fully character driven work, not only is each character unique and interesting, they go beyond each of their archetypes, feeling like real, genuine people we might actually be able to meet with in the real world and experience organic memories with, not someone conveniently there for the writing and direction to contrive into situations for our enjoyment. When it needs to feel heavy, it does so very naturally, when it needs to convey its themes it does so in very subtle and subtextual ways as opposed to shoving it in your face. The show's light-hearted tone is broken up with these softer moments when absolutely necessary so as to not desensitize us to the weight that is being carried by each respective character and their situations. They react believably to the problems that confront them, it's almost as if the universe of this work has a distinct personality to it, trying to hinder this family's progress just to be able to coexist with one another let alone the problems of their daily life. A lesser work might not have given any dimension to its parents in a show where nostalgia is given such license to express. 1997 not only manages to give it's elder statesmen backstories and clarity beyond being blank steady hands on the main characters, it also contextualizes why Sung Shi-won, the lead played brilliantly by Jung-Eun-ji, has some of the traits that she does.

Where it does stumble is in its ability to create genuine “drama” however. It shows its hand a little too often, most likely the lack of a firm grasp of non-linear storytelling hurts its ability to keep its audience away from its narrative intentions. It’s main romantic story thread feels painfully predictable. While it certainly does create an interesting character dynamic it does not keep its audience guessing at all, especially since it would most likely have been a lot more controversial had it actually gone the opposite way. As a byproduct it feels extremely noncommittal as well to its potential controversy, rather than a genuinely unique angle to be explored upon.

All the big moments in these people's lives are not the focus, a diagnosis, a concert for their favorite groups, they set the interactions in motion, but the motion is the focus. It’s not the concert you went to but the friends you spent priceless time with while there. It’s not seeing the Broncos win the Super Bowl (though I’m certainly not against that happening) it’s about being with your family and seeing them happy with you and for you. Surviving the external to be able to cherish the internal. Appreciate the smaller moments of life existing within the biggest ones and being gracious for those as well. Life is the most rewarding when taking note of the finer details. Fate and timing are completely random, the less we try to control and understand it the more we can best utilize to suit our desires.