K-Drama Review: School 2013
Whenever a K-Drama takes place in a school setting, you can be sure the topics will be widespread and your emotions will be all over the place, from extreme sadness to outrage and everything in between. For this month's review, I will be focusing on one of my favorite school dramas, School 2013. As always, this review will contain spoilers, so consider yourself warned.
School 2013 was a 2012 KBS coming-of-age drama and was the fifth installment in the channel's school series. The show took place at the fictitious Seungri High School in Seoul. Seungri High is one of the worst schools in the city, and the teachers are working hard to raise the students' grades.
Kang Sechan (Choi Daniel) runs a famous hagwon, or cram school, in Seoul. He gets recruited to work at Seungri High as one of their new Korean language teachers. Shortly after he starts working at the school, he gets told that he'll be the co-homeroom teacher to class 2-2, the class with the lowest grade scores. His co-teacher, Jung Injae (Jang Nara), started as a temporary Korean language teacher but got promoted to co-homeroom teacher.
Throughout the school year, Sechan and Injae must battle overbearing parents and corrupt administration while helping their students navigate self-esteem issues, bullying, and of course, helping them pull up their grades.
School 2013 had a few storylines in the series that moved around each other as the show progressed. A main storyline was the bullying that took place in the school. The bullying storyline isn't new in Korean dramas, but for the character Oh Jungho (Kwak Jungwook), you get to see how he became the main bully. In the beginning, the viewers see Jungho as the leader of the misfits that bully everyone. He steals money, smokes, ditches class when he feels like it, and has a real problem with Ko Namsoon (Lee Jongsuk). However, no matter what he does to Namsoon, he can't seem to make him fear him. As the show continues, the viewer sees that Jungho wants to do well, but his home life isn't the best and he is actually getting bullied by other people. Finally, with the help of his homeroom teachers, Namsoon, and Heungsoo, Jungho begins to make the changes in his life he needs to secure a positive future.
Another storyline in the drama is the relationship between Namsoon and Park Heungsoo (Kim Woobin). Heungsoo shows up as the new kid and it's clear that he knows Namsoon. A few episodes go by where you see Namsoon first try to avoid Heungsoo and then be friendly to him, but Heungsoo isn't close with him. The viewers soon discover that Namsoon and Heungsoo were best friends at another school. They were part of the same crew, but Heungsoo had a chance to play soccer professionally. That meant he would have to stop hanging out with his friends. However, their crew rules were that Heungsoo would have to get jumped out of the group. Being jumped out means a group of people punch and kick you for a certain amount of time. Once they're done, you're no longer part of the crew. During this event, Namsoon stomped on Heungsoo's leg, which ruined his chance of being a professional soccer player. It was an accident, but Namsoon felt so guilty that he chose to run away to a new school and never talk to Heungsoo again. This, of course, made Heungsoo angry because he disappeared when he needed his friend the most. It took a long time for the two to reconcile, but when they finally did, they both were crying tears of gratitude. I was too.
Kim Woobin and Lee Jongsuk went on to win "Best New Actor" and "Excellence Award, Actor" at the 2013 APAN Star Awards for their portrayal of their characters. Jang Nara also won the "Excellence Award, Actress in a Miniseries" at the 2012 KBS Drama Awards for her role in the show.
Usually, we discuss the songs of the OST, or the original soundtrack, that left an impression. Unfortunately, School 2013's OST wasn't that memorable. It did, however, feature the songs "Welcome to The School" by 4Minute and "Beautiful Days" by J-Min, both of which were very popular at the time.
This intense school drama is available on Viki, Kocowa, and AppleTV if you want to watch young Kim Woobin and Lee Jongsuk break your heart with their angsty bromance.