Blast from the past – when pagers, Tamagotchi ruled

Publication Date 31 December 2012

By Benson Ang The New Paper Tuesday, Jan 01, 2013 Korean dramas are sappy, predictable and take an age to tell the simplest of storylines. But Reply 1997 breaks from this mould. The romantic comedy actually manages to be funny and also heart-warming. And for viewers in their early 30s, there’s a hefty amount of nostalgia. It was a surprise hit in Korea when it aired there five months ago. There wasn’t much hype around it, but it built its rep through strong word of mouth. I can see why…MORE

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By Benson Ang
The New Paper
Tuesday, Jan 01, 2013

Korean dramas are sappy, predictable and take an age to tell the simplest of storylines.

But Reply 1997 breaks from this mould.

The romantic comedy actually manages to be funny and also heart-warming.

And for viewers in their early 30s, there’s a hefty amount of nostalgia.

It was a surprise hit in Korea when it aired there five months ago. There wasn’t much hype around it, but it built its rep through strong word of mouth.

I can see why.

The show’s like a giant Rubik’s Cube of romance – nearly impossible to figure out, but tantalising and entertaining when I try to do so.

The premise: It’s set in Busan, Korea, but in two time periods. There’s present day 2012, when six friends in their early 30s meet for their school reunion dinner.

Then, there are flashbacks to 1997, when they were 18 and in high school.

The big mystery driving the show is that during the reunion dinner, one couple will announce their engagement. Not exactly Murder One I know, but bear with me.

The look into the past provides us clues as to who’s the happy pair.

Like US comedy How I Met Your Mother, most of the action is in the flashbacks, which tease a resolution.

You’d think that it’d be a no-brainer identifying the pair to get engaged – after all, there’s only six of them. But like trying to identify who’s the “Mother” in “How I Met Your…”, it’s not so straightforward.

There’s so many romantic entanglements between the characters that even after watching five episodes, I’m still not confident who the pair is.

Now, you might be thinking: “So, for the entire series, you’re just trying to guess whose getting engaged?”

Well, yes. But rest assured, more mysteries spring up as the show goes on.

The show is also set during the rise of K-pop – still in its infancy in 1997 – and the main character Sung Shi Won (played by Jung Eun Ji) is an early adopting fanatic.

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