We open in the summer of 2012, as Mom and Dad (Lee Il-hwa and Sung Dong-il) sing an oldie at a noraebang. Suddenly their daughter, our heroine SUNG SHI-WON (Jung Eun-ji) fast-forwards Dad’s song and butts in for her turn.

Dad characteristically rants, saying that Shi-won wears her head on her shoulders as decoration. He adds with a fist in the air, “If you pick one of those songs where you jibber-jabber in English, you’re dead!”

He says oldies are the best, and Shi-won lights up. An oldie you say? Cue her anthem, H.O.T.’s “Candy.” He flares up that this isn’t an oldie, but she argues that it is for her—it’s fifteen years old. Well damn, way to keep it real. *stops to do the math and cringes*

On a different night she takes a cab into Hongdae as she deals with a work emergency over the phone. She’s a TV writer (though clearly a junior one, since she says the writing part of her job mostly consists of labeling props).

 

 

 

She says in voiceover: “At times like these, something small can be comforting, like a song. Thirty-three. An age where we can’t say that we’re exchanging nostalgia yet—our ’90s were still too bright for that. If our bodies can’t go back, at least our souls can. Right now, I’m going back to the ’90s.”

She looks down at her phone to check the time, and still, Tony oppa graces the wallpaper. Ha. New gadgets, same idols. She walks into a restaurant and outside we see a little sign marking the 38th high school friends’ reunion dinner for Busan Gwangan High.

She greets her old friends, introducing one as Dan-ji, known as the Hee-jun oppa fangirl back in the day, while she herself lived as Ahn-seung-bu-in [Tony Ahn's Korean name Ahn Seung-ho + wife]. Pffft. Everyone greets Shi-won with the annoying “Did you gain some weight?” She scowls.

In walks bestie MO YOO-JUNG (Shin So-yool), as Shi-won narrates that she’s had a lot of nicknames, but her oldest one is Ship-sa-ppa, short for “falls in love easily.”

 

 

 

Sure enough, she squeals over Infinite (and L in particular), and last month it was Park Yoochun, and Kim Soo-hyun before that.

And then, the boys enter. Awww yeah. Slo-mo foursome entrance for the win. Shi-won narrates that they’re here, her boys, her youth’s everything.

She introduces them one by one (right to left): the refined and delicate KANG JOON-HEE (Hoya), the talkative BANG SUNG-JAE (Lee Shi-un), the charismatic DO HAK-CHAN (Eun Ji-won), and the gruff and prickly YOON YOON-JAE (Seo In-gook).

 

 

 

Turns out there’s a reason they’re dressed like F33—they’re coming straight from a teacher’s funeral. Sung-jae talks a mile a minute about the ceremony and then asks for a picture of their group.

The six best friends pose for a shot, as Shi-won narrates, “Today, at this table, one couple will announce that they’re getting married.”

That takes us back to the spring of 1997, in Busan. They fire up a computer to play Dance Dance Revolution, and I sort of can’t believe how ancient this game looks now. Sung-jae, Yoon-jae, and Joon-hee play the game, and then Shi-won pulls the plug because it’s time for Star Docu, featuring H.O.T.

Gah, I love that she’s fumbling to make sure it’s recording on VHS. There is something so specific about that as a part of my adolescence. The boys grumble and sit back, bored, while the girls squeal.

 

 

 

It’s our first of many cameos by Tony Ahn playing himself, as he shows the fans his bedroom. There’s a big white teddy bear sitting on his bed, with “TN ♥ SW” stitched across the chest, and Shi-won freaks out: “That’s the teddy bear I sent!!!”

And then Tony climbs into bed hugging the teddy, and the girls die of happiness. So cute.

But Dad comes home from work (he’s a baseball coach) and nags Shi-won for the ruckus, so tired of seeing those monkeys on the tv again.

She gasps, but he just keeps going, saying that they should all have their heads shaved and be shipped off to army. Dads, they never change. I remember my dad saying almost this very speech verbatim about Seo Taiji.

 

 

 

Yoon-jae wakes up the morning of his eighteenth birthday to find a present and a card waiting for him. He tears into it to find a Guess t-shirt. He gapes, can it be?

Cut to his fifteenth birthday, where his present was an Adidos t-shirt, and then his sixteenth birthday, when he got a Westpak backpack (instead of an Eastpak, HA). He looks at the Guess shirt skeptically.

But when he wears it to Shi-won’s house she takes one look and says it’s not a knockoff this time, and he beams. Mom is busy in the kitchen making birthday soup for both Dad and Yoon-jae, who happen to share a birthday. It seems that whatever Yoon-jae’s family situation is, he eats his breakfasts here normally.

Shi-won refuses to come out and have birthday soup for that ajusshi she doesn’t know, and Yoon-jae has to remind Dad about his comments on her precious Tony oppa. Mom: “Oh the one that looks like a monkey?”

 

 

 

She reluctantly joins them and only wishes Yoon-jae a happy birthday, presenting him with her usual gift, a page full of coupons. He sighs that it’s the same gift every year, but she counters that she’s never known anyone who used coupons so well.

Flashback to Yoon-jae age 11, at his parents’ funeral. Aw, sad. Little Shi-won does a silly dance and the coupon reads: “Use whole body to make me laugh.” That’s so adorable I could cry.

And then Yoon-jae’s middle school graduation, where he proudly takes pictures with Shi-won’s parents. The coupon: “Borrow anything you want for a day.” HA. He borrowed her parents? At the same time, she graduates from her middle school parent-less. Hee.

He looks to see if there are any new ones this year, and sees that all the coupons have a theme: “No matter what,” like “Piggyback no matter what,” “Stop being mad no matter what,” and the biggie, “Grant a wish, no matter what.”

 

 

 

She promises that as long as it doesn’t cost her money, she’ll make good, no matter what. She scritches his chin like a little puppy.

As Shi-won floats away on cloud nine telling the girls in her class about Tony and her teddy bear, we see that outside, Yoo-jung and Yoon-jae are sitting on a bench together. Something makes Yoo-jung blush.

At lunch, Shi-won asks Yoon-jae to record the last episode of Star in My Heart tonight, because she has to go to Daegu for an H.O.T. concert. Yoo-jung sighs at the dilemma: Kang-ta oppa or Ahn Jae-wook?

Sung-jae scoffs but Joon-hee joins in, saying that he thinks Cha In-pyo is better. Sung-jae teases him for liking the drama like a girl, but he counters that Choi Jin-shil is really cute.

 

 

They wonder how Shi-won plans to ditch study hall to get to Daegu, and she says she’s already got a plan. Cut to an uncomfortable Teach, who gets the I-can’t-choose-not-to-have-my-period and You-don’t-know-what-it’s-like speech with the puppy eyes. He tells her to go, just to stop her from saying “period” over and over.

Teacher TAE-WOONG (Song Jong-ho) is on watch that night during late-night study hall, and when he comes by the boys’ class to gripe about the noise, the guys complain that he only seems to care about the girls’ classes. Rumors abound and Sung-jae decides he doesn’t like Teach because he clearly knows he’s good looking.

Sung-jae notices Yoon-jae’s new Guess t-shirt, and everyone oohs and aahs. (Oh the power of a brand name—why does that feel so important in high school? But it does.) He’s skeptical that it could be real and Yoon-jae flashes the shirt proudly, saying it is.

 

 

 

ven Joon-hee agrees—it looks real. But Sung-jae dies laughing, “Guess is a question mark, not an exclamation point!” And sure enough, inside the logo is an exclamation point. Hahaha. I totally never would have noticed.

Poor Yoon-jae crumbles in mortification, as the whole class laughs at his expense. But that raises the ire of Teach, who bursts in, furious that they’ve ignored his warnings to be quiet. He demands the class leader to come up front. Yoon-jae stands up.

He gets up but argues that he wasn’t the one talking, which just infuriates Teach even more. He orders Yoon-jae up to the front of the room, to be punished for his classmates. He asks how many times he wants to be hit, and Yoon-jae growls, “Ten.”

 

 

 

He grits his teeth as Teach spanks him with a giant ruler, ten times.

In Daegu, the girls line up for the stage recording of a music program (like a Music Bank or an Inkigayo), and Shi-won prepares with her Tony oppa beach towel, worn like a cape.

They take to the stage for “Warrior’s Descendant” (posted above), and while Yoo-jung screams along with the other girls, Shi-won just saunters into the aisle like a badass.

The music starts and she performs along with her oppas, dancing and singing along to every move. That wave of emotion passes through the crowd, and the girls start to cry as they scream and chant and sing along.

 

 

 

At the same time, Yoon-jae comes over to record the last episode of Star in My Heart, grumbling that he is NOT Shi-won’s flunky, thank you very much, all the while diligently doing what he was told.

He watches the episode with Mom, who sings along to the big final concert scene. (Ahn Jae-wook parting the crowd to declare his love publicly to Choi Jin-shil, the classic kdrama swoonworthy moment.)

After the concert, there’s an H.O.T. fan quiz for prizes, and Shi-won cleans up, answering everything in hilariously excrutiating detail: Tony oppa declared his feelings to his first love on April 15! It was a Wednesday and it was raining a lot! LOL.

But then when it counts, the last question for the t-shirt that Tony wore onstage today, she flubs and answers too quickly, and Yoo-jung swoops in and gets the big prize.

 

 

 

Shi-won stews about it the whole night, but on the bus ride back home, Yoo-jung sweetly gives the shirt to Shi-won, saying that if she ever wins Kang-ta oppa’s shirt, she can return the favor. Aw.

Shi-won pretends to be cool about it for two seconds and then caves, clutching it happily and deciding she’ll never wash the shirt for the rest of her life. But Yoo-jung says she has something she needs to tell her…

Yoo-jung: “Earlier today… I confessed to Yoon-jae.” Eep! Shi-won doesn’t betray anything but surprise, and Yoo-jung blushes, saying that he hasn’t given her an answer yet, but wanted to make sure Shi-won would be cool with it if they dated.

Shi-won asks why she should care if they did or not, but then adds that just last month it was another boy, and a few days ago she was hot for Teacher. Yoo-jung says she’s changed her mind—Yoon-jae is good-looking and smart and good at sports, and very mature. Shi-won: “Is he? I wouldn’t know.”

 

 

 

She walks home just as Yoon-jae is stepping out, and all she does is ask about the recording. He stops to tell her about Yoo-jung’s confession, and says he doesn’t know how he feels.

But tellingly, he asks, “Should I not date her?” Shi-won: “Why are you asking me?”

He takes a step closer and entreats her, “Should I not date her?” No answer. He takes another step forward, “Should I not date her?”

 

 

 

Aaaaaack! Say something! Still nothing. He sighs and takes out his birthday coupons. He rips one out and hands it to her silently. It’s “Grant a wish no matter what.”

She looks down at it, “What’s the wish?”

Yoon-jae: “Tell me not to date her.” Eeee! They stand there like that, the wish hanging in the air.

We don’t know what she said, because we cut to her inside, watching the last episode ofStar in My Heart.

 

 

 

Yoon-jae goes home, where Teacher Tae-woong greets him? Wha? Tae-woong starts to apologize about earlier, but Yoon-jae cuts him off and slams his door. Tae-woong hangs his head, and we see a birthday cake sitting on the coffee table, waiting.

Yoon-jae bursts out of his room to yell, “It’s not an exclamation point! It’s a question mark! Hyung, can’t you even get that right?!” Whoa, they’re brothers? Dude, you publicly humiliated Little Bro twice on his birthday?

How interesting that they turn out to be brothers. That’s a surprising twist. Hyung is left stammering, “Question mark?”

 

 

 

Mom rewatches the episode with Shi-won, redoing the whole hands-in-the-air sing-along. They’re so cute. They swoon over Ahn Jae-wook together, and Mom declares that he’s gonna be a big star, and Cha In-pyo’s on his way out. Ha.

But they get to the end of the recording and Shi-won screams. It’s the tape that had her episode of Star Docu on it—the one with Tony and her teddy bear. Oh noes! Gone forever! Sigh, this is a pain the digital age knoweth not.

Yoon-jae cries himself to sleep as Hyung apologizes through the door—he didn’t know Yoon-jae was the leader of that class, he swears.

And as he cries, his pager goes off in a round of angry messages from Shi-won: “18 18 18 18 / 4 4 4 4 4.” [ / Die die die die die.]

 

 

 

Shi-won narrates: “A rear end hit, by Hyung for the first time in his life. A ripped heart, like a video tape that’s been cut.”

Yoo-jung sits up calling Yoon-jae’s pager too, but just to hear his voice on the recorded greeting. The narration continues:

 

 

Shi-won: An age where you feel like you could love anyone, where you put everything on the line for the smallest of things. Eighteen. Adults say that it’s an age where we laugh if a leaf tumbles by. But back then, we were more serious than any adult, more intense, and had our strength tested. 1997. That was how our eighteen was beginning.

Epilogue: Shi-won walks out of her bedroom in the morning wearing her own Guess! sweatshirt, and freaks out to see that Mom has washed Tony t-shirt. Not the one with oppa’s sweat on it! She collapses in a tantrum. Turns out the exclamation point is more fitting than they know.