Itaewon Class: The Best Revenge is a Life Well Lived
I’ve watched a decent amount of South Korean Dramas (aka K-Dramas), and yet I’ve never really gotten around to writing a post about any of them. The most recent one I watched, Itaewon Class, definitely stood out enough to where I want to rectify that. In this post I will cover some of what I learned from watching this K-drama.
What I watched:
We start the show being introduced to Park Sae-ro-yi on his first day at a new school. The move is prompted by his father’s job, who works on the recipes for Korea’s number one food and restaurant company named Janga Co. The CEO’s son, Jang Geun-won, is a bully who is never punished because of his father’s wealth. That is, until Sae-ro-yi shows up with his strong sense of justice. He stands up to the bully and is expelled from school after refusing to bow in apology to Geun-won and his father, Jang Dae-hee. Suddenly Sae-ro-yi’s father is killed in a hit and run with the bully Geun-won as the perpetrator; but he escapes punishment again due to his family’s wealth. A classmate, Oh Soo-ah, has evidence that it was the bully and she reveals this to Sae-ro-yi, who attacks Geun-won. Sae-ro-yi is sent to jail because of assault, and uses that time to plot his revenge. After being released from jail, Sae-ro-yi puts into action his plan to open his own business to rival and eventually take down Janga Co. He gets help from a young business savvy sociopath named Jo Yi-seo along with some friends he makes along the way. Sae-ro-yi pushes all opportunities of personal happiness with Soo-ah and Yi-seo to the side for the sake of his revenge. Geun-won, who eventually was sent to jail for the hit and run, does his own revenge by kidnapping Yi-seo. Sae-ro-yi realizes his love for Yi-seo and rescues her.
What I saw:
The beginning of the show focuses on the idea of justice and power. Sae-ro-yi has a strong view of what justice is. He puts his believes into practice in his own life, and is disgusted when he sees Geun-won bullying a classmate without any consequence from his peers and even the school institution. He believed that no one is above the law, and even when he has his own businesses he continues that belief that wealth does not give absolute power. No matter the obstacles the mighty Janga Co. put in front of him, he had the mindset that all it would do was delay him, and so long as he never gave up then he could not be beaten.
Geun-won ends up facing the consequences of his actions because while money can buy a certain level of latitude, it does have it’s limitations. His father abandons him because defending his son would have led to a collapse in Janga Co. stock price; which was less about the moral issues of his son’s actions and more that the stockholders thought it would be a waste of resources. Basically, money is only power if you’re able to keep it flowing. Once there is a sign that you might not be able to keep buying off someone’s morality then there is no incentive to sell it in the first place.
After his father’s wrongful death, Sae-ro-yi’s entire life is revolved around getting his revenge; but he has enough sense to know that the ends and the means are the same. This is contrasted by Yi-seo, who as a sociopath has no inherent sense of morality and is willing to lie, cheat, steal, or whatever to make the business successful.The two characters’ interactions give an opportunity to discuss that no even though he has this goal to make a food company that will rival Janga Co, he knows that does not give him the excuse to put his ethics and sense of justice to the side to obtain it.
Now once the show gets into the second half, it focuses more on the idea of happiness and meaning. Throughout most of the show Sae-ro-yi has feelings for the classmate Soo-ah. She is too scared of what her boss, Sae-ro-yi’s enemy, will do to them so she keeps pushing him away. She gives him the task of becoming rich so they can live a safe life before being together. But when she sees just how much Sae-ro-yi’s revenge is hurting him, she gets brave for one moment and says she will be with him if he drops his revenge.
What happens next is that Sae-ro-yi ignores her and says he will not stop until he fulfills his revenge. However, when he later realizes his feelings for Yi-seo, he regrets his raison d’être for over a decade was obsessing over a man he hates, rather than living his life happily. He ignored the love of two women, and almost lost one without ever having allowed himself to experience what that love could be. When Dae-hee holds the location to rescue Yi-seo over Sae-ro-yi, the revenge driven man finally lets go. He thinks to himself that giving in to his enemy is a negligible price to pay for the chance to finally live his life. It was a very powerful moment, and a very important lesson to learn.
In conclusion:
Itaewon Class is one of the better K-Dramas that I’ve seen. It’s based off of a webtoon, so that could be a reason why it was more original than some of the others I’ve seen. I know that is the trend K-Dramas are heading towards, and I say it is a welcome one. I started watching K-Dramas about ten years ago, but after I discovered they followed the same stories with just different scenarios (much like telenovelas), I became very selective of the ones I watched.
Itaewon Class did a good job of using tropes to subvert audience expectations. Since Sae-ro-yi and Soo-ah were the first romance, it seemed like it was going to force the romance even though Yi-Seo was always there for him. But, the show subverted that expectation and gave an opportunity for the characters to change and grow. The show also touched on other topics not typically discussed in K-Dramas, such as gender identity and racism struggles in Korea. Overall, I really enjoyed watching it.
There are important lessons to take away. Power over others is limited, even when you have lots of money. The means to an end is just as important as the end itself. And of course, as the title of this post says: the best revenge is a life well lived.