Introduction
When I heard about this drama, I hesitated to watch it. First, I don’t watch high school dramas anymore. Second, I don’t like Korean school bullying dramas. However, after checking out the first episode, I soon fell for the main protagonist’s character. Not only the character is cute, mostly because of his ambition to study, graduate high school, and go to college, and his perseverance to create and maintain a study group. But the watching experience doesn’t come without a warning. Are you ready?
Drama Info
Drama title: Study Group (Native title: 스터디그룹 )
Alternative title: Seuteodigeulub
Genres: Action, Thriller, Comedy, Youth
Aired: Jan 23, 2025 - Feb 20, 2025
Episodes: 10 | Duration: 50 minutes
Director: Lee Jang Hoon ( 이장훈 )
Screenwriter: Oh Bo Hyun ( 오보현 )
Adapted from the webtoon "Study Group" ( 스터디그룹 )
written by Shin Hyung Wook ( 신형욱 ) and illustrated by Ryu Seung Yeon ( 류승연 ).
Where to read the English-translated webtoon: Webtoon
Where to watch: Viki
Trailer:
Synopsis
It follows the life of student Yun Ga Min, who wants to be good at studying but is only good at fighting, as he forms a study group at the worst school on earth and tells a fierce story about college entrance exams. (Source: excerpted from MyDramaList)
Characters
Main Characters
Hwang Min Hyun ( 황민현 ) as Yun Ga Min
First Grade. At first glance, Ga Min looks like a normal model student. He is also ambitious to graduate high school and go to college. But in fact, he is at the bottom of the class. He has tried many ways to improve his studying skills until the last option is to form a study group. Therefore, as soon as his study group friends are bullied, Ga Min takes off his glasses and takes the bullies down with his fighting skills.
Han Ji Eun ( 한지은 ) as Lee Han Gyeong
A new classroom teacher with a sweet appearance and a golden heart. She was also a tutor who taught the teen Ga Min when she was in college. When she reunited with her former tutor-student, she fully supported him to form a study group. However, she has her mission to enter Yuseong Technical High.
Cha Woo Min ( 차우민 ) as Pi Han Ul
Second Grade. I don’t need to spoil you, his handsome but cold face says it all. He is ruthless and yes, he is the big boss. Wanna be a boss like his father who is the chairman of the powerful Yeon Baek Group. A big fish in a small pond. Pi Han Ul is the little boss, and Yuseong Technical High is his kingdom. Not only students, but school staff are also under his thumb.
Lee Jong Hyun ( 이종현 ) as Kim Se Hyeon
First Grade. As Ga Min’s classmate, Se Hyeon tries to be unseen and uninterrupted. He is the second place in terms of grades, but he rather study by himself. Besides, he is quiet, shy, and lacks self-confidence because his construction worker father thinks his going to college dream is not worth it. Se Hyeon is the first member of the study group.
Sin Su Hyun ( 신수현 ) as Lee Ji U
First Grade. The second member in the study group, whom Ga Min found in an unexpected place, the girls-only class. She likes sports and is physically strong, thus she knows how to fight. Although she is rude, she cannot stand injustice and values friendship. Joining a study group is never her idea, especially when her twin brother is first in line to be Ga Min’s bully and enemy.
Yoon Sang Jung ( 윤상정 ) as Choi Hui Won
First Grade. Although she is cute, and sweet, and comes from an upper-class family, Hui Won was still bullied on her first day of class. Having been saved by Ji U from the bullying, Hui Won sees her as her bestie and idol. Therefore, when Hui Won finds out that she will transfer school, she makes sure that her heroine stays in a safe place, which is the study group. Later, when Hui Won doesn’t transfer school, she becomes the fourth member of the study group.
Gong Do Yu ( 공도유 ) as Lee Jun
First Grade. The last member of the group joins for totally a wrong reason. Having seen Ga Min’s exceptional fighting skills, Lee Jun hopes that by joining the study group, Ga Min will also teach him how to fight. Lee Jun entered Yuseong Technical High for the wrong reason, too. He wants to level up his fighting skills and eventually be hired by Yeon Baek Group and meet his best friend again.
Supporting Characters
There are so many supporting and guest characters for such a short drama, especially the bad guys, lol. I will just put here notable supporting/guest characters.
The Youngsters
The Grownups
Original Soundtrack
Review
An ode to the bullied
Before I review the drama, I will explain to you why I regard this drama as “an ode to the bullied” as indicated in the article title.
In literature, an ode to someone is a poem that praises or celebrates a person, place, event, or idea.
That means this article is to praise the characters who are bullied in this drama because they fight back together. The social message is also for any bullying victims out there to fight back together, because you may not be able to fight alone.
Many characters in this drama are bullied to some extent. Ga Min, although we don’t see he was physically bullied when he was small, he was rejected by many study groups and made fun of his perseverance to study despite his bad grades (social bullying). Almost every student at Yuseong High has been physically bullied and beaten up because of the fighter ranking system app set up by Pi Han Ul.
The four most common types of school bullying are physical, verbal, relational, and cyberbullying (source: CCEI). Examples:
- Physical Bullying: It can include kicking, hitting, punching, and threats of physical violence.
- Verbal Bullying: Name calling, making fun of someone, and persistent teasing.
- Relational/social Bullying: Exclusionary behavior may include purposefully leaving someone out from a social activity, spreading hurtful or embarrassing rumors, or even encouraging others to adopt similar social behaviors toward the target.
- Cyberbullying: With the ability for perpetrators to hide behind screens, it’s also the hardest category to keep tabs on, and bullying might come from someone you wouldn’t expect.
We thought that only students at Yuseong Technical High, that deemed “the “school for future criminals”, are bullied due to the school environment. However, the drama also depicts that students from upper-scale schools in Seoul are also bullied, not by the students from the same school but by the school next door!
Story
Why in my introduction I give you a warning about the watching experience? Let me start the review to explain you further. And if you want to know the ending, there’s a spoiler after the Conclusion.
Action
The action scenes in this drama are divided into two types. One type is the anime-like action scenes that are quite hilarious (as seen below), and the other is live-action, a well-choreographed fighting scene. In just one episode such as Episode 2, you see these two different fighting scene styles. In my opinion, these divisions are praiseworthy, because if we see the real fighting scenes all the time, they’ll be quite gory.
That being said, here comes the first warning: it’s quite bloody and full of violence. The bullies and the bad guys are just violent. Ga Min, too, can be naive in a fighting scene, for example when someone tries to attack him but mistakenly thinks the person wants to join his study group; or can be full of anger and ruthlessness, for example when he tries to avenge his mother.
Thriller
Besides action, this drama is full of suspense and tension. Almost every time our study group wants to study in peace, there are always hindrances coming from the bad guys even when they’re going to Seoul just to visit a study group in another school, far from Yuseong, they’re still being chased!
Comedy
While we see a lot of violent fighting scenes, the drama balances with hilarious comedic scenes either in the dialogues, or scenes, are the character’s antics. Yun Ga Min himself, he’s just so eccentrically unworldly that his naïveté makes us laugh.
Youth
Besides comedy, the dialogues, scenes, are the characters’ antics also show the freshness of the youth genre (or because I don’t watch many youth dramas anymore?). As I wrote above Yun Ga Min is an unconventional character. But the rest of the study group members seem normal teens with their youthful innocence. In the scene below, for example, Se Hyeon and Hui Won, both cannot fight physically but are eager to help and rescue the team with whatever they have. These two are so cute!
Script
The second warning is the foul language that makes Study Group content rating drama restricted to 18+ for violence and profanity. This is an irony since first-grade high schoolers in South Korea typically start at age 16. Since I don’t read the Webtoon, I assume the script language follows the Webtoon language.
Character
And finally, for the last warning, in my opinion, most characters are two-dimensional, there are no depths of characters not even character growth. It makes sense, because this is a short drama of 10 episodes only, with youth-theme, and coming from a Webtoon. It seems the scriptwriter didn’t explore much about the characters and only wrote whatever was shown in the Webtoon. Having said that, we have Weak Hero Class 1 ( 약한영웅 Class 1 ), a short Kdramas with only 8 episodes that are exceptionally deep in characterization. One may argue that the above drama only has three main characters in comparison to Study Group. However, there is also another Korean youth drama Begins Youth ( 비긴즈 유스 ) with 12 episodes and 7 main characters who also have character depths.
That being said, if you think Study Group for a youth drama with deep storytelling, because of the bullying theme, this is not it. It is purely entertaining action thriller comedy.
Acting
In connection with two-dimensional characters, comes also with two-dimensional acting, in which most actors do not convey micro-expressions. I am not sure if this was dictated by the director or just because there are too many young actors. In my opinion, Hwang Min Yun did better acting in this drama than in his previous two dramas Alchemy of Souls ( 환혼 ) and Lovely Liar ( 소용없어 거짓말 ). Maybe because he was compared with far more experienced actors and actresses in both dramas. For the young actors, I praised Baek Seo Hoo who played the second honcho Ma Min Hwan, because he annoys me so much, lol! As for the veteran actors, Han Ji Eun did just an okay job as Teacher Lee. But the brief appearance of Jeon Moo Song as Kim Sun Cheol’s grandfather steals the show! (He did a great job in Tomorrow ( 내일 ), too!)
Visual Effects
Fortunately, the drama managed to entertain watchers, not with the two-dimensional acting of the actors, but with awesome fighting choreography and cinematography! This is especially needed since there are so many unrealistic and over-the-top fighting scenes, for example when Ga Min unleashes his uncle’s forbidden techniques, that CGI is a way to go!
The makeup department, tho, did a ridiculous but hilarious job of making the bad guys wounded very badly but the main characters seem to stay unscathed with only band-aids and scratches here and there. The below image is how the leading characters appear in the aftermath of the showdown when they were embroiled in gruesome and violent fights, which normally leave the fighters black-and-blue with broken bones, lol!
Conclusion
After all the over-the-top and illogical plot and scenes, Study Group is really a fun watch! Mostly you will laugh at Yun Ga Min’s antics, the teen cute innocence, and the caricaturistic fighting scenes. You will squirm from the violence but not much of tears in heartbreaking scenes. Although it ends nicely, there are indications that the drama can have a sequel in the future, though not in talk, yet. Watch the short scene after the ending credit of the final episode if you haven’t yet. Besides, the study group members are still at their first grade, there are still two years to go before they graduate high school. Will Yun Ga Min achieve his dream of going to college? That’s probably the premise for the sequel if there is any.
Ending Spoilers
What happened to the leading and notable characters?
Everything ends well after the showdown. Pi Han Ul is arrested because he is the mastermind of the former teacher’s death. However, of course, his father has an attorney ready to defend him. The vice principal is also arrested. Park Geon Yeop received a text message that JB Group called him for an internship. Maybe to atone for the death of his mother. The school’s Disciplinary Team now acts like the normal disciplinary students and checks every student if they deleted the awful app mandated by Pi Han Ul before. The study group members continue studying for their final semester exam.
What’s in the extra scene after the ending credit?
On Teacher Lee Han Gyeong’s desk, someone put down a resignation letter. It’s assumed Teacher Lee did it since her mission to reveal Pi Han Ul’s involvement in the murder case is resolved. But what happens to the study group if she leaves?
I simply love your reviews!
Hope they will create season 2 as it was an absolute joy!
Btw I love that we got same idea with the word “ode” in our articles!
Keep it up <3
Thank you! I used “ode” on my title because in the past I used “elegy” for my other article, also about a highschool drama (Weak Hero Class 1). It’s like the same vibe, lol. As much as we all want Season 2, but with a concern since sometimes season twos don’t meet the expectation of the quality of their prequels. Hopefully it won’t be the case with Study Group 🙏