[K-Movie Night] Twenty: A Youthful Drama with Heart

Welcome to K-Movie Night — a once-a-month feature where we microwave some popcorn, put on a face mask, and get cozy with a Korean movie from yesteryear. With so many films finally streaming (with subs!), now is the time to get caught up on all those movies we missed featuring our favorite drama actors.

Each month, we’ll pick a flick, write a review, and meet you back here to discuss whether or not it’s worth a watch. Super simple. All you have to do is kick up your feet and join us in the comments!

 
MOVIE REVIEW

It’s only been a few weeks since King the Land wrapped up but I already knew I’d be wanting more Junho on my screen when it ended (because, well, that’s what I always want). So here we are with a movie night pick that pairs a young and green Junho – before the mega acting success we know now – with Kim Woo-bin and Kang Haneul, just in case you needed a pretty overload. And, really, who doesn’t?

Twenty was a crowd favorite on its release back in 2015, topping the box office and earning awards nominations for two of the three leads (no prizes for my bias) as well as screenwriter/director Lee Byung-heon (who recently saw another box office success with 2024’s Dream). With so much favorable word-of-mouth, and a trio of faces I can’t refuse, I decided to dive into this college-age comedy and see how it holds up.

The heart of this movie is the bromance between the three leads, but the story spends little time at the heart, preferring instead the body’s nether-regions. We’re introduced to a trio of boys, just on the cusp of growing up, and – with a plethora of penis jokes and all the sex without the sexy – I’d say that’s also the movie’s target audience.

We meet our trio when they’re fresh out of high school, about to turn the titular twenty (which they believe is the midpoint of their lives), and not sure what to do next. All three make distinct decisions, owing to their very different personalities, and then we follow them on their journeys into young adulthood to see how those decisions play out.

CHI-HO (Kim Woo-bin), sex-obsessed and ready to touch any breast in sight, decides for his friends that the best course of action is to lose their virginity ASAP. He has a girlfriend (Jung So-min) – whom the three boys fought over in high school (in fact, it’s how they became friends) – but she’s just there for when he can’t find another hookup to occupy his time. Since he’s from a wealthy family, he decides to forego college and live the playboy lifestyle around the clock.

In contrast, our narrator KYUNG-JAE (Kang Haneul) is a high-achiever who goes off to college ready to study hard and focus on school. Except he falls for one of his sunbaes (Min Hyo-rin) right away and spends a lot of time by her side – hoping she’ll drop her boyfriend and date him instead. Of course, heartbreak is in the cards, but it wouldn’t be a story about growing up without a few hearts that need mending and moving on.

The last in our trio, DONG-WOO (Junho), is the most fleshed-out character of the three with a bankrupt family, a father in jail, and a work ethic that allows him to stay back a year in school in order to work part-time jobs and save for college. He supports his mom and younger brothers (unintentionally when Mom is always dipping into his bank account) and has a wild dream of becoming a comic book artist.

Dong-woo has little time for girls, but that doesn’t stop Kyung-jae’s younger sister, SO-HEE (Lee Yubi) from following him around like a lost puppy. Now that he’s repeating his senior year, the two are in the same class, where she plunks herself down beside him and starts in with the most awkward and embarrassing conversation he can imagine having with the opposite sex. It’s part of her tactic to win him over, and before the credits roll, she does just that.

The cast is really the highlight with all the fun coming from seeing these actors play outrageous or against-type roles. Junho looks the most “regular” I have ever seen him, in jeans and tees that show off no muscle and a decidedly less catwalk-y stride. And Lee Yubi plays cute but annoying in a way that feels like an R-rated preface to her character in Yumi’s Cells. Alas, it’s only Kang Haneul that gets stuck in a familiar role, always the overachieving nerd.

Kim Woo-bin – though we’ve seen him do outlandish antagonist – is so over the top here that it’s hard to reconcile his character at all. Sure, it’s so the other two friends can play straight-faced against his absurdity (and their sober reactions offer the jokes that hit), but what starts as amusing antics ends up being hard to sit through. Watching a grown man throw a full on temper tantrum is just not funny enough to be a running joke.

If you’re in the mood for some angst, then this is the movie for you. It takes us through the transitory period between childhood and adulthood with three self-proclaimed “idiots” looking for an outlet. The film ends with a four-minute fight scene, viewed in slow motion, as Air Supply’s “Without You” plays overtop. It’s meant to be comedic, rather than overtly violent, but it’s also a release for these young people who don’t know what to do with all their uncomfortable emotions. At the outset, our narrator had told us, “Our twenties were more embarrassing than roaring” – but this final showcase seems to be an entrance into the roar they’ve been missing.

On this same note, there’s a scene where Chi-ho is watching the Wong Kar Wai movie Days of Being Wild – specifically, the scene where Leslie Cheung’s character does the mambo in shorts and a white undershirt. Chi-ho is wearing the exact same getup and knows all the moves by heart. Days of Being Wild is about a playboy, known for loving and leaving without guilt (much like Chi-ho’s character), but it’s also about listless youth. Twenty feels like a spoof of that listlessness, with seduction followed by violence – only in this case, it’s meant to be funny.

Overall, this is a film full of cliches about youth that wants to be feel-good, but sometimes tries so hard for a laugh that it falls flat. Even if you’re just here for a fun and brainless time, I find it hard to look past the underwritten and instrumental female characters, who only exist to further the male characters’ goals.

I’m reluctant to call this a coming-of-age movie because I’m not sure there’s been a clear transition by the end. Still, our bromantic besties do experience the realities of love, heartbreak, and having to put their childhood dreams on the backburner – which is certainly an entrance to adulthood. It’s a movie about growing up, for sure, it’s just that these characters still have a lot of growing to do.

Join us in September for the next K-Movie Night and let’s make a party of it! We’ll be watching Josee (2020) and posting the review during the last week of the month.

Want to participate in the comments when it posts? You’ve got three weeks to watch! Rather wait for the review before you decide to stream it? We’ve got you covered.