Rants, reviews, shitposts, liveblogging

It’s been a while since Seo Kang Joon has graced my screen so when I heard that he was finally making a comeback to kdramaland with Undercover High School I had to at least give his drama a chance even if the plot sounded… well, strange. But a grown man having to go back to high school and then falling for his homeroom teacher did work for me in My Strange Hero. But then again it might just have been Yoo Seung Ho’s charm that worked it’s magic on me. And iron rarely strikes hot twice with these sort of premises.

Absolutely nothing about this drama sounds or looks like it’s going to be very smart, well crafted story with a very hard hitting mystery at the center of it, because the story relies very heavily on you just going with the flow and accept the inner logic of the this 30 year old man going back to high school to uncover some… lost gold. And this is somehow something that needs him to go as an undercover student instead of id… a teacher or a janitor or something? When he is a top tier secret agent or something.

things just sort of happen because they need to happen. Like if you ask too many questions while watching it, like why is the patroling this abandoned building etc? you are just going to come out of it with more questions and absolutely no answers, because the plot is very… dumb. It’s just an excuse for us to look at Seo Kang Joon’s pretty face and so far… I am okay with that.

The story sure does rely a lot on you just going ‘well, sure this might as well be happening’ and you just sort of watching it somewhat brainlessly. But I must say that I was enjoying this bizarre plot that was happening before me a little bit. I was entertained, which truly is the main goal of this drama.

There are other Seo Kang Joon dramas that have fallen under the ‘I love this dumb show’ umbrella. As in the wonder that was Are You Human? so I know that man can make things work. And he is charming in this role for sure. And so far he seems to be the sole main character of the drama as the main female lead doesn’t seem to be as involved with the story or get as much screen time or exploration of a tragic backstory (but you really can’t beat a missing father who also was an agent who left you to be raised by the team leader of your current unit wackiness). It’s truly is his story.

I do take an issue with that, because a lot of times kdramas do only sideline the female character in the second half, but not right at the beginning. But here is hoping that once she knows the truth about him and joins them on the hunt for the gold (which I am hoping will happen soon, like in ep 3) she will get more involved with the story.

The question is… will it at some point stop entertaining me and the dumb plot will instead just start to aggravate me. I think it might come down to the characters and how likeable they will be and how invested I become in their storylines. So far they are all a bit cookie cutter. We have the typical set of students, the rich spoiled girl who runs the show, the corrupt principal who is involved in some shady thing, the spunky homeroom teacher who just wants to prove herself at her job for me security but because of that she doesn’t pay much attention to the kids, the kid who livestreams everything and the bullies etc.

although one of those school bullies is definetly not a teen. wtf is up with that?

It’s all sort of paint by numbers sort of dumbness that is entertaining, but the question is for how long. But I will continue to watch this drama until the day that it all just makes me roll my eyes rather then chuckle.