Spring of Youth is a k-pop k-drama that offers pop star romance, musical duels and a melodic mystery. This entertainingly escapist and sometimes appealingly silly romcom is focused on a rock star, Sa-gye, whose dreams all seem to have come true.
He’s the much-adored leader of the band The Crown and he sometimes acts without thinking. Sa-gye has always wanted to be a star and worked diligently to achieve his goal, overcoming a major physical injury that almost cost him his sight. Despite this drive to succeed he repeatedly gets himself in trouble and is eventually bumped from the band. While suspended he decides to attend college, but studying quietly alongside his fellow students is not that easy. He expects adulation and he gets some of that, but he also gets a reality check and is forced to rearrange his priorities.
Sa-gye is played endearingly by Ha Yoo-joon, who recently debuted in the drama Namib and is a member of the new idol band AxMxP. The rookie actor shines brightly while playing the disgraced-yet-optimistic pop star prince. Despite getting kicked out of the band the character is clueless about how badly he’s messed up.
There’s a music major attending his school and he can’t stop thinking about her. That student, Bom, is also a songwriter. Sa-gye becomes intrigued when he hears the music her locket plays. It’s the song he’s been hearing in his dreams. The talented Bom is played by Kim Ji-hu, who played the youngest sister in the drama Little Women and appears in the films Concrete Utopia and House of Hummingbird. Bom is a pretty serious student and can’t imagine why Sa-gye might pursue her and ask her random questions, like “what song is that?”
Bom already has a suitor, pre-med student and musical genius Tae-yong, played by Lee Seung-hyub who previously appeared in Love Next Door and Lovely Runner. Tae-yong is determined to keep Sa-gye away from Bom, but music winds up complicating everything. The music is part of the mystery that needs to be solved in Spring of Youth. Sa-gye is drawn to the song on Bom’s locket and hears it in his dreams because it relates to an incident he can’t completely remember. The mystery not only involves Bom and Sa-gye; it also involves someone Sa-gye looks up to.
Bom’s sister Gyu-ri, played by Seo Hye-won (When Life Gives You Tangerines, Love Scout, Lovely Runner), is a comically enthusiastic fan of The Crown, so she becomes Sa-gye’s cheerleader at school.
This drama has plenty of k-drama tropes—fated lovers, mismatched roommates, childhood trauma, extraordinary man loves ordinary woman—but it doesn’t ask viewers to take them too seriously and the bright fresh-faced cast makes these tropes easier to accept, even enjoy. Like all fated k-drama lovers, Bom and Sa-gye met when they were children, but will they remember what the circumstances were? Their romance proceeds in soft focus with a soundtrack of accelerated heartbeats and musical interludes, as well as pretty camera shots of raindrops flashing in the sun.
Spring of Youth, an SBS drama, is directed by Kim Sung-Yong, who directed the historical drama My Dearest, It airs on Viki.com in the U.S.