This review may contain spoilers
So where’s the lesson?
I went into this pretty much completely blind, and the story ended up going in a very different direction from what I initially expected. I wanted to love this a lot.
At first, it actually reminded me a lot of Gokusen: the troubled class, the badass teacher, and the whole “I’m going to deal with these problem students” setup not forgetting the comedy. But unlike Gokusen, where the relationship between the students and the adult guiding them is built up over time, this series very quickly turns into a “superhero teacher vs. bad kids” situation.
I can see that the show is trying to give the characters and the story some layers, but because of that basic setup, it ends up feeling surprisingly one-dimensional to me. The causal relationship with the bullies to their home and social environment is only slightly touched and i believe it could’ve gone way deeper. Likewise the very dramatized end-boss being this 18 year old drug dealer kid seemed a bit much.
Some of the scenes where the “problem students” get beaten up supposedly to teach them a lesson just leave me confused. Is this meant to be funny? Am I supposed to cheer for it? Feel satisfied? Feel uncomfortable? Because most of the time I’m just sitting there wondering what the show actually wants me to take away from it.
I understand the context, though. South Korea has a very serious bullying problem, and this kind of drama clearly comes out of that social reality, as well as the popularity of revenge and school-bullying dramas. But I still feel like the underlying issues are much deeper than what the series actually chooses to explore.
And this is what I keep coming back to: what exactly is the lesson supposed to be? Is it really just “an eye for an eye” as in hit the bully back harder and put them in prison?
Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I think the series would have worked better if it had fully committed to one direction. It could have gone all-in on the exaggerated, almost anime-like superhero approach, where the over the top violence and larger than life characters are simply part of the fun. Or it could have taken the more serious route and really dug deeper into the underlying problems and why these things happen in the first place.
Right now, it feels like it’s trying to do both at the same time, and the result is a bit confusing. It wants the satisfaction and spectacle of a superhero revenge story while also touching on serious social issues, but it never quite goes deep enough into either one.
At first, it actually reminded me a lot of Gokusen: the troubled class, the badass teacher, and the whole “I’m going to deal with these problem students” setup not forgetting the comedy. But unlike Gokusen, where the relationship between the students and the adult guiding them is built up over time, this series very quickly turns into a “superhero teacher vs. bad kids” situation.
I can see that the show is trying to give the characters and the story some layers, but because of that basic setup, it ends up feeling surprisingly one-dimensional to me. The causal relationship with the bullies to their home and social environment is only slightly touched and i believe it could’ve gone way deeper. Likewise the very dramatized end-boss being this 18 year old drug dealer kid seemed a bit much.
Some of the scenes where the “problem students” get beaten up supposedly to teach them a lesson just leave me confused. Is this meant to be funny? Am I supposed to cheer for it? Feel satisfied? Feel uncomfortable? Because most of the time I’m just sitting there wondering what the show actually wants me to take away from it.
I understand the context, though. South Korea has a very serious bullying problem, and this kind of drama clearly comes out of that social reality, as well as the popularity of revenge and school-bullying dramas. But I still feel like the underlying issues are much deeper than what the series actually chooses to explore.
And this is what I keep coming back to: what exactly is the lesson supposed to be? Is it really just “an eye for an eye” as in hit the bully back harder and put them in prison?
Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I think the series would have worked better if it had fully committed to one direction. It could have gone all-in on the exaggerated, almost anime-like superhero approach, where the over the top violence and larger than life characters are simply part of the fun. Or it could have taken the more serious route and really dug deeper into the underlying problems and why these things happen in the first place.
Right now, it feels like it’s trying to do both at the same time, and the result is a bit confusing. It wants the satisfaction and spectacle of a superhero revenge story while also touching on serious social issues, but it never quite goes deep enough into either one.
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