This time for our drama review we are going back to the 90s to learn about life, love, friendship, and fencing with an A+ cast. Let’s talk about ‘Twenty-Five Twenty-One’.
Written by Kwon Do-eun and directed by Jung Ji-hyun, ‘Twenty-Five Twenty-One’ is a 2022 tvN production set between the years 1998 to 2021.
Na Hee-do (Kim Tae-ri) is a high-school student who became a fencing prodigy at a very young age. Now in her teens she is in a slump, and wants to reach her full potential in the sport. Her plans get jeopardised when the fencing club in her school gets cut due to budget, but she will do whatever it takes to get transferred to a different school to keep playing the sport she loves.
Baek Yi-jin (Nam Joo-hyuk) is a former chaebol, whose family took a great hit during the IMF crisis, leading him to separate from his family and deal with debt collectors, and people who worked with his father and were affected by the crisis. Yi-jin works a couple of part-time jobs, and in one of them he meets Hee-do. These two are bound by destiny and end up becoming friends after bumping into each other several times.
New School – New Rivals
After a lot of effort and a couple of crazy plans Hee-do finally gets transferred to a new school and starts on a new fencing team. She wants to reach the top in the sport, but she has to compete with fencing star Ko Yu-rim (Bona) who happens to be in the same team as her.
Now in a new school and being part of a new team, Hee-do’s life is looking promising, she has made new friends, and is on her way to become a member of the national fencing team. However, she will have to defeat Yu-rim in order to achieve her dream.
Yi-jin’s life is also taking a leap, after a couple of rough years he decides to try and become a sports journalist, and ends up crossing paths once again with Hee-do.
Leap into adult life
‘Twenty-Five Twenty-One’ shows the life of Hee-do during school, the challenges of the teen years, and how she had to fight against all the odds to achieve her dreams. On her way to success she was able to mend her relationship with Yu-rim after a happy coincidence, and now with Yi-jin back, she and her friends are looking forward to their twenties.
During this time, Hee-do and Yi-jin become a couple, both are at the peaks of their careers, but they end up growing apart after a tragic world event makes Yi-jin leave the country to work on the news, and this changes his life path and perspective.
Yu-rim also welcomed her twenties on a tough note, and life makes her make hard decisions that will positively affect her family situation, but will hurt many people’s hearts.
Growth, friendship and time
‘Twenty-Five Twenty-One’ is a candid, heart-warming and thoughtful drama that explores teen years, family problems, and the hardships that many people went through during the IMF crisis in the 90s.
The characters were beautifully portrayed, the view of love and friendship was beautiful to watch, and the character development in this series was incredible. The series tried to approach life in the late 90s and early 2000s in a realistic tone, and it is definitely one of a kind.
This series is available on Netflix, and you can watch the trailer below.
