’20th Century Girl’ Explained: What Happened to Poong Woon-ho in the Finale?

A 17-year-old high schooler helps her friend learn everything about her crush in '20th Century Girl.' Woon-ho and Bo-ra fall in love, but life has other plans for the young couple.

by Gabriela Silva

Published on October 24, 2022

3 min read

’20th Century Girl’: Bo-ra learns who her best friend’s crush really is

The 2022 K-drama movie starts with an older adult version of Bo-ra at her job doing voice-overs for a commercial. She receives a call from her father about a package. The package reveals a letter, an adult-rated movie, and a postcard. Audiences are transported to 1999 to Bo-ra’s complex story of her first love.

Her friend Yeon-du (Roh Yoon-seo) is going to the States to get heart surgery and tells Bo-ra about meeting a boy she fell in love with. Fans do not get to see who it is, just the encounter. Yeon-du asks her friend to find out everything about him while she is away. His name is Baek Hyun-jin (Park Jung-woo).

To get closer, she learns he and his best friend, Poon Woon-ho (Byeon Woo-seok), will join the broadcasting team. She auditions successfully, but then Hyun-jin backs out, leaving her to get closer to Woon-ho. Bo-ra is successful in getting Hyun-jin’s pager number for Yeon-du. But in the case of mistaken feelings, Hyun-jin develops feelings for Bo-ra.

She appropriately rejects him and soon realizes she has fallen in love with Woon-ho. But when Yeon-du returns, Bo-ra learns she was wrong about the target. The boy Yeon-du has a crush on is Woon-ho. He was wearing Hyun-jin’s school jacket when he moved from New Zealand. Bo-ra is left sacrificing her love for the sake of her friend.

What happens to Woon-ho after he leaves for New Zealand in ’20th Century Girl’?

The movie takes a heartbreaking turn as Bo-ra and Woon-ho’s first love story breaks apart. Being a friend, Bo-ra breaks it off with Woon-ho but does not tell him why. It leads to a rift between the friends and Woon-ho. But sadly, Woon-ho has to return to New Zealand. Yeon-du learns the truth and ridicules Bo-ra for not following her heart. Before it is too late, Hyun-jin takes Bo-ra to the train station to say a tearful goodbye.

The big question of the 20th Century Girl is what happens after Woon-ho leaves? Do they get together again as he promised? Sadly, the movie takes a tear-jerking turn. Bo-ra goes off to college and cannot get over her first love. But oddly, Woon-ho never calls or writes to her. It leads to a mystery.

So what happened to Woon-ho? The movie shifts back to an adult Bo-ra attending an art show by an artist named Joseph. At the end of an art installation, Bo-ra learns the truth. Woon-ho died in 2001 at the age of 18 or 19. Joseph is Woon-ho’s younger brother who made the exhibit for Bo-ra. He reveals that she was Woon-ho’s first and only love. Woon-ho dreamed of returning to Korea to see her.

20th Century Girl ends with Bo-ra watching the videotape sent to her. It reveals Woon-ho having filmed Hyun-jin, other students, and Bo-ra. The tape shifts to a meadow in the mountains of New Zealand. A young Joseph begs Woon-ho not to leave for Korea to see Bo-ra. Woon-ho addresses Bo-ra and says that it is already the 21st century in New Zealand. He wants her to wait for him because he wants to meet Bo-ra of the 21st century.

What did Woon-ho die from?

One of the tragedies of 20th Century Girl is that fans never find out what happened to Woon-ho. Audiences never hear Joseph tell Bo-ra how or what he died from. The video proves he was on his way back to South Korea for New Year’s to find his first love again. But sadly, it never happens, which explains why Bo-ra never got a call or letter from him while in college.

Audiences also realize why the movie is titled 20th Century Girl. Because Woon-ho never got to meet Bo-ra again, the last happy memories he has of her are from the 20th century. It also means that Bo-ra never learns about the confession letter he had written for her revealing he fell in love months before ever meeting her. Alongside Twenty-Five Twenty-One, fans got another heartbreaking end to a young love story.

20th Century Girl is available on Netflix.