Brief Story Line
After seeing the increase of school violence and teachers losing respects and being targeted by students and parents, the Minister of Education Choi Gang-seok (Lee Sung-min - Handsome Guys, Reborn Rich TV series etc) proposed the establishment of Educational Rights Protection Bureau (ERPB) which was given full authority to discipline students and improve the school system by using any means necessary. Na Hwa-jin (Kim Mu-yeol - The Gangster, The Cop and The Devil, Queen Woo TV series etc) was appointed as the Inspector to visit the schools having problems who was later assisted by another inspector Im Ha-rim (Jin Ki-joo - Land of Happiness, Undercover High School TV series etc) and young civil servant Bong Geun-dae (Pyo Ji-hoon aka P.O - ).
However such powers obviously created a lot of controversies especially with the use of physical force. A member of National Assembly Hwang Gi-tae (Kim Jong-soo - Revolver, The Manipulated TV series etc) heavily criticized the Bureau and used the public support to try and close it down.
So how would ERPB deal with the challenge from the schools and also from the public spotlight? You could find out in the series.
End of Brief Story Line
I did not have any knowledge about this series previously and only caught glimpse of its teaser in the Coming Soon section of Netflix. But I did read a headline on it that made me pretty intrigued. And I was glad that I decided to watch as I was entertained by the series. Now the early part was actually a bit slow and I thought the characters were rather thinly described. After seeing the end of the first episode though, I realized that this is not a series that has one big case spread till the end, but instead every episode would have different problems (kind of like police procedural series) which made me excited at the prospect of seeing other interesting cases .
The second episode just like the first was also focusing on bullying at school, though it was combined with a bit of criminal activity. Now this was the part where I was really enjoying cause Na Hwa-jin showed his amazing fighting skill. It also had some awesome fight choreography that was fun to watch. Subsequently the cases had more variety, but they always involved school system and had one thing in common, i.e. an oppressed party whether it's a teacher or a student. Not all of the cases required Hwa-jin's skill set and I liked the way other characters were given large portion to show their abilities as well. Even Minister Choi's actions (not physical kind) were a joy to see.
As the story continued, we were also shown some background of the forming of ERPB and a case that haunted Hwa-jin which would have significance in latter episodes. This was exactly the kind of story arc that made this entertaining as well, in addition to the standard case. Overall this series had 10 episodes (at first I thought only 8) with duration between 50+ minutes to a little over 1 hour. Some episodes were having lots of action (like the 2nd, 7th and the finale) while the rest were combination of using intellient strategy with some drama involved. Funnily enough the 7th episode felt a bit like one of Taxi Driver episode which was truly enjoyable if you want to see some cool actions. Although not all use fights to complete the mission, most episodes were still enjoyable as they had satisfying conclusion to me. There was even a nice twist in the final episode.
This series created a lot of controversies due to the excessive use of force to discipline students and a lot of protests were done as well, including by teachers and fans of stars who were cast (or even rumored to be cast) here. Critics were mixed too on their opinion of this series. But to casual audience like me, this was something that I enjoyed as I always loved to see bad people punished accordingly (or suffered the same fate as the ones they bullied). That is why I recommended my wife to watch it as soon as she can as I am pretty sure she would have liked it too. Btw the ending was pretty conclusive to me which was likely the reason Netflix categorized it as limited series. Even though there was a scene that could have been a teaser for future, I felt it was just a way of showing that problems at school would continue to exist. Hence a new season is not necessary even though the source materials are still plenty to be explored (this was adapted from webtoon series titled Get Schooled by Chae Yong-taek and Han Ga-ram). However should they choose to renew it, I would gladly watch it.
I like the performance of the main cast, but personally to me Jin Ki-joo's character was rather annoying with her continuous screaming that was sometimes unbearable. She did however has a rather fun chemistry with Pyo Ji-hoon. Aside from those above, there were a lot of guest stars appearing in each episode including few recurring like Hwa-jin's fiancée Choi Ga-yoon (Ha Young - The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call TV series etc), Lee Bong-jun (I Am Running Mate TV series etc) as her student Cho Gyu-cheol and some others. The series itself was directed by Hong Jong-chan (director of Juvenile Justice web series, Her Private Life TV series etc). One thing that I was not truly satisfied was the choosing of people who looked too old as students of their age, especially in episodes 6 and 9.
In the end this series did show there were a lot of issues and challenges faced in school which were resolved by unconventional means. People who take this too seriously might be inclined to agree with those who thought this as too violent, but I viewed the series as having pretty high entertainment value. I like the action (though would have loved more of them) and the fate of those bullies, plus the strategy of completing the mission plus some of the humor. So if you are in the mood to watch bullies (physical and psychological type) being punished and the bullied got their justice, then this would really satisfy you. But if you are hoping for a series that properly show how to resolve problems at school without violence or using conventional means, then you definitely would not enjoy this. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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