Hello everyone! I’m back with another blog and this time I’ll be reviewing ‘Record of Youth’. I will talk about some of my observations from the drama.
Director: Ahn Gil-Ho
Channel: tvN
Episodes: 16
Country: South Korea
An ex-model, who wants to get recognition for his acting skills, in the movie industry. He belongs to a middle-class family, where people are not allowed to dream about becoming an actor, but anyway he fights against all odds to achieve it.
He belongs to a rich family, he is a model and an aspiring actor. Also, he is the most precious person to his mother, who always tries to micromanage his career. Although he does not really like her interference, he doesn’t mind her help at times.
An aspiring make-up artist who is trying to establish her brand in the industry with the help of influential clients. She is self-confident and professional, who believes in hard work. Both Hye-Jun and Hye-Hyo are very dear to her.
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Also, ROY has highlighted multiple hurdles faced by actors/actresses and I would like to talk about a few of those.
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- Being from an influential family can be both good and bad for an actor. As for the good side, getting things done can be a lot easy, with reference to better projects and commercials. But there will be constant expectations from the family and society, to keep up to the family name and wealth as well.
- Managers play an influential role in making and breaking an actor’s career. They are highly responsible for maintaining the actor/actress’s image when they are busy with their schedule. One can easily say that both the parties need to have mutual trust in each other, as they live off each other.
- Acting is considered to be a very risky profession, as there’s no constant salary to help you make a living. When you are successful, heavy projects land up at your door and you have numerous choices. But when you’re not so popular, it’s a fight to survive in the industry. That’s why people start trying this career at a younger age so that in case it doesn’t work out, they still get time to have a backup career.
- Success changes one’s lifestyle, outlook, and relationship with people. A successful actor can try to remain as humble as possible in terms of their lifestyle and behavior. But, a time comes when they have to make themselves available for those people who had their hand in making his/ her career. This creates a huge impact on their other personal relationships as well.
- Once an actor becomes successful, people’s attitude towards them changes. The ones who ignored them initially, would hover around now and try to take credit for everything. So, an actor has to figure out who is genuine and who is not. As when once again the table turns, they do not get hurt by these people.
- Just like any other profession, comparisons happen here as well. People tend to compare actors who have started their career at the same time or were from a similar background, and they tend to forget the effect of it on the actor’s minds. Despite of all the criticisms, they have to remain sane and dedicate themselves to their work.
- Media agencies, especially the entertainment department lives off the life of celebrities. All their profits come from the TRPs, for which they try to make dramatic headlines about actors and actresses, and forgetting to verify the truth in the process. The media channels become so thick-skinned at one point, that they forget to treat these celebs as normal human beings.
- Personal relationships (romantic) get most affected due to the fake news circulated by the media industry. Actors and actresses try their best not to expose their partner’s identities to the public, especially when they are not from the entertainment industry. This is because of multiple reasons: pressure from the agency as it may reduce the face value of actors, hate comments from fans- fearing a dip in their popularity, media publicity- unwanted attention.
- It becomes really annoying when people who are not even aware of an actor/actress's work-life try to butt in and share some unwanted advice. Caring for one’s family member is one thing and barging into their professional life to make decisions for them is another. That is why managers exist as the subject matter experts for this profession.
- All of the above reasons directly or indirectly affect the actor/actress's mental condition. Acting may seem like an easy profession, but it's absolutely not. The professionals need to adjust and change according to each character and scene, and if along with this they have to carry extra mental baggage, then focusing on work becomes really difficult for them.
!! Minor Spoiler Alert !!
loved the uniqueness of this drama, I haven’t seen one like this for quite a long time. The synopsis seemed like that of ‘Fight for my Way’, which is one of my favorites, so I was happy to see the trailer when it released. Although I found the initial 4–5 episodes a little slow and confusing at times, the rest were quite engaging and was fast, not boring. However, again towards the end it became quite slow, the chemistry between the leads was on and off, so yeah I expected more from it.
I give ‘Record Of Youth’ : (3.5/5)
Thank you for hearing me out again. Have a good day!
