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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Reply 1994" Episode 3

There are two essential jokes this episode. One is the story of a bunch of kids on the cusp of their twenties engaging in an elaborate drinking game. Where the last one wins...respect, I guess. Second, another set of characters is driving in a car. Quite a bit of a luxury to people from rural districts who are probably old enough to remember a time when people still used horse-drawn carriages. But this inevitably runs into its own pitfalls, particularly in the untrusting world of modern-day Seoul.

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The humor in these plotlines is passable. They're not terrible jokes, but this episode by and large lacks the creative dazzle of the gags in the first two episodes. We briefly start out with antics involving recorders and olde time telephones, but that only makes it all the more clear how much "Reply 1994" relies on gimmicky nostalgia to gets it kicks. There's nothing particularly memorable about the storyline here that even necessitates the setting of the year 1994.

Likewise, this episode continues the trend of basically being a situation comedy, for better or worse. No character so far has anything yet that we could really call a goal. Na-jeong (played by Go Ara) meets her husband over the course of this series- but aside from that future context there's very little indication back in 1994 that this is something Na-jeong is really that invested in. Sure, she's excited about her first love- who isn't? That on its own still doesn't make much of a story though.

I actually found myself wondering whether we were going to get to see more of 2002- which for the most part exists only in the wedding video. This drama benefits from the use of contrast- probably my favorite moment this episode is when the camera takes us back to the present. And while there are obvious contextual clues that the story has shifted to 2013 this is made decisive with the appearance of a certain famous Korean cultural property that seems ubiquitous these days.

Na-jeong is, after all, a timeless person- her personality exists outside of whatever latest trendy hobby has her the most obsessed lately. The same goes for every other character in this drama. It's just a pity I didn't find this episode terribly amusing, especially compared to the previous two. If "Reply 1994" wants its impact to just be on the whether or not the jokes connect, at minimum it's an above-average sitcom. It just feels like the drama could be doing much more if it wanted to.

Review by William Schwartz

"Reply 1994" is directed by Sin Won-ho and written by Lee Woo-jeong-I and features Go Ara, Sung Dong-il, Lee Il-hwa and Jung Woo.

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