South Korea launches about 100 film and drama works every year, of which the campus is the background is even more popular, but only a few can become classics. Here are 10 campus-themed Korean dramas worth watching, ranging from the upcoming ones to 2022 and previous classics.
1: Zombie Campus
Zombie Campus is a South Korean thriller directed by Lee Jae-kyu, written by Chun Sung-il, and starring Yoon Chan-young, Park Ji-ho, Cho Yi-hyun, Park Solomon, etc., and aired on Netflix on January 28, 2022.
Adapted from Zhu Donggen's comic "Extreme Panic", the drama tells the story of people who have no way to escape and people who want to rescue them in the zombie virus-ravaged Hyoyama High School, and experience a series of unpredictable stories in order to survive.
"Zombie Campus" from the scene props, makeup special effects, and the number of people in the audience and other technical aspects are all movie specifications, no will and perfunctory. Most of the big and small events used by the show to advance the plot are both routines, although decent, but also less eye-catching surprises. The drama is slightly insufficient in terms of both action scenes and plasma consumption; and the ambiguous development used to attract young audiences is also inaccurate in the allocation of space and rhythm control, and the proportion and staggered arrangement of literary and martial arts dramas are not smooth, resulting in a stuttering experience, but the richness of the story and the diversity of issues have been quite standard.
The process of human mutating into zombies is one of the wonderful clips of "Zombie Campus", and the director insists on finding dancers with performance experience to play zombies, showing various twisted and non-ergonomic postures of the body, which makes everyone creepy. In addition, the play does not have gorgeous costumes, but the director pays great attention to detail when setting the color of the uniform, and in order to contrast with the distinct blood red, he chooses a white shirt and a green coat to make the whole picture more dramatic.
2: "Police Academy Rookie / You and My Police Academy Classroom"
Starring "National C Bit" Jiang Daniel and Choi So-bin, "Police Academy Rookie" is an original drama series launched by Disney+ after entering South Korea, and a youth campus story set in the police academy. In addition to the hard training scenes in the trailer, there are also interesting deeds that happened in school, and Jiang Daniel, who acted for the first time, also showed an image different from the stage. The recently released stills with the fiery MBTI test, the novel publicity method has also successfully caused a topic, and it is also a work that has been expected before the start of broadcasting.
It tells the story of the police college campus life of the young people who are both scared and have no answers, but are full of vitality and enthusiasm. Although clumsy and full of mistakes, the twenty-year-old youth that shines more than anything, the ambitious debut of the police recruits who sensationalized the police university will be pleasantly depicted.
3: "A Day of Accidental Discovery"
"A Day of Accidental Discovery" is adapted from the webcomica "Unexpected Discovery of July" and starred Kim Hye-wook, Lu Yun, Lee Jae-wook, Lee Na-eun and others. The heroine Yin Duanwu (Kim Hye-wook) is a high school student who was originally in love with Bai Jing (Lee Jae-wook) for more than ten years, and accidentally found herself as a supporting actress in the comic "Secret", and met the passerby A No. 13 (Lu Yun) in the same comic, and the two began a series of romantic and interesting stories in order to reverse the fate in the comic.
Leaving aside the aesthetic love bridges that are not uncommon in traditional idol dramas, "A Day of Accidental Discovery" has become the most popular place for the audience to shoot the case with its setting of not playing cards according to the routine. Unlike the fantasy love drama "W: Two Worlds", which is also related to the comic genre and intertwines in reality and illusion, "A Day of Accidental Discovery" implements the setting of the manga more thoroughly, and takes the passerby characters who seek a way out in the contradiction between established fate and self-consciousness as the starting point, and the characters who have joined the ranks of self-awakening later are also a major attraction. Pure love comics gradually bring out the taste of suspense, and the audience off-screen can't help but think and analyze together, making it possible for the group performance to be the protagonist to compose their own life, and fully mobilize the audience's enthusiasm for participation.
4: School 2015 / Who Are You - School 2015
When it comes to classic campus Korean dramas, we must not fail to mention the "School" series! Since the broadcast of "School" in 1999, there have been 8 series series so far, the most popular of which is "Who Are You - School 2015" launched in 2015!
The plot revolves around the twin sisters played by Kim So-hyun, the younger sister Lee Eun-fei was rescued after committing suicide due to bullying at school, and the sister Gao Eun-sung decided to let her sister start over as her own identity because of her distress. Kim So-hyun plays two characters with very different personalities in the play, and the emotional transformation is natural and in place, so that fans of the drama praise his acting skills! In addition, the emotional line between Kim So-hyun and Nam Joo-hyuk and Lu Xingcai is also a major attraction.
The drama begins with the heroine having no memories of herself after her disappearance, and tells a series of youth campus stories that take place at the aristocratic private high school in Seoul's Gangnam District, and is a campus drama that adds suspense and reasoning. Not only that, but they don't want to be excluded, but they spend their money saying that it is a free wallet and making themselves outsiders, for their grades and future students who are worried about the future, as well as parents who are worried about their children's grades, in fact, the realistic stories unfolded among teenagers on campus can resonate with the audience.
5: The Heirs
Written by ace screenwriter Kim Yin-sook, "The Heirs", which brings together Lee Min-ho, Park Shin-hye, Kim Woo-bin, Kim Ji-won and other super strong casts, is set in the imperial high school where the children of rich families attend, presenting the youthful love between poor girls and rich young masters across classes.
"The Heirs" was popular throughout Asia when it was broadcast, and the episodes that appeared in the show also achieved good results on the charts, and the finale hit a nearly 30% rating in South Korea! Park Kyung-sik, Kang Ha-na, Jung So-jing and other people who once played supporting roles in this drama have now become first-line celebrities.
"The Inheritors" looks high-end, atmospheric, high-grade, and the hollowed out is actually a deep dog blood love triangle story with a strong Mary Sue plot, but it still makes the audience want to watch it, the popularity is high, and the criticism and praise are equally strong. The most delicate thing about Korean drama is that it always grasps the most nostalgic, beautiful, and emotional time in your heart to involve, to read, to fantasize, and the drama is made vulgar but not contrived. Because the story of youth is inherently sweet and bitter and beautiful. Pulling aside the cheesy plot model of Prince and Cinderella, Screenwriter Kim still tells an inspiring story. Whether it is the inheritor class at the top of the pyramid or the poor at the bottom of society, everyone has at least one mountain to cross on their life path. How to find inner peace and tranquility while crossing his own life regrets is a life problem that Jin Si and his companions have to face.
6：《Dream High》
"Dream High", which aired in 2011, starred Hidetoshi, Tamazawa, Kim so-hyun, T-ARA Jing, Jang Woo-young, IU and others, tells the story of high school students at Kirin Art School who strive to realize their dreams in order to become idols. In addition to being able to glimpse the daily life of art high school students, the relationship between the protagonists such as competition, love, and friendship is also a major focus of the plot. After the great success of the first season, a sequel "Dream High 2" was released the following year, but the ratings and word-of-mouth were not as good as the first season.
The boy played by Tamazawa was impressive. In the play, the bastard son of a chaebol who cannot see the light, Fu Erdai, between avoiding people's eyes and ears and being exposed to the magnesium lamp, this role is given more contradictory inner drama, which is undoubtedly an improvement and tempering of acting skills. The male protagonist, Kim So-hyun, wears a sack, keeps an exploding head, and plays a country boy who speaks a dialect, completely breaking the image of a handsome man in Seoul before. And the most amazing thing is that when working with many idols, whether it is fast songs, slow songs or dances, he can digest perfectly, and does not affect the TV series because of the problem of stage performance. From a dirt boy from the countryside to the joys and sorrows of growing into a big star, the acting skills have been recognized by the audience. The emotional line of "milk couple" Zhang Yourong and IU in the play has also become a new screen couple in the minds of the people.
7: "Please Answer 1997"
As the first work of the "Please Answer" series of TELEVISION series, "Please Answer 1997" was the most heated in terms of discussion and social phenomenon when it was broadcast. Set in Busan in the late 1990s, the drama depicts the coming-of-age story of the bamboo horses. Not only is the sweet and sour green love fascinating, but the items such as BB.Call and electronic chicken that appear in the play have also set off a retro trend.
Among them, the heroine Cheng Shiyuan (played by Zheng Endi), who is keen on chasing stars, seems to be the epitome of all star-chasing girls, and the crazy deeds such as opening and closing their mouths are idols, saying that they are the wives of idols, and arguing with classmates for idols, which are all proof of wholehearted love. And the H.O.T that Cheng Shiyuan likes in the play has also become popular again with the popularity of the drama, which has also contributed to the integration of all the staff on the program for many years!
The show doesn't have a big-name lineup with glittering lights, and even the iconic beauty route of Korean dramas has been abandoned. And the plot of the growth and love history of 6 ordinary high school students is not exciting enough, not enough dog blood, and even some family dramas are nagging. The drama combines the retro complex of "Sunshine Sister Tao" and the youthful nostalgia of "The Girl We Chased Together in Those Years", but in the end, its success can actually be attributed to one point, that is, resonance. This is the 1997 of the 6 high school students in the film, but it is also the 1997, 1998, and 1999 of each audience.
The play unfolds through the 2012 30-something protagonists getting together and falling into the 1997 memories, most of which takes place around 1997, during which they flash back to the 2012 classmates or the protagonist's childhood to show the causes and consequences of the whole story. It is worth mentioning that many scenes and props in the play are very careful in details: dancing mats, electronic pets, CALL machines, DOS system computers, cassette videos, these things can make the post-80s very substitution.
8：《A-TEEN》
Starring a new generation of actors such as Shin Rui-eun, Kim Dong-hee, Lee Na-eun, Billlie Kim So-hyun and other new generation actors, "A-TEEN" is a web drama launched by Playlist in 2018, telling the story of 18-year-old high school students' youth campus. "A-TEEN" did not pay much attention before the start of the broadcast, but after the start of the broadcast, because of the realistic campus life and emotional line, it resonated with the majority of high school students, and each update will be on the hot search, and it will also make the high-value actors become popular overnight!
The follow-up "A-TEEN 2" is based on Li Na'en as the protagonist, and adds new characters such as Golden Child Pumin and Jiang Min'er, focusing on the mood of the protagonists who have advanced to the third year of high school in the face of the intersection of life.
9: "Fancy Man"
Adapted from the Japanese manga of the same name, "Fancy Man" has been remade into Japanese, Chinese, Thai and other versions. Set in the aristocratic school Mythical High School, "Meteor Garden" revolves around the story of the commoner girl Golden Silk Grass (played by Gu Huishan) and the campus noble F4, who bravely moves forward and is not afraid of power, meets the domineering young master Gu Junbiao (Played by Lee Min-ho), and the two go from looking at each other unfavorably to the story of final love. After the episode was broadcast, it received a warm response, and the ratings exceeded 30% in one fell swoop, which also made major actors such as Lee Min-ho, Kim Hyun-joong, and Koo Hye-sun popular all over Asia.
"Fancy Man" still adheres to the long-standing style of Korean dramas, and is a TV series that pursues dreamy romantic love and creates Cinderella fairy tales.
One of the show's strengths is the rapid story development: the Korean version of "Fancy Man" unfolds faster than any other version of the story. Although fast, but still fast and courteous, under the rapid development of the plot, the audience feels that it is different from the general Korean drama procrastination and lengthiness, there is a sense of pain and pleasure at the same time, there will be no sense of urgency to be led by the plot. At the same time, there are many interesting scenes in the middle, so that the audience is deeply immersed in the charm of F4. Missing any episode, the plot can not be connected, which also greatly helps the ratings. The second advantage is that the supporting actors who are full of acting strength, although the acting skills of several starring actors are slightly green and even questioned, the supporting actors who act as "green leaves" for them are undoubtedly very acting. Because of their presence, the audience has no discomfort when watching this drama.
10: "Back to 18/Eighteen Again"
"Back to 18" is based on the American film "Back to 17 Years Old", starring Kim Ho-na, Yoon Sang-hyun and Lee To-hyun. The plot depicts a couple whose marriage is on the verge of being broken, because their husband accidentally changed back to the appearance of 18 years old, and after a series of events, there is room for turning. Lee's wonderful performance in the play also won him the 57th Baeksang Art Awards Tv Division Male Newcomer Acting Award!
The play is not so much focused on fantasy themes as it is to increase the audience's sense of engagement through emotional dramas with family. Although the plot based on the unhealthy trend of the sports specialty college entrance examination is somewhat exaggerated, it shows a different kind of family affection in the process. The drama pursues not the trivial fun in the fantasy but the love of the family, and the "secret of the real identity" unveiled one by one shows a rich wave of feelings. With their sophisticated acting skills, Kim Ho-na and Yoon Sang-hyun realistically show the stories of the couple such as pregnancy, difficult married life, divorce, and reunion when they were young. Lee also naturally digested the character, and the performance was impressive.
Which one do you like the most in the comments section?