[ K ] Start-Up

Don’t let the ‘boring’ title mislead you into thinking this is just a series about IT nerds.

If you have watched enough Korean dramas, you won’t be surprised how good they are in taking a hot topic ‘off tangent’ and develop it into a blockbuster. Start-up is a celebration of youth, enthusiasm, idealism, entrepreneurial spirit and good family values, all meshed into one.

Set in this imaginary place called Sand Box which looks very much like the Google campus, a group of young brainy Koreans find ways to let their ideas shine while navigating other pressing issues in life. Many are driven by monetary gains but beyond the superficial, there is also an yearning to develop meaningful products for the less fortunate.

A doting father wants a safe environment where his daughter can try new adventures but not be afraid of hurting herself too much when she falls. Thus Sand Box – play, take risks, fail, stand up again. Not just in work, but in life. A personal wish of a dad becomes a philosophy for a business. Talk about dreaming big.

The series is driven a lot by several themes, one being gratitude. A young orphan never forgets the stranger who gives him shelter, the same person who shows him what it means to be truly magnanimous even when wronged. She wants to be there when he’s lost, not when he’s successful. But it comes a time when she may be in need, now what will he do? Perhaps she will prefer that he just passes it on to others more needy than her.

But what good is a series without complicated affairs of the heart? Between the anonymous lover letter writer who keeps you alive in your teenage years and the hot blooded clueless dude who stumbles into your life clumsily, who do you choose? Both or none is probably the good wrong answer.

Will there be happy endings? I don’t think it really matters.

To me, this Start-Up is already a winner

Find out for yourself.