By Pierce Conran

Copyright scmp

Lead cast: Kim Da-mi, Shin Ye-eun
Latest Nielsen rating: 3.59 per cent
The early autumn drop in temperatures has ushered in a wave of nostalgia in South Korea, with two major new series inviting viewers to return to the past: Netflix’s You and Everything Else gallops through the 1990s and the earlier decades of the 2000s, while A Hundred Memories goes back to the 1980s.
Kim Da-mi (Nine Puzzles) and Shin Ye-eun (Jeongnyeon: The Star Is Born) lead this series about bus attendants, a female-only profession that was introduced in Korea in the early 1960s before being phased out by the late 1980s.

With their distinct blue uniforms and red caps, the bus attendants would help people get on and off buses, announce stop information and collect fares, before automation rendered the role obsolete.
Kim is the bright and indefatigable attendant Go Young-rye, who reads at every opportunity she can and has collected an impressive array of skills, whether it is finding her way around a sewing machine or an abacus.
She tries to support her poor mother, Park Man-ok (Lee Jung-eun, Parasite), who runs a small stall in a market while raising two younger children at home. Young-rye also has an older brother at university.
While on duty one day, her bus rumbles off without her after she stuffs all the passengers aboard. Seo Jong-hee (Shin), a passenger on the bus, waves down the driver to help her get back on.

Jong-hee rides all the way to the last stop, and the grateful Young-rye thanks her on her way out, unsure of how to repay her kindness.
Her chance comes soon enough, as later that evening, Jong-hee shows up in Young-rye’s dorm as the newest recruit of Cheona Transportation.
Unlike the pliable and diffident Young-rye, Jong-hee is straightforward and confident, and does not let anyone take advantage of her, especially the bossy Hae-ja (Lee Min-ji, Undercover High School), who lords over the dorm.
The pair soon become firm friends, helping and protecting each other, but also feeding each other’s dreams.

Their bond even takes them to a screening of the erotic box office smash Madame Aema – also the subject of Aema, another female-solidarity-themed drama released this year – before inspiring them to enrol in night school together.
One of the students at the night school is Han Jae-pil (Heo Nam-jun, When the Stars Gossip), the son of a strict corporate chairman, who dreams of becoming a boxer.
Even before enrolling in night school, Young-rye bumps into Jae-pil a couple of times, including when he saves her in an alley after she runs after some students who skipped their fares.
In typical K-drama fashion, the show contrives several other encounters, including a blind date, when Young-rye and Jong-hee fill in for some high school girls. Meanwhile, unbeknown to Young-rye, her brother is currently Jae-pil’s tutor.

While A Hundred Memories revels in the nostalgia factor of bus attendants, it settles for offering us a romanticised snapshot of what was actually a difficult profession.
In the 1980s, the profession made waves when several attendants decried the sexual harassment and poor working conditions they were routinely subjected to.
The 1981 classic film The Maiden Who Went to the City, directed by Kim Soo-yong, a filmmaker who often foregrounded women’s roles in society, exposed these working conditions.
Attendants were often searched at the end of shifts to make sure they had not skimmed, sometimes being subjected to humiliating strip-searches. A Hundred Memories does mention the searches, but only in the context of one of its side characters, who is actually skimming cash.

While the profession at the heart of A Hundred Memories is a novel one for today’s viewers, it is the only unique aspect of the show, which quickly settles into a familiar story of two girls becoming friends as they join forces, only for a wedge to appear between them when a handsome boy shows up.
Aside from the novelty, the friendship between Young-rye and Jong-hee is the show’s most compelling aspect, with talented performers Kim and Shin adding their unique charms to a relationship that feels more grounded and realistic than the story happening around them.
Though Heo acquits himself well as Jae-pil, his character arc is less compelling, and the same can be said of other side plots, including Man-ok’s financial woes, which feel too melodramatic and engineered.
A Hundred Memories offers nostalgic comfort food anchored by two good leads who share strong chemistry – but in skipping the harsh realities of its period milieu, it feels like a missed opportunity, never straying from its rose-tinted viewpoint.
A Hundred Memories is streaming on Viu.