[비즈한국] The TVING original series ‘Study Group’ concluded with the release of episodes 9 and 10 on February 20. Based on the Naver webtoon of the same name, ‘Study Group’ is a comic action school drama about Yoon Ga-min (Hwang Min-hyun), who desperately wants to excel at academics but has his talents ‘all-in’ on fighting, as he jumps into the ‘bloody’ college entrance exam race at Yuseong Technical High School and forms a study group. Just watching the first episode reveals that it’s a quite ‘eccentric’ production, but if it matches your taste, you’ll find yourself chuckling throughout.
Yoon Ga-min wears a neatly pressed school uniform, has a modest hairstyle, and sports glasses that fit his model student image. He is a student who immerses himself in studying not only during class but also during break times. He gives off an aura that suggests he would rank first or second in the entire school, but surprisingly, his grades hover around the very bottom. Nevertheless, he does not give up and keeps studying. He wants to go to college. So, after hearing someone mention the special admission track for specialized high schools as a joke, he decides to enroll at Yuseong Technical High School. The problem is that this school is so synonymous with being a ‘gangster training ground’ that it has effectively walled itself off from academics. Far from studying, fistfights are rampant every break time as students try to climb the ‘fighting hierarchy,’ and there are even oil drums placed throughout the school for use as ashtrays for students who smoke.
Still, Yoon Ga-min continues to study. Feeling that his efficiency isn't high enough alone, he decides to gather others who want to study and go to college just like him to form a study group. That is the main story of the drama: Yoon Ga-min searches for ‘the look of someone who wants to study,’ forms a study group, and fights against the cancerous elements of Yuseong Technical High School to restore the school from its abnormal state.
The issue is that while Yoon Ga-min is terrible at studying, he is a ‘god-tier’ fighter. His physical prowess, forged by the belief that one must build stamina to study well, and the various martial arts skills he learned from his uncle are unrivaled. Ga-min just wants to gather friends to study hard, raise his grades, and go to college, but the entities around him keep getting in his way. The ironic situation where he has to fight in order to study provides the humor.
Actually, as Kim Se-hyun (Lee Jong-hyun), the 2nd-ranked student and the first ‘look’ Ga-min finds, points out, it would be much smarter for someone like Yoon Ga-min to go to college through sports rather than academics. After all, despite his intense efforts, his rank never goes up. Nevertheless, Yoon Ga-min does not give up. Though he doesn't yet know what he will do once he becomes a college student, it is significant that he does not find the process of studying tedious. Even if he gets 99 out of 100 questions wrong, he finds pure joy in the one he got right. Just when you think Yoon Ga-min might be a parody of real-life people obsessed with the means of 'college,' you realize that might not be the case. The words spoken by the grandfather of Kim Soon-chul (Joo Yeon-woo), played by special guest Jeon Moo-song, resonate with Yoon Ga-min: "The moment a person stops learning, their life stops as well."
The study group is eventually formed with Yoon Ga-min and Kim Se-hyun, but even after that, they find themselves in more fights than study sessions. That’s because they are at Yuseong Technical High School. There is a reason why Yuseong Technical High School is so blatantly abnormal that even teachers have given up on it. The school’s foundation, the Yeonbaek Foundation, is a front used by the Yeonbaek faction—a nationwide gang that poses as the large conglomerate YB Group—to launder money and serve as a source of political slush funds. The real power behind Yuseong Technical High School is the chairman’s son, Pi Han-ul (Cha Woo-min), a second-year student who promotes a school fighting ranking app and runs the school according to his whims. His wickedness is such that he does not hesitate to have people murdered if they get in his way.
Thus, Yoon Ga-min and his friends fight hard until the final 10th episode. To protect the study group members, to protect their teacher Lee Han-kyung (Han Ji-eun), to normalize the school, and to pursue the studying he has dreamed of so much. Oh, and you don’t need to avoid this drama just because you dislike violent scenes. Calling this drama ‘eccentric’ is no exaggeration. The violence is certainly graphic enough to make you wince—with blood splattering, skin tearing, and even weapons being used—but the descriptions and tone are cartoonishly exaggerated, so you can laugh them off. When someone takes down an enemy with a flaming backpack or punches someone so hard they don't just fly away but break through a wall, is there any reason to get serious?
‘Study Group’ employs an exaggerated, cartoonish technique for its depictions of violence and tosses in unexpected laughs with an offbeat tone. The setting is unique, the direction is distinct, and the protagonists’ acting is fresh. In particular, it is a significant achievement of the drama that Hwang Min-hyun, previously thought to be a case of exquisite type-casting in the ‘Alchemy of Souls’ series, is now remembered as an actor with a promising future. While he made good use of his handsome face and kind yet cold image during ‘Alchemy of Souls,’ his acting range seemed limited, but in ‘Study Group,’ though still a bit lacking in emotional scenes, he demonstrated the potential for comic acting by utilizing his physical presence alongside his action skills. Another strength of the drama is the chance to see a large cast of fresh, young actors like Lee Jong-hyun, Cha Woo-min, Shin Soo-hyun, Yoon Sang-jung, Gong Do-yu, Baek Seo-hoo, and Park Yoon-ho.
‘Study Group’ has recorded 1st place in paid subscription contributions on TVING for three consecutive weeks and is showing intense global popularity, reaching the Top 2 in 74 countries and the Top 5 in 147 countries on global OTT platforms like Rakuten Viki. Not only are the fresh story, speedy pacing, and cartoon-like action and direction appealing, but the OST tracks like ‘Back Packer’ by Seok Matthew and Park Gun-wook, and ‘Hood’ by Kim Ha-on are also incredibly catchy. A 10-episode binge-watch will take just over 7 hours, so go ahead and enjoy it as easily and joyfully as flipping through a comic book.
Who is the writer, Jung Soo-jin?
She has worked at various magazines, covering film, travel, and pop culture. She doesn't want to fall behind the trends, but she has become an old-school person who, while watching the latest dramas, only predicts the obvious clichés for the next scene. She is currently drifting through the vast OTT world trying to recover her lost sense of trends, and her current wish is for the release of an integrated OTT subscription plan.