Start-Up (2020)
Review of Start-Up / 스타트업 (2020)
Literally, the hype around this drama has been so real. At one point in 2020, it felt like this was the only drama I saw people talking about online. But I’ll let you in on a little secret: I had originally only watched the first episode of this drama when it first came out and then crashed completely.
I couldn’t finish it. I found the first episode to be very poetic, but it was pretty slow and didn’t capture my interest at first. That tends to be my fatal flaw when it comes to good dramas: I thought similarly of the very first episode of Goblin, which I loved (until, well, it got weird).
Start-up really gives you all the tropes. Rich sister who comes across as a bitch, guy writing letters that turn out to be fake love letters of sorts, a girl with no background in tech trying to be the Steve Jobs of Korea. But, at the same time, there’s something really endearing about this show.
Let’s dive into this review, shall we?
Content
On the very first episode, most of our main characters are tied together by strange means. Our female lead, named Seo Dal-mi and played by Suzy, is fatherless. We see how her family’s divorce unfolded, how her sister abandoned Dal-mi and her father to go with her mother, who ends up marrying the CEO of a big business corporation in Korea.
While Won In-jae, Dal-mi’s sister, lives a lavish life with her mother, their father is trying to achieve his dream of becoming a business owner, but is hit by a car and dies soon after, leaving Dal-mi all on her own.
We then are connected to the second male lead, Ji-pyeong, who has been enlisted by Dal-mi’s grandmother to write her letters under the name Nam Do-san to try and become friends with her. It was all fake, however, and we discover how this makes a mess later in the future.
The real Nam Do-san, played by Nam Joo-hyuk, is trying to start a tech company with his two goofy friends. This leads his world to collide with Dal-mi’s, as she tries to make her own start-up, as well as Ji-pyeong’s and In-jae’s lives as they all meet at the Sandbox, an incubation for Korea’s most promising entrepreneurs.
We then begin to see classic aspects of the business world, such as the debate between truly trying to better the world or chasing after money and greed.
Some, however, are motivated by revenge. I think a good chunk of our characters do what they do out of guilt.
Ji-pyeong befriends Dal-mi and tries to help her initially out of guilt, but then decides he’s fallen for her. In-jae’s motivation is revenge as well as being able to prove herself, as she wants to take down her sister and wants to be seen as someone who doesn’t need a rich CEO father to succeed in business.
Although, int he end, she is there because of her father. Do-san, towards the end, is motivated by his guilt on how he really isn’t a prodigy, while his friend in the company is moving his way up to avenge his brother’s death (he committed suicide after being harshly taken down by Ji-pyeong).
I found that plotline to be a little weird since there was absolutely no build-up for it and it randomly just comes out in a confrontation later in the series, rather than having a gradual build-up of resentment and anger towards Ji-pyeong.
This is a very simple and streamlined plot, and while our one male lead (Ji-pyeong) represents the K-drama ideal, she instead chooses the shy and awkward guy, which is nice to see. You don’t need a rich man who didn’t ever realize his feelings for you until another guy has you locked down!
He doesn’t really deserve her. I didn’t really care about the romance aspect of this drama though, because I cared more about the characters and their redemption. The romance could’ve been completely scrapped, because it feels overdone how she forgives both of them for the letters scenario.
Like that’s honestly kind of traumatizing to have two men plan this entire plot to fake something in your life, then you just go and forgive them? Like kudos to her, but I don’t know if that’s realistic.
I wonder if these guys would’ve succeeded in the real world. It’s a success story we’d all love to see, but if this group of five was placed together in the real world with absolutely no business or marketing experience, I don’t think they’d make it against seasoned businessmen.
They also straight up blackmailed In-jae’s stepfather to get funding, which is insane to me because that’s shady as hell. Too many convenient tactics in their viral marketing process, like the baseball player, which was pretty unrealistic.
Overall Thoughts
I think it was an okay drama. I started struggling with finishing it towards the end, because we have a classic three year time gap and they just pick off right where they left off.
They also have In-jae and Dal-mi starting a company together (more like Dal-mi joining In-jae’s start-up), but there’s almost no context about how or why they made up.
There was some build up, but as Dal-mi realizes she won’t be joining the guys in SF, she literally just marches into In-jae’s team’s office and says she’s interviewing for a job. Which is ballsy, but also too many gaps are in this relationship. All in all, I think this drama is for a specific audience and that really wasn’t me to be honest.
