[비즈한국] After watching ‘Eun-jung and Sang-yeon,’ comments about feeling like one might have PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) are appearing frequently on social media. Even if it’s not quite PTSD, many say that past emotions they had buried deep down have come flooding back like a tsunami, making it difficult to watch. That alone shows just how much this work touches the hearts of many people. The Netflix series ‘Eun-jung and Sang-yeon’ is a 15-episode production, a drama with a slow, deliberate pace that is rare these days. However, do not try to watch it at a fast speed just because the pacing feels frustrating or the waves of emotion make it hard to digest. There is a reason for its slow rhythm.
‘Eun-jung and Sang-yeon,’ as the title suggests, deals with two figures, Ryu Eun-jung and Cheon Sang-yeon, and their bond. Eun-jung and Sang-yeon meet in 1992, when they are in the fourth grade of elementary school. They become close during their middle and high school years but eventually drift apart, only to reconnect in college, become entangled, and then declare an end to their friendship. Their reunion in their 30s is the worst, and after 10 years, they encounter each other again in their 40s. The one-line synopsis goes like this: A story facing all the times of two friends, Eun-jung and Sang-yeon, who have been intertwined throughout their lives—liking, admiring, envying, and hating each other at every moment. Since you have to follow the entire lives of the two characters and the layers of emotional curves that build up, the pacing cannot be fast. If you are looking for a "cider-like" (refreshing and fast-paced) development, you should not start ‘Eun-jung and Sang-yeon’ in the first place.
The relationship between the two starts with envy. In the fourth grade, Eun-jung happens to enter an apartment while following her mother, who is delivering milk. It was an apartment with several sunny rooms and even two bathrooms. To Eun-jung, who lived in a cramped semi-basement room with her mother and younger sibling, that apartment must have seemed like heaven. She even left a note inside the closet door for someone unknown, saying, "You are so lucky." The protagonist who lives in that heaven-like apartment is Sang-yeon. With her fair, pretty face and a grandfather who was a government minister, Sang-yeon becomes the object of envy as soon as she transfers to Eun-jung's class, immediately becoming the class president. Even the most popular boy in class likes Sang-yeon, not her seatmate Eun-jung. As it turns out, even Yoon Hyun-sook, the teacher Eun-jung likes the most, is Sang-yeon's mother. Can you imagine how much of an object of envy Sang-yeon must have been to young Eun-jung?
However, Sang-yeon, who appears to be the object of everyone's envy, is actually the one longing for what Eun-jung has. She envies Eun-jung's warm mother, who shares everything with her daughter and understands her. She is bothered by the fact that her own mother is strict with her while favoring her brother, whereas Eun-jung's mother is a benevolent teacher, and that her brother Sang-hak (Kim Jae-won), who is distant with her, shows a smiling face to Eun-jung. She envied Eun-jung's bright and social personality, which never felt discouraged despite living in a semi-basement room.
If it had ended there, the relationship between Eun-jung and Sang-yeon might have been an ordinary friendship. But a major event occurs: the death of Sang-yeon’s brother and Eun-jung’s first love, Sang-hak. To make matters worse, Sang-yeon's family goes bankrupt and moves away, creating a gap of several years between them. Perhaps that gap defined the direction of their tenacious bond. In 2002, Eun-jung and Sang-yeon meet at a college photography club. Coincidentally, next to Eun-jung is Kim Sang-hak (Kim Gun-woo), who shares the same name as Sang-yeon’s brother, and for some reason, Eun-jung feels bothered by Sang-yeon. While two women and one man might sound like a common youth drama cliché, ‘Eun-jung and Sang-yeon’ avoids making their relationship a predictable cliché by densely building up a complex and subtle narrative of emotions.
There is a reason why ‘Eun-jung and Sang-yeon’ resonates with so many people. Everyone goes through childhood and youth. In that process, various relationships like friends and lovers are formed, and numerous emotions such as admiration, jealousy, love-hate, inferiority, and complexes bloom between them. Because it is a universal story and universal emotion that everyone experiences, one naturally projects oneself onto the stories of Eun-jung and Sang-yeon. If you are in the same age group as the protagonists, you will also feel a sense of longing for the way the 1990s and early 2000s landscapes are delicately reconstructed. While there have been many works that reminisced about those days following the retro wave over the past few years, it was often disappointing to see the obsession with using that era merely as a strong subject or prop. In contrast, ‘Eun-jung and Sang-yeon’ approaches the era with delicate detail, portraying it as a natural backdrop, which conversely evokes strong memories.
Furthermore, there is great pleasure in mulling over and admiring the performances of Kim Go-eun and Park Ji-hyun, who play Eun-jung and Sang-yeon. I have always admired the actress Kim Go-eun, but once again, she gracefully expresses the emotional lines that change according to age, from her 20s to her 40s. For Park Ji-hyun, who made her face known to the public through ‘Yumi's Cells,’ ‘Reborn Rich,’ and ‘Flex X Cop,’ it is clear that this work will be an inflection point in her acting career. Sang-yeon is a somewhat difficult role to understand—someone who craves love yet only knows how to destroy it—but Park Ji-hyun's detailed acting makes her somewhat understandable and summons each viewer's own "Sang-yeon" from their past.
However, opinions might be divided regarding Sang-yeon, who shows up suddenly in her 40s while terminally ill, and Eun-jung's response to her. I keep thinking about how I would react if I were faced with Sang-yeon’s "violent request" to accompany her to Switzerland for euthanasia... Well, it’s not an easy question to answer. A beauty of watching this drama is that it makes you deeply contemplate the meaning of a friend, so take this opportunity to think about the people in your life. Even when you turn forty or fifty, worrying about friendships seems to be a common occurrence. Still, do not try to reach out to the Eun-jungs or Sang-yeons you’ve cut off in the past. There is a reason for all "seasonal relationships" (fate that comes and goes at the right time).
Who is the writer Jung Soo-jin?
She has worked for various magazines, covering movies, travel, and pop culture. She doesn't want to fall behind trends, but has become an "old person" who only anticipates predictable clichés in the next scene while watching the latest dramas. She is trying to regain her lost intuition while drifting through the vast world of OTT, and her current wish is for an integrated OTT subscription plan.