Reply 1988: More Is Less

There is an expectation that when a work is successful, that it must iterate on this success with a larger scale. Operating on the idea that more can only be inherently better. More content equals more for the respective viewers to chew on. From an artistic perspective this is upside down. It is often the small scale of the work that made it work as effectively as it did in the first case. 

Reply 1988 is not a bad work. Not by a mile. It is quirky, charming, heartfelt, it is well shot, well acted, some very well written characters (emphasis on “some”), and has everything I’ve come to expect from the critically acclaimed Korean drama anthology series. Shin Won-ho’s directorial fingerprints are all over this work. One of the few auteurs fully invested in the Korean drama space. Unfortunately it is all bogged down by the “law of sequels” which states: “just make it bigger” forgetting that bigger does not mean better, let alone smarter and that big pieces don’t fit together the same as when they were smaller.

Reply has always had a relatively simple formula: A cast of about 5-8 or so characters look back on a formative year in their youth through what is effectively a long flashback with moments in the present day peppered into what are usually the conclusions of each episode. There is a love triangle in the past between three of the main characters kept intentionally vague in the present day as to who the main character ends up with ultimately (though it is usually pretty easy to predict). Essentially what it does, how it is expressed, and the characters that exist within that formula is what made it stand out from other Korean dramas in its genre. If anything it is as close to the ultimate refinement of the “stereotypical Korean drama” if you will.

1988 ditches the smaller scale and tight knit feel of its previous installments for an entire community worth of characters. Rather than putting depth and attention into a small ensemble, it opts for a large array of people, some of which we don’t really even get to learn about in any kind of meaningful ways. It goes for quantity over quality. A main cast of characters ballooning into the double digits, an entire village instead of a single household, each episode is on average an hour and a half long, in some cases 2 HOURS LONG, meaning every single time you want to sit down for an episode the viewer must be ready for what is essentially 20 films worth of content.

Even filling out an hour or so in previous installments was a large ask. Pacing in a work of fiction is an extremely difficult thing to do when there is no forward momentum to work with. In a character driven story such as the Reply series is and has always been, the scenarios through which we learn about these people must strike a mixture between smart momentary ordinary life, and the extraordinary moments that are memorable, not just within a function of narrative but in a believable and tangible sense to the way the viewer would look back upon their own life experiences. 

Unfortunately the run time goes against 1988 in more ways than one. The episodes are bloated with uninteresting and mundane filler. There is far more of the latter ordinary. And I don’t envy the cast and crew for having to fill in so much time. In the hour length of 1994 and 1997 there was more than enough but not too much time to catch all of the emotional beats in each given episode, in each given arc. In two hours it is not possible to give more time to the sensational because that would cause the audience to be desensitized to its presence as well as stretch the bounds of believability in the particular style of domesticity 1988 is going for.

It’s not even like the backdrops aren’t available to explore something more consequential and given more scenarios for these big moments that are dwarfed beneath the size of the production. 1988 was an era of governmental and youth strife full of student protests during the June Democracy Movement of 1987. A direct result of these protests was the democratic reforms the government was forced into that created the Sixth Republic, the present day form of Korean government. Not to mention the Seoul Summer Olympics the very next year putting Korea on a global stage like it had not been in a long time, but the way in which these are utilized just left wanting better. It isn’t the say that what’s there isn’t good, rather it feels like there is missed potential in the respective beats involving these major events.

The visual storytelling is where each Reply iteration shines as much as any Korean drama. Shin Won-ho’s penchant for framing a shot to express an idea, an emotion, speak words into an image is arguably never better than it is in 1988. It is utilized as effectively as he ever has, which just leaves me wishing that he and his team had leaned into that more often than is ultimately done. There is such a distinct and unique style that speaks so highly of both Shin Won-ho and the writer Lee Woo-jung that should be praised universally irregardless of the final quality.

It is conclusively difficult for me to form a cohesive message of Reply 1988. While it does share its themes with its predecessors, it is clearly trying to say something different than what came before which is admirable. There is so much in life outside of our control that are caused by collectives and whims of fate so much larger and random than we can have any say in. But even the things that we do have control over still have such an unpredictability and uncertainty about them. The impermanence of the best and the worst that we have to experience shape us as much as the things about ourselves we cannot change. The hard work we undertake to create the life we want for ourselves can take us far, but further still is the drive to mold ourselves from the temporary medium of life that presents itself to us and choosing to create what we perceive a good person to be. The value of goodness is never worth sacrificing.

This is why it was so hard to write this essay. I see what 1988 wanted to be, I see the qualities that it undoubtedly has, I see the beauty it is capable of, and I see where it fell the hardest and the strength of that fall was too much for its qualities to overcome.

Reply 1997 is not only my favorite Korean drama of all time, I consider it to be among the best I’ve yet seen. Reply 1988 is merely fine, unspectacular, and far too overwhelming. Expectation is a very important and often disregarded piece of critical analysis. If a work falls short of the viewer’s expectations, that disappointment will stick harder in the mind than others that had a far less amount of anticipation. And I am certainly guilty of that. It was a formative experience to keep my expectations in check and to not let advertising, marketing, or my own mind paint over the lethal cracks that exist within that respective work of art as it exists in its final form.