Because This Is My First Life (2017)

It will make you see things in a different way.

How can i explain things about this drama this drama totally is
something that makes you see life in a different way. i loved each
and every dialogue used in this drama and they are totally stuck
in my heart for example the whole room 19 story, the remember
the book se hee was reading on the bus ' Although you cry nothing will change ' and the line from that book it goes like.. words comes out of our mouth and dies in someone else's ears but there are
some words that are stuck in someone else's heart. This drama said to be honest with your heart and say what you are feeling. Although there was hardships in everyone's life there was still some happy
moments in between. and the title itself is so good ' BECAUSE THIS IS MY FIRST LIFE ' we all have only one and first life to spend so we
should make sure never regret it later, speak your heart , do what
you wanna do because this is our first life.
This drama made me feel happy, sad, smile like an idiot and laugh
like crazy sometimes and it felt so good watching this.

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Family Marriage & Sex In The City Seoul °7.7° °VG°

Boo-hoo, Ji-hoo❕

We meet her when she's face-to-face with complete failure; a bona fide low point.

Raised by a patri-to❌ic father & a sympathetic-on-the-sly mom, she needs relief now. What she getz is this: Though she's a talented script writer, the TV station wants to credit her work to a known entity, in order to boost viewership. She needs fair recognition NW.

She lives with her brother. /She/ paid the depo$it / mainten-cent$ / expen$e$ / replaced appliance$ & more↗. While she was mandatorily sequestered at writer #1's office crunchin a deadline, her brother married his preggos GF. Nobody told Ji-hoo that GF-now-the-Mrs has moved in. Upon her return, when she innocently poked her head into her brother's room to say 'hi', Ji-hoo found ☢ut the hard-☹-way. Given that ?Dad? is thrilled that Ji-hoo is about to be an aunt - the aunt of a #nephew (IT'S A B✨Y!!), she knows it's Game Over. There will be no getting that won back. She needs =equality=]> RIGHT N✴W.

Even after she'd been sexually harassed at work, she was asked to "Just work with us." They won't give her equal rights N⏱W. "Your time will come. We promise." She needs a new J.O.B. N⭕W.

She quits. N✴W❗

now she can't afford her rent

She.needs.aff⚙rdable.h⚙using.n⏱w#

$he absolutely, most direly needs affordable housing tonight

Engineer Se-hee is a self-isolated loner who has trapped himself in a rigid life, devoid of joy. His only goals are to maintain his strict schedule, save up $, and pay off his home mortgage asap. Nothing is going to work out for him without a roommate, though. He ran those calculations years back. The rental income is required in order to keep his journey to financial Buelah Land on track. ⭕ of his roommates ever work out, though. He even had to call the police on the last. He needs a compatible roommate N☹W…

Right on time, here come their bands of buddies. Se-hee's friends & Ji-hoo's friends are linked thru Ho-rang (Rang) & Won-seok, who have been dating the better part of a decade. None of the women have met the men yet. Based on names alone, each gang assumes they have a perfect landlord-tenant match-up for their bud. They weren't /trying/ to create a coed dorm, which is not as acceptable in conservative K-country . Well, didn't /they/ stumble onto something??

Thus is the show's opening. Ji-hoo & Se-hee are planted within 15ft of eachother with the cat going back and forth between them as a fluffy emissary. It grows from there. As it turns out, they are very✨compatible. Se-hee's ex-roomies never came close to the competence of Ji-hoo-roomie. It's several days of co-habbing before they even meet, due to conflicting schedules. When they discover the "setup", they plan to separate. But... well… things are working out so well...

So well, in fact, that Se-hee, who works for the App: ‘Don't 'Marry, Date', pulls a reverse play & proposes! They should get married! ? !WAIT! That's wrong. He PR⛔-Posed. He wants to marry for 'Not Love'. No one will question their living situation if they do. That way, his parents won't continue nag him about marriage, plus his dad has offered to pay off his mortgage when he marries. Ji-hoo benefits as she'll have the affordable housing she needs to stay in Seoul, rather than go home to live with M&D. CEO Ma always says that 2 are better than 1. Coincidentally, Ji-hoo had just finished writing: A Dork's Love. Is she about to marry a dork?

This writer is a clever devil. Going into the real-but-fake ceremony, Jihoo's mom talks to her about love & marriage in the bridal chamber and causes Ji-hoo to S⛈B. The unfeeling, ever practical Se-hee comes looking for his missing bride and finds her in that state. He says these words to Ji-hoo: "You can't stop crying? Then, we'll go together. It's all right if you cry. Come with me. I'll stay by your side. I will be with you." Sounds like a vow; an intimate vow between the 2 of them, alone in the bride's chambers. It's not yet ♥️. It's genuine friendship & comraderie + a promise of loyalty. It's not a fake marriage. Not really.

BTIMFL sets out with a light-hearted tone~>> a couple's friends eventually meet & interest sparks. The characters are rounded off nicely. There's a generous amount of Mars & Venus (man/woman) misunderstandings. No relationship in the series is w/o static. The romance between Soo-ji and Ceo Ma is the most fun. He's a catch - he even does a musical number! She finally comes to see who he is. The side characters greatly enhance the series.

Like ♥️, BTIMFL hurts sometimes. What's unnecessarily ♥️-rending is how Ji-hoo leaves and stays away - for what looks like weeks, maybe more. While the cutting with the snappy sounds is generally a fun touch, this later sadness is resoundingly out of sync with the quirky elements. Why would she cause such unnecessary pain to Se-hee? There's a clip of her having a good old time with her friends, while his world falls apart. She knows she's returning to him, while at the same time, he's demolished by heartbreak. The viewer feels his pain.

The show became so sad that the ending didn't lift me back up. It comes close to ruining the series, and it didn't even make sense! It's an example of awful Kdrama MSS (Mandatory Separation Syndrome: An overused Kdrama device in which the couple is separated by distance after professing love, but prior to their Happily Ever After). MSS is routinely awful. While there are times it's for the best, usually, MSS is detrimental to a series. How could a couple that has just come together, often after many struggles, bear to be apart? Why, oh why, are they compelled to write it in? Furthermore, in the emotionally wrenching letter Ji-hoo's mom wrote to Se-hee, she asked him to stay by Ji-hoo's side when she cries. Ji-hoo dumps him cold, allowing him to despair alone. What ugly irony.

The primary theme of BTIMFL is equality for women in a hyper-patriarchal society. Ha-rang wears a shirt that says "Raise girls and boys the same." We'll see a 2nd woman sexually harassed while trying to build her career. BTIMFL addresses this tired out, but still "what's happening now" indignity competently - 1 flagrant scene is like a horrible sexual harassment training video that the cubicle overlords foist on their employees. {If that's what's still going on in SK, they definitely need to tweak the power balance somehow. Women's rights were stalled there due to a military dictatorship (1961-1979) that solely focused on maintaining power, giving no thought to protecting the vulnerable.}

BTIMFL features The Disease: Good Daughter i/l Disease, in which dtr i/l's are
treated as slaves by the in-laws. That ain't healthy. Ji-hoo's mom is able to read it between the teas when the family's meet. She didn't want her daughter living her life as a slave to the In-laws. Still, the show is a little cynical about family life. It is entirely appropriate to prevent a mother i/l from bullying a young wife, but it's usually not a reason to withdraw from all family interactions. Their agreement to holiday separately is highly questionable. If a set of their parents is not respectful of them or their marriage, separation is appropriate. Apparently i/l's abusing their kid’s spouse is a pro-sport in K-country, so the writer is proposing a viable solution. We can hope that the separate holidays will rejoin if they have children. That all serves to drag down the production, which is outstanding through 13 episodes.

No show is without flaws. Besides MSS, the last three episodes end the show on a more sour / less sweet note. BTIMFL is amusing until around Ep14, where long, overdone, and wearisome shots framing Ji-hoo's pain-gripped face keep the series from continuing forward. The pacing is otherwise steady. Without that drag, the show's easily an 8+.

The poetry in BTIMFL, the discussions of literature, and "Room 19" add depth. "Room 19" is now part of my consciousness and vocab. This series tricks us into thinking it will be a lite piece, only to punch us later with surprising depth. Some notables are:

▶"We don't even know ourselves, so how could we know the dark sides of others?" 5✨

▶"When a person comes, it is in fact a tremendous thing. That person's entire life comes with them - Because it's fragile, so it may have been broken before - the heart that's close."✨

▶"A heart isn't something that is taken or grabbed. It comes to you." ✨

We can all applaud that, can't we?

Overall this is a VG view. One of the best things can can be said is that it leaves plenty for discussion. Spare us the mindless pap, which this show is not. My favorite FAVORITE takeaway from watching this is when Soo-ji declares: "I'd rather be a crazy bℹtch than a pathetic wench." Amen.

QUOTES⚜️

If I were to tell the 20 old me, would that punk believe me?

Ji-hoo! You should go out and get pregnant tonight. We're going to a club! (Soo-ji. Woman of action.)

Perhaps, if you have some time, would you marry me?

〰 IMHO 〰

Directing 7
Writing 8
Acting 7.5
Romance 7
Flutters 5
Warmth 5
Art 6
Excitement 5
Laughs 5
Thought provocation 8
Ending 4


Age 14+

Watch again? ✅ twice and counting…

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How should I start...????

So if do you have an interest in a drama about marriage and the meaning of it, considering all the hardships of social, working and familiar life, this is the right drama. The story is really interesting and analyzes how the actual generation -people in their 30s- have to face the concept and the institution of marriage.

A wonderful drama that gives insights into different opinions and ideas about a common concept 'marriage' which is interpreted in different ways according to the different backgrounds and goals of everyone.

The drama is overviewing how it is important to consider the individual's choices and be able to respect others while living in the same community.

It is not about the common lovely and romantic concept but gives a good interpretation of living together and marriage with some romance in-between.

Lee Min Ki... I discovered him with this drama and I think he did a very good job of representing the character of Nam Se Hee. And for Jung Soo Min, I can say that she has done a good job without disappointing the viewers like in her other dramas.

I watched the other projects of the screenwriter Yoon Nan Joong, and those were in the same way good projects.

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Lovely Show

I have always had this question regarding why people get engaged in arranged Marriage and How two people can live together without love just because their lifestyles are compatible. I mean it's a serious Situation. You are going to live your whole life with someone stranger sharing everything, including your lows and flaws.

Well, this question may seem easy, but the answers are not as easy it seems.
This drama has clearly forayed into that dilemma with the Modern era twist.

"Because this my first life" the name of the drama itself talks much about this drama.
We all live and die once so inherently that explains how we shouldn't lose hope whenever we face any setbacks and approach everything by faith and enthusiasm.

And If something's not First doesn't mean it just lost its charm. End of the day, every single regular thing is precious.
This context has been gracefully tackled with the example of Football game. "Watching a Football Match isn't special, but with whom we are watching it, that makes the difference" and that counts ♥️.

It's really wonderful and fortunate for couples when they develop love and caring because of the kinship called "Marriage".
Although being Committed to a system called Marriage isn't easy, but it needs teamwork, understanding and a little bit of patience. Marriage or not, understanding each other well is the real deal.

I would say it's a great Drama given it clearly deals with the complexity of the topic of "Marriage" very well.

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How do I describe this drama?!

Honestly, it's one of the most hilarious I've seen in a while. There were moments that had me laughing so hard my stomach hurt (especially those in SaeHee's home), and many of the scenes weren't over the top or forced. And at the same time, there were some scenes that gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling. ^^ I was worried that there would be typical kdrama miscommunications, but it's played out nicely so far.

The acting was pretty good in my opinion - though I'd say it's usually too soon to tell in the first two episodes, the main characters balanced each other nicely, even with their different personalities. Through most of the two episodes, I also found myself engaged with the supporting cast (JiHo's mother and her friends). ^^ I also really like how this drama tackled some issues (don't want to spoil it, but it ties in with JiHo's writing problems) in a meaningful way - everything was laid out pretty realistically. I can't wait for the next episodes to be released; the plot is interesting enough that I'll be thinking about this drama for a long time!

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우리

This Kdrama is a composite of many things. A love story, a feminist statement, a thriller (very briefly), a comedy & a philosophical soliloquy. At the beginning what strikes you is how different is is from the usual formulaic K romcoms. In the first episode we witness sex scenes, cat poo & a female virgin kissing a male stranger, all screaming out we are different from the rest. There are visual reference clues to the writers leanings in the start: In 'The Graduate' poster, which is replicated in the story and Breakfast at Tiffany's' in the naming of 'Cat', this must have served as inspiration for the writer. There are subliminal messages in the clothing 'You make your own Luck' & 'Raise Boys & Girls the Same'. You do feel that this story is very personal to the writer and she is documenting her own experience, as the FL is a writer for dramas also. The misunderstandings are hilarious in the beginning and we have some very shrewd observations that any woman can relate to (and not just in Korea) about how gender relations work in society. The characters are well written and have distinct personalities. All the couples are given their own strong storylines which they are allowed to develop equally alongside the main couple. But after 'that' kiss I feel it loses it's way and the FL starts philosophising in a smug calm way, which becomes really annoying. Yes, you've expressed your love for each other and now you are ruining it because he won't open the door to room 19? Like what? She want's to see him cry and get angry, while she remains serene. Then the other 2 couples have their temperamental tiffs which ends up with both the women proposing. So, what is the message exactly?....You don't need marriage? If you get married you'll end up miserable like your parents? Marriage is only going to work when the woman proposes & is in charge? But, that's not equality, that's just gender reversal. What might have been more interesting is if they had stronger male characters, but then the women wouldn't have been able to break-up with them and then get back together so easily. Let's face it, in the world we live in today, if a woman breaks up with a half- descent man (which all of these men were) he wouldn't have waited around, another woman would have snapped him up lickety-split by pandering to his shattered self-esteem, whereas this would not happen in reverse unless she looks like a supermodel and that's the real reason women (pre-children) (not all but the majority) will always be passive in relationships.

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Very different story to most Kdramas

I actually really enjoyed this drama. Most of all, I liked how they were able to keep it consistently interesting as most dramas are only good in the first half or the second half.

My favourite characters were Woo Suji and Ma Sangoo, they were even more interesting than the main characters who were mostly just timid and annoying at times. Even though the female lead wasn't my favourite, I liked how the writers chose a personality for her and stood by it. Although, she does experience some growth, she is still the same person throughout the plot, which is something that can be hard to maintain. On the contrary, the male lead's personality did a 360. It was nice to see the contrast between the two. I also really enjoyed watching the other second leads (Wonseok and Horang), the actors' portrayal of their characters was amazing.

One thing that bothered me a bit was the fact that she was struggling to afford rent yet her father had bought an apartment for her and her brother? How was that possible?

Either way, definitely not in my top 15 but it's a really enjoyable drama if you're looking for something different.

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Overall Alright

Had a good Start but halfway through got quite verbose. Especially the last 3 Episodes. I dislike unnecessary misunderstandings to prolong a Story.
For the Female Lead it was unfortunate to see her Personality decline the Moment she realised her feelings. That often happens in Korean Dramas and they're constantly sad until the sudden Change at the End.

But it's also the most Marriage Propaganda Drama I've come across.

I overall give it a 6.0 but since Female and Male Lead shared good sensual kisses (and didn't only press the mouthes together) it gets a +1

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Cliché plot, but worth the watch

Most dramas I've seen under the romance category revolve around the same plot of sharing a house or being in a contractual relationship, but I think what makes this stand out is the maturity of the characters. I really appreciate the fact that the main leads aren't the typical rich man, poor girl, but rather people of a more equal social status dealing with their own issues (and in the journey to understanding what marriage is). I also enjoyed how each episode contains a lot of quotable quotes and strong realizations in life (especially in the life of the characters). I feel like I'd pick up different realizations from the drama each time I re-watch it.

I'm not very fond of re-watching dramas because the whole plot becomes predictable and of course the drama loses the thrill, but I decided to re-watch this drama as I've been recommending this drama to others for a while now and I've realized that I have forgotten the exact plot. Now that I have rewatched it, I felt that I did not fully appreciate the drama to its fullest during the first time I watched it, rather I was only watching it for the "cliché" plot. ( this was the first few Asian dramas I've watched) I'm not sure if I'm being overly absorbed in the drama, but at one point I felt that the dialogues of the characters were in a sense inspiring and relatable.

I agree with how some people say that the plot towards the end of the drama was not at par with how it started, I also remember my frustrations and my verge of dropping the drama the first time watching this. Apart from that, I also dislike the lack of strong chemistry among the main lead (not sure if it has to do with the ML character). But overall, I do still think this drama is totally worth watching.

*side note: I love the OST for this drama, it's one of the few songs that I still listen to after watching it for the first time last 2017.

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A slow-paced romance k-drama perfect for audiences in their 20s to 30s.

Basic and not so much memorable but this show was shockingly relatable, and sometimes even touching, that there are moments I cried my eyes out. Who knew a romance k-drama can be capable to have such meaningful plot like this?

It covers all the problems the working people the society are currently facing, from work, dating, relationships, friendships, family, marriage, and even housing, this show has it all.

Because This Is My First Life had the right casting, characters, and plot, but i don't know what it was, it got a bit slow and draggy for me in the middle. I think it was because it came to a point that there's already too much going on? What made me stick to this show was the curiosity of how Ma Sang Goo and SooJi's relationship will end up, I was rooting for them! All the other couples were cute too though!

Acting wise, everyone did so well especially Jung So Min, Lee Min Ki was still but i'm not sure if it is because his character required him to be one?

What we can get from this drama is that, love is not really found and given through big gestures, but in small ones like simply caring for another.

This might not be my favorite, but I enjoyed watching the show.

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I finished watching this earlier in the week so I could focus on my next drama. It was okay.

The drama was so enjoyable in the beginning. The story was strong, the characters understandable and some relatable. The character relationships were everything and things weren’t too unrealistic or cringey.

Suddenly, almost out of nowhere, episode 13, 14 and 15, things just started happening for no logical reason. Conflicts seemed to come out of nowhere to create problems for some relationships. For other relationships, their issues were resolved equally as fast and seemingly out of nowhere. It just… things just started to lose sense and logic.

The ending, was a typical happy ending, but felt unsatisfying because of all the nonsense that happened in the immediate episodes before it.

Overall, I guess I would say I enjoyed the drama. I feel like I was cheated genuine excitement and joy over the ending because of how thing went in the last few episodes. I would probably still recommend this, but with a warning attached.

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