Why & How Woon Ho Died: There’s some magic in love that requires patience and is also patience, It tests you and at the same time gives you hope to keep you optimistic about the future.
Sadly, that type of love is not for the current times but the movies are keeping us connected to that type of love and the recent addition to that collection is the South-Korean romantic drama film titled “20th Century Girl” which tells the story of the times when daily necessities of today like email were all new and not a luxury for everyone.
20th Century Girl tells the story of Bo-ra who promises to collect information about her best friend’s crush and in that pursuit, she falls into the trap of love with Woon-ho, the new kid who just joined the school in the new academic year. By the looks of him, he looks quite sad and depressed because he’s a divorce child and lives with his father who’s in Korea but his mother lives in New Zealand with his younger brother.
The two hit it off and Woon-ho finds his smile and comfort in Bo-ra but that doesn’t stay for long when Bo-ra breaks it off with him to protect the feeling of her friend Yeon-du. After some time, when Woon-do is moving to New Zealand with his mother, Yeon-du comes to know about this and tries to unite both and they do but since Woon-do is moving, they promise to keep in touch and they do, with emails and letters until they do not.
Bo-ra suddenly stops getting responses to her letters which leaves her heartbroken because she doesn’t have an explanation. Time passes and one day she receives a VHS tape along with a letter from an artist named Joseph inviting her to an art exhibition. At that art gallery, Joseph informs Bo-ra that he’s Woon-ho’s younger brother and Woon-ho passed away nearly 15 years ago.
He expresses his grief about Woon-ho traveling to Korea to meet Bo-ra and that is when an accident took his life away. After reaching home, Bo-ra watches that VHS tape which contains the memories from their school days and his time with Bo-ra finally, he professes his love for Bo-ra in his final message and tells that he’s going to come to Korea to meet her.
The film is a real tear-jerker and tells the heartbreaking story of unfinished love and a love that is for all ages because it doesn’t give you hope at the end but leaves you with memories that are going to stay with you until the end of times and that’s a pretty good deal if you ask me.