Review of 20th Century Girl (20세기 소녀), directed by Bang Woo-ri

I typically don’t want movies with other people, but when I was spending the night with my friend in New York, she begged me to watch this movie.

It had appeared constantly on my Netflix recommendations ever since it came out in 2022, and when we went up, I was surprised she had even watched it since she rarely watches movies. So we sat on her bunk bed together and watched it until one am in the morning, her little sister peeking over our shoulders to see what was happening on the tiny laptop screen.

My friend was full-on sobbing by the end, even though she had already seen it before and knew what to expect, and then promptly was so confused as to why I had dry eyes. I watch movies for a living—I’ve seen it all at this point.

Let’s get into the review.

On the brink of a new century, a high schooler finds love by accident.

The premise of 20th Century Girl is this: Na Bo-ra is seventeen and loyal to her best friend, Yeon-du. However, Yeon-du is leaving for the United States soon, as she needs a specific kind of surgery for her heart. Bo-ra is left with instructions from her friend: Yeon-du has fallen in love with a boy named Baek Hyun-jin, as he did a kind act for her.

It is up to Bo-ra now to find out who Hyun-jin is, report back on his every move to her best friend, and make sure when the day comes, Yeon-du will have a boyfriend in the works. And Bo-ra does so.

Bo-ra begins to stalk Hyun-jin throughout the school, finding out that he is kind of annoying in the process. She befriends him and joins the Broadcasting Club on campus in order to do so, meeting his other friend, Woon-ho, in the process.

Woon-ho is mercilessly teasing Bo-ra for what seems to be a petty crush on Hyun-jin, and even makes her steal an adult movie from her family’s store for him to watch. However, through their time together, Bo-ra and Woon-ho fall in love with each other.

Yeon-du returns, and a mistake has been made: she actually meant that she had a crush on Woon-ho, not Hyun-jin.

That day, she mistook Woon-ho for Hyun-jin because Woon-ho, who had arrived abroad from New Zealand, was wearing Hyun-jin’s school uniform with his name on it. Bo-ra is heartbroken by this, and she hacks into her friend’s email in order to delete the email where she professes to her friend that she was in love with Woon-ho.

Thus begins the angsty drama part of this movie. Bo-ra pretends not to like Woon-ho anymore, despite clearly being smitten with him, ending up with a lot of tears for the both of them throughout.

This can’t be hidden from Yeon-du for long, and when she finds out about her friend’s crush, she arranges for the two of them to have time alone together.

However, it has become too late, as Woon-ho needs to return to New Zealand because his family lives there. The two of them end up making amends before he leaves, and promise to meet up at a prestigious Korean university for school.

But not long after the year 2000 hits, Woon-ho stops responding to Bo-ra’s emails. She gets into the school they promised they would go to together, looks for him constantly on campus.

The times slowly change with the increase of technology. There are a lot of scenes where she is shown trying to get over him, going on blind dates, but ends up in tears because of how she cannot forget Woon-ho. It isn’t until many years in the future does she discover the truth from his little brother, now an artist: Woon-ho passed away.

That’s why he didn’t respond to any of her emails.

This is a charming movie. If you’re emotional, it would really tug at your heartstrings as it hurtles towards its final arc. I think the juxtaposition of the romantic vibes and the incoming pressure of the twenty-first century show how tough it was to be a youth then, but also the advantages.

Bo-ra will forever be a 20th century girl because of how she is unable to move on from her first love, even if the incoming century has already arrived. But because Woon-ho was ahead of his time in a way where he wanted to be a filmmaker, he preserved a small chunk of their time together through the films he made.

Overall Thoughts

If you have a free night, definitely watch this one. I think it’s good in a way where it can appeal to anyone who’s willing to watch a movie with subtitles—it’s fairly universal.

The story and pacing is fairly good; I didn’t find myself bored at any moments throughout the movie. Eventually, it may warrant a rewatch, but it’s a film I’m not mad at. There are pretty visuals scattered throughout, and the acting is decent as well.

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