Twenty: Short Review

The flesh is weak,I've watched Twenty barely because of the casting. I mean Kim Woo Bin, Kang Haneul and Lee Junho, we’re dealing with some serious cuties. If I have to be completely honest, I have a strong uncontrollable bias for Junho so if watched Twenty it was firstly because of him. But in the end I simply fell in love with the trio, their perfect alchemy and their craziness. 

The three of them together for almost two hours, what more could you as to Santa Claus? They’re so great together, it’s a pure joy. If someone tells those three completely cut ties after the movie, I won’t believe it, I’ll even eat my laptop! That alchemy wasn’t feigned and they surely stayed friends. They have to. They are meant to be a trio. A delirious, crazy, furiously funny and horny trio!

Twenty is nothing original nor exceptional. You have three friends from high school, who, like the rest of us, have to make choices at some points of their lives. As Kang Haneul would say it correctly, it’s about choosing between dream and reality.

Clearly Chi-ho (Kim Woo-bin) decided to go for the dream. The only problem is he doesn’t really have one? His goal in life? To keep breathing or is to sleep with 3000 women before he dies? Quite pathetic goals that match him perfectly. Details of his pitiful and idle life are pushed so far you can only laugh. You end up liking the personification of laziness he is and laugh like crazy whenever he opens his mouth (because you know it’s going to baloneys anyway). 

Chi-ho’s out of this world, out of reality. He’s not conscious of the difficulty of the world. No struggles and no real concerns. He just vegetate all day in the couch, waiting to go clubbing. One lives much harder life! If he can lead that sweet life it’s surely because he’s encouraged, wait that isn’t the right word…he’s comforted by his parents’ attitude. I mean if your parents worry about your future only once every six months, there’s no way on earth you would try to find a serious (clubbing isn’t serious) path in life. An allowance, a place to stay, food on the table, friends to hang out with, everything brought on a silver plate? No need to look for more. Just let life happens and don’t worry about a thing. This could be Chi-ho’s motto. 

He has a girlfriend, So-min (Jung So-min) since high school. So-min was the subject of the trio’s affection back in the days but its Chi-ho’s boldness that won her heart.  But can we really call their relationship a real one? Dreaming to sleep with 3000 women while having a faithful girlfriend isn’t exactly what I call a healthy relation. But that’s how things are between them. Even if So-min suffers from that situation, she’s blindly, desperately in love. 

Gyung-jae (Kang Haneul) is poised and rational not that the others aren’t (I have some doubts concerning Chi-ho though). He went to university right after high school. Like every other young guy of that age at university, he has one goal: to find himself a girlfriend. It’s about time to leave singles’ club and get a girl. Being friend with Chi-ho surely left some marks because as soon as Gyung-jae enters university, he starts hunting. And the place is full of potential preys. How could he possibly stay single in those conditions? But the thing is Gyung-jae is a romantic, an idealist. All his long speeches about girls can’t hide that fact.

So when a sexy sunbae, Jin-joo (Min Hyo-rin) notices him and starts spending some time with Gyung-jae, it’s like hitting the jackpot for him. Jin-joo’s hot, smart, popular, cultivated and most important she seems interested by him. She’s has a boyfriend but that’s a detail. A happy girlfriend doesn’t spend all her time with another guy unless she’s not happy. One point for Gyung-jae! That’s a sign, an open door for Gyung-jae and he’ll throw himself into it. Who knows something might happen on a misunderstanding. Gyung-jae’s going to fall hard for his sunbae. He probably fell for her the first time he saw her at that freshmen’s party where he drank too much and threw up even more. But things aren’t always as they seem. Sometimes you need to fall, crash into the ground in order to learn. Gyung-jae will have to go through unpleasant moments to learn. 

Dong-woo (Lee Junho) had to face the difficulties of this life earlier than his buddies. He’s in high school when his father’s business faces bankruptcy. From that moment, Dong-woo and his family had to reorganize their lives. His mother took Dong-woo’s little brothers and moved to the suburbs (rent is cheaper), she started to work (for the first time in her life) and the whole family started to make sacrifices (you can’t have meat on table every day). But despite all the struggles and hardships, Dong-woo doesn’t give up on his dream: becoming the best comics’ artist. In order to reach his goal he decided to repeat his final high school year because of the tuition. So from one part-time job to another, he has to help out his mother and brothers but also pay for his rent, classes, food. 

Dong-woo’s determinate and even if he has classes with So-hee (Lee Yu-bi), who’s Guyng-jae’s little sister, it doesn’t matter. So-hee’s cheery, smart and cute on top of that. But even with all those qualities, Dong-woo never saw her as a woman (she’s Gyung-jae’s sister if I have to remind you) and So-hee seems to be on the same page. Nothing to worry about, in theory. The thing is, feelings and emotions don’t always play a fair game. You think you have everything under control, it’s clear and structured in your mind but you suddenly find yourself being swept away by emotions you never imagine. So-hee fell first but hide her feelings (women know how to lie.) She did what many girls do: to act in contradiction of your feelings. She was cheeky, extrovert, too much in every ways with Dong-woo, hoping he’d magically, understand she likes him more than a friend. But at the end of the day, she still needed to confess ‘cause you know guys never get that kind of messages. What to do now Dong-woo? Respond favourably to So-hee’s confession and take the risk of seeing Gyung-jae going crazy or just pretend nothing happened? Trust me, fighting ones feelings isn’t healthy at all.

Our three musketeers had clear vision of what their life and mostly their love life would be but life isn’t a thing you can control. It’s full of encounters, challenges, options, feelings you haven’t thought about. They trio will meet people and go through experiences that will somehow open to new standpoints and possibilities:

After a stupid accident Chi-ho’s will meet Eun-hye (Jung Joo-yeon), a rookie star. One thing leading to another, he’ll ended up being his ‘manager’ on the set of the movie she’s been cast in. It will be like a revelation to Chi-ho’s. He has two new goals in life (beside breathing and sleeping with 3000 women): to date Eun-hye and becoming a movies’ director. That’s huge steps for him. And he has a clear idea of what his first movie would be about. (That scene with the director cracked me up so much I had tears, it's crazy!)

Chi-ho can’t put concrete elements next to the word: future. Well when you think about it, dating Eun-hye isn’t really a goal in itself. It’s more a macho challenge but it’s still better than simply breathing. His encounter with Eun-hye will change his perceptions and will shake up his little world.

Meeting Jin-joo will give Gyung-jae new perspectives as well. As life is full of surprises, he will have to adapt himself and go over. The hurt of a failure doesn’t last long only if you’re able to recover from the pain and open your eyes to the many other possibilities. And Gyung-jae has some. He just isn’t conscious of them yet.

After So-hee’ confession and his uncle offer to work for him in his factory, Dong-woo is confronted with a choice: keep pursuing his dream and fight till the end or give up and for the safest road (and while we’re at it stop struggling on his own and think about his family). It’s a difficult and heart breaking dilemma but he still need to choose. Like Dong-woo will make his choice because of a woman, So-hee as it happens. The discovery of his own feelings will open a new road to Dong-woo.

 

Our trio is 20, an age where you not a kid anymore but not yet an adult. You try to adapt yourself to the universe around you, to find your place while trying to be happy (or at least learning what that means). You have to deal with life the best way possible and sometimes you even have to let yourself go and live life to the fullest. Twenty depicts the three normal young guys groping for the right answers, learning, growing through experiences (sometimes bitter ones) and making choices. Twenty was two hours of laugh, craziness, absurdity but also a lot of sweetness.

I promise they could come with a sequel, ‘Twenty 2: Forget about twenties, here come their thirties’. They have enough material for it. There will always be material when you’re dealing with friendship, love, life, hardships….But wait a second, a sequel is actually a decent idea. Someone should serious think about it. No joke, it could work, if you think about it and…all right I got it. I’m out.