# Boyhood (2023)

> A small, bullied boy transfers to a rural agricultural high school in 1980s South Korea and is pulled into a gang-filled turning point in his life.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/150333

## Facts

- Seasons: 2
- Episodes: 10
- Episode runtime: 60 min
- Status: Returning Series
- Genres: drama, comedy
- Created by: Lee Myung-woo
- Network: Coupang Play
- Cast: Yim Si-wan, Lee Sun-bin, Lee Si-woo, Kang Hye-won, Kim Jeong-jin, Lee Sang-jin, Kim Yoon-bae, Heo Geon-young
- TMDB rating: 7.9/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28486727/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: accessible
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: nostalgic, gritty, wistful, scrappy, sincere

## Synopsis

Boyhood (2023) is a South Korean coming of age series created by Lee Myung-woo for Coupang Play, a Korean television drama with comic edges. Yim Si-wan plays Jang Byung-tae, a small and weak boy at the bottom of his school's social ladder in Onyang, who transfers to the neighboring Buyeo Agricultural High School and is swept into an unexpected incident that becomes a turning point in his life. Lee Sun-bin, Lee Si-woo and Kang Hye-won fill out the principal circle of classmates and rivals, and their friendships, loyalties and rivalries drive the episodes. The engine is a newcomer trying to earn a place among hard-edged teenage delinquents while the ground under him keeps shifting. The single season runs ten hour-long episodes and follows one continuing story in which each confrontation shapes the next. Set in provincial South Korea during the 1980s, the series evokes dusty school grounds, rural town life and the rough codes of youth gangs. Its tone mixes scrappy humor with sincere, wistful emotion and a bruised sense of belonging. Fans of Reply 1988, Hwarang and Sky Castle will find resonance in its nostalgic school milieu and its portrait of teenage survival.

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