Addendum to the original post: Ep 10 On Mental Gymnastics
This kdrama has whipped fans into a frenzy about the ending.
Nam Joo Hyuk personally talks about the speculation that his character Baek Yi Jin dies in the drama ‘Twenty-Five Twenty-One’
AKP STAFF
www.wikitree.co.krNam Joo Hyuk personally talked about the speculations that Baek Yi Jin, the character he played in the tvN drama ‘Twenty-five Twenty-One,’ dies in the drama.
On March 31st, a video titled ‘Twenty Five Twenty One Journalist Exam for Nam Joo Hyuk’ was uploaded on the official YouTube channel of MANAGEMENT SOOP, Nam Joo-hyuk’s management company. In the video, Nam Joo Hyuk answered some interesting questions and also personally talked about the speculations about Baek Yi Jin’s death in the drama.
Nam Joo Hyuk said, “Dear viewers of ‘Twenty Five Twenty One,’ I can say now, that I got so many calls, asking why I die. I don’t know why people try so hard to kill me. I think there were evil forces (evil forces plotting to kill Baek Yi Jin). Stop it.“ [emphasis mine]
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source: allkpop/namjoohyuk
In the drama fans’ mind, if he can’t be with Heedo in the end, then he must be dead. Oh dear.
Here’s the vid.
LOL! Yijin is alive! 2 more nights to go…
Aigoo. Whatever happens I did enjoy the journey of youth together with love and friendship. The second couple I really like too so it’s nice. ☺️
Poor guy! In Start-Up, Kim SeonHo’s fans wanted his character out so Mr “Good Boy” could end up with the heroine.
And in this drama, fans want him out again because, in their mindset, being dead was a better option than being an old flame.
😂
@packmule3, Apropos of nothing-we need a new K Drama-The Case of The Toxic Shippers. What is it that they call these “fans”-deloo loo. OMG
I just hope we see what happens to all of the friends, for me, especially YuRim. We know we’ll see what happens to HeeDo.It might be nice to see an HD YJ reunion but I have no illusions about a romance. (They ain’t Son Ye Jin and Hyun Bin-would have loved to have been a fly on the wall of that wedding).
Nam Joo Hyuk and the character of Yi Jin seem quite similar!
LOL he literally told the viewers to stop killing him off! I guess this is one drama that lends itself to being re-written as fan-fic, since the known ‘ending’ seems so unpalatable to many.
Kalimera Ladies!
@Packmule3 thank you for this! Management Soop takes good care of its stars!
I am glad we got to see a video regarding this matter!
Nam Joo Huyk is so precious! I am rooting for him from the very first time I saw him and I will continue to do so!
@Growing Beautifully, yes, he does seem like his character. He takes a while to reflect on his answer to get the best result.
Being a life-long Cubs fan, I can relate to his devolving feelings about baseball.
Poor guy, so funny that some fans can only imagine his character as dead in the present. They must be rather young. Life simply isn’t so linear.
😂😂😂. I am glad he sees the funny side of this. I thought the shoe’s on the other foot now for him. Getting all the “love” from viewers who think he’s being hard done by because HD and YJ just HAVE to be together you know? I read how devastated some viewers were when the genre of 25-21 shifted from RomCom (happy ending) to Melodrama (sad ending). And there was a collective wail after watching those last few minutes of Ep14. Some netizens even jacked up the volume believing that there was an audible “Appa” in the static background noise during that TV broadcast from 2009. Surely that was toddler MC in the background calling out to YJ (her Appa)? Desperately clutching onto something…anything…that would give us a HD/YJ happy ever after.
YJ and HD’s colours were green. That’s what connected them in many frames. Spring time. Young love. It was good whilst it lasted. I still have fond memories of my first bf. Bumped into him later on in life and all those good feelings came flooding back. But they belonged to the past. We exchanged niceties and then parted, back to our respective lives.
Hi @nrllee
Speaking of the ever changing genre of an on-going show!!! It has changed again, according to Koreaboo.com LOL.
A ‘coming of age’ drama? This time, it’s probably right.
https://www.koreaboo.com/news/k-drama-twenty-five-twenty-one-changes-true-genre/
@GB Unnie,
Seriously TvN is trolling us. I mean they couldn’t say from the very beginning that is just “a coming out of age” type of drama?
Pwahahaha. @GB. Read my first impression. That’s my first sentence.
I wrote that I was going to treat it as a coming-of-age story rather than a romcom. Everybody then was saying it was a romcom. It was not. The approach of the writer to her subject matter wasn’t a romcom. 😂
@Cleo @pkml3 (congrats on calling it).
Yes, we viewers have trolled ourselves because we insisted it was romance when it wasn’t. I wonder who put up the genres on the online sites… did they just decide on rom-com instead of seeing what the producers said? Or did the production people really troll us??? Who can keep changing genre as a series airs!!!
Hey there @Packmule3!
@GB Unnie. I think they trolled us.
The same people who did the same on HP2 character’s information…☠👻
I’m re-reading your first impressions @pkml3. You were strangely psychic LOL.
Right, @Cleopatra?
The same production team that made the HP2 characters and storyline? Switching gears in the midseason?
Hahahahahahahaha…no. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. 🙂
@Packmule3,
I got it from the moment the adult HeeDo was different from her past self!
Yoon Yeon Seok confessed the the director is begging him to do season 3 if they make it! The problem is that there is conflict with the cast’s schedules. They have other projects to do….
Good luck with that folks! I don’t want to be trolled again!
P.S. I took my Jeon Mi Do dosage from Thirty Nine. I love her.
Her dynamics with Son Ye Jin and Kim Ji Hyun was brilliant!
You need to see the cameo with Im SiWan…I got teary…
Thanks for the link @GB! I’ve not really bothered to identify the genre of what I am watching (surprise me!). I think KTR and NJH made the comedy parts shine and they did adlibs galore that made those scenes organic – what I call the bao-kiss was suggested by NJH. But they can be as soulful and sorrowful as well that their dramatic scenes were impactful. And those plot twists they deliberately throw in the story line does not help. Now the present seems disjointed from the past.
On the other hand, It is a consolation that they were already done with the shooting in early March and what ever they were planning to do was already set instead of getting pressured by the public opinion (I see you HP2).
@Janey, So happy that we don’t have an HPL scenario with 2521. They made it a popularity contest and ruined it. It also somehow made me dislike Shin Hyun Been,an actress who I now avoid even if she is in good projects. I know this is irrational but it’s my time. I still like YYS but it has more to do with his past projects, mainly Mood of The Day, a movie favorite. He recently said he’d like an HPL3-say it ain’t so! However, the best part of HPL was finding a new actress to admire-Jeon MiDo. In the two projects I have seen her, I find her quiet acting style to be quite powerful. She does it all with small facial movements. She doesn’t fall into histrionics as we have seen with SHB. And some day I hope they’ll give her an offer where we get to hear her beautiful singing voice.BTW, she is mailing it in Thirty Nine. It is a pleasure to watch her in scenes with powerhouse Son Ye Jin. What great scene partners!
Getting back to 2521 so glad they changed it’s descriptor to coming of age. I hope they weren’t trolling us with melodrama, S.Korean style.There is so much positive in 2521 with friendship being primary that I’d hate to see it devolve into pathos. I want our contemporary daughter to learn about how joyous true friends can be. After all HD and YJ started out as friends.For me, no need for romance.
From the start, I got the impression that this was going to be a bittersweet first-love story. I believe that this isn’t sitting well with a lot of people (I’ve seen many “what’s the point if that’s the case?” comments.) Personally, I think there are many other take-aways from the drama other than romance. I have said if our leads remained friends rather than turn romantic, it would be enough for me.
However, I do have much sympathy for thoseof us who know the writer’s m.o. and her habit of trolling the viewers. I myself have to remind my questioning heart “the synopsis says this” and just rest in that assurance. Sometimes when a kdrama tells you what it is, you have to believe it. But it’s not easy when you think you might be played, despite your better self saying otherwise.
@Cleo… did you mean that the Koreaboo article writers were the same ones to change the Hospital Playlist character descriptions?
I double checked the PD and Writer… they are not from the HP team but maybe they were inspired by the Reply 1988 series, to keep people guessing until the end.
The PD is Jung Ji Hyun who did ‘You Are My Spring’, ‘TK:EM’ and ‘Search: WWW’. He’s working again with Scriptwriter Kwon Do Eun who did only 1 other show, ‘Search: WWW’.
I wondering who set the genre or did the viewers/reviewers get trolled or not do their homework.
As a coming-of-age tale, it’s perfectly fine to dwell endlessly on the youthful days. This show goes a bit further and gives us their in-between adulthood too. It’s great for viewers in the mood for much nostalgia.
@GB Unnie,
I meant that TvN is the only channel that production teams are changing pivotal information on character’s and drama descriptions mid season and it has happened twice.
Last year with Hospital Playlist S2 and this year with Twenty Five, Twenty One. If they want to keep the audience with them there are other ways than trolling us. The actors have done a brilliant job so far for instance, with what it was given to them!
Yes, the story is definitely a coming of age tale. We – the viewers- are not in the quest for a hidden treasure. If they would say from the beginning that, people would accept more easily that Hee Do and Yi Jin had a youthful love and not still hoping and theorizing for them to be the endgame.
@Cleo, ah… I see. TvN is the culprit, eh?
There were many of their shows that I liked and a few that I didn’t. Of course I didn’t watch everything, but I noticed I did watch quite a substantial number of TvN shows. I agree that they shouldn’t resort to methods that appear to toy with the viewers. It shows a lack of respect for us, the viewers, as well as a lack of trust that the Show on its own would have the pulling power to keep viewers.
Seriously, those tvN posts were the worst! They’d blatantly troll viewers, and actually using their own theories to tease them. Maybe one could claim that was just good marketing, but I can’t tell you how confused people got. While there is a good chunk of people who are hoping for a Baedo endgame, I think many just want clarity. I agree with @CLeo and @GB that this trolling wasn’t necessary and took away from what is a solid beautiful story. While I take comfort in that the drama descriptions seem to lead to a wistful first-love scenario, like I’ve said before, I’m sensitive to people having their emotions and good sense jerked around by questionable messaging.
For the record, I don’t think it’s the drama’s job to be responsible for viewer feelings. (There seems to be a sentiment out there in social media that a drama needs to take responsibility for viewer’s fragility.) I feel how the drama wishes to tell its story is its prerogative. And if a rating has a Korean 15, viewers need to have at least have the mental ability and maturity of a 14 yo. (Usually you see extreme cases of this from fangirls or shippers where people call for the drama or network to be mindful of these immature viewers, but they don’t call them immature but rather someone who needs to be catered to).
I don’t think that is what is happening here. However, with just ordinary storytelling, I am understanding to those who are second-guessing themselves due to the writer’s and network’s trolling.
@Skayt, Theyay be trolling the genre but at least we’re not seeing a changed ending because production stopped awhile ago.
SPOILER ALERT: I watched Episode 15 and was really touched because YJ ended up in New York covering 9/11. I lost a former coworker and a cousin in the attack and saw ,from a distance,the second plane hit. One of our friends, actually our best man, escaped because he happened to go for coffee. In all 49 Koreans and Korean Americans perished in the attack(I Googled it). Coupled with our storyline, this episode hit me in the gut. Living where I do I knew of all too many people who were lost and there is still a pall over all of it. One very awful part of that day is just how beautiful the weather was. It would have been another glorious day.were it not for this tragedy. I think the Drama handled it well. It was not sensationalized and one could see YJ’s professional growth. In the days and weeks after the attack I had to attend meetings in the area. The dust was ever present and one knew it wasn’t ordinary. There were human remains in that dust. And now there are still people dying of the toxic debris-people who tried to rescue those stuck in the debris, high school students and all those living below Canal Street. I knew some of those people too. The Drama’s team actually showed the dust in and the despair. YJ acted as an everyman. My family was relatively unscathed but for those who haven’t viewed the episode, it’s a tough one to watch, not only for the relationship but for the history.I had no clue that they’d go there.
@OAL
*SPOILER*
*SPOILER*
I watched Ep 15, and though I’m so distant from the place, I felt the anguish, the horror, so many conflicting emotions. I suppose I’m not surprised that YJ changed in those months. It’s sad that he was alone.