As someone who has been a fan of How To Get Away with Murder and Viola Davis’ tour de force performance, I was extremely hyped that Korean Drama is doing something similar using a law school and aspiring law students as a backdrop of a narrative that navigates the intricacies of law and the collusions the characters will make to hide and fight for truth and uphold the scales of justice.

Thankfully, Netflix bought the distribution rights of this drama allowing us to enjoy the story this show has to offer every episode. Not to mention it stars Kim Beom; all the more reason to binge watch. After the airing of the first two episodes Wednesday and Thursday respectively last week, here’s our first impressions of the drama.

Character Introduction

Kim Myung-min as Yang Joong-Hoon

He is a court prosecutor turned Law Professor teaching criminal law at Hankuk University. He became the prime suspect of the murder of his colleague at the uni.

Kim Beom as Han Joon-Hwi

A freshman at Hankuk University’s law school who showed promising intellectual ability. As revealed by the second episode, he is the nephew of the believed to be murdered Seo Byung-Ju.

Ryoo Hye-Young as Kang Sol A

A first year law student who was admitted through special admission.

Lee Jung-Eun as Kim Eun Sook

A court judge who became a Civil Law professor at Hankuk University. She was the judge who presided over the case of the released child predator Lee Man-ho.

Ahn Nae-Sang as Seo Byung-Ju: A professor at Hankuk University and who turned out to be the uncle of Han Joon-Hwi. He was ‘murdered’ in the pilot episode.

Gil Hae-Yeon as Oh Jung-Hui: The Dean of the College of Law

Oh Man-Seok as Vice Dean Kang Ju-Man: The Vice Dean of the College of Law

Notable students: Lee Soo-Kyung as Kang Sol B, David Lee as Seo Ji-Ho, Ko Yoon-Jung as Jeon Ye-Seul, Hyun Woo as Yoo Seung-Jae, Lee Kang-Ji as Min Bok-Ki, Kim Min-Seok as Jo Ye-Beom

Synopsis

Law School is a drama set in one of South Korea’s prestigious private academic institutions, Hankuk University. It tells the story of law students and their professors who encountered a murder case at the drama’s beginning. The narrative opens with a mock trial of the students as part of their course program for Criminal Law. But minutes after the break of the mock trial, one of the school’s professors is found dead at his office.

Impression:

For every drama that uses Law as its subject, murder becomes the primary vehicle of which the narrative revolves and this is what exactly happened in Law School. The drama’s opening, which uses the voice of Yang Joong-Hoon, presents the motive question and the baseline for the story’s thematic pursuits. The line “Is the Law truly righteous?” is a powerful statement that challenges how the law is executed. From the opening scenes to the unfolding of the events of the pilot to the second episode, the drama will seriously grab you hard and would reel you in for the next episodes. 

The scenes where the characters are in their classes will give you the feels of a real law school classroom. For someone who wanted to become a law student, it was truly a materialization of my fantasy. Kim Beom and the rest of the cast were very promising in their portrayals of their respective roles. I also like the employment of flashbacks as these provided the drama proper contexts and backgrounds on the present scenes necessary for tying the narrative together. 

The drama’s premise is also an interesting addition to the reasons why this show deserves viewership. Death inside a law school and how the law will be executed to solve this mystery is a good enough storyline with characters that seemed to be keeping secrets that may or may be related to the case. As I was watching the two episodes, I really got the ‘How To Get Away with Murder’ vibe with the only stark difference is in this drama we get to witness how Korean Law works in civil society as dissected in the class scenes of the drama. 

Furthermore, I also like the twists that the drama provided with just the two episodes aired. The murder suspect being that of Yang Joong-Hoon but then changed towards the last frames of episode two to Han Joon-Hwi provided a sense of mystery and suspense as well as a perfect narrative cliff-hanger that will truly force you to wait for the next episodes- that alone is a check in my good drama box. 

With just two episodes, I’d say this drama has a lot of promise and will surely rise to one of the binge-worthy series of 2021.

Interesting Characters:

Apart from Kim Beom’s and Kim Myung-Min’s characters, there are three characters that caught my attention from the first two episodes. One is her motivation in coming to law school and the other two who seemed to be holding secrets. These are the three freshman law students’ Kang Sol A, Kang Sol B,  Seo Ji-Ho. 

Kang Sol A: During the admission interview we have seen how she passionately wanted to go to law school because she felt that the law owed her an apology. This unusual motivation to be in school made her very interesting for me. It will be good to watch how her character unfolds and if her morals at the start of the drama will remain uncompromised. 

Kang Sol B: She is one of the smart students of the drama but that is not the reason why she became an interesting character for me. During the mock trial and the arrest of Professor Yang Joong-Hon, she was shown texting someone; who that someone is remains to be seen. What she did during that moment gave her character a sense of mystery and suspicion. Who could she be? What could be the content of the text? What is she hiding? These are some of the questions I want to be answered in the coming episodes.

Seo Ji-Ho: Just like Kang Sol B, Seo Ji-Ho did something suspicious during the arrest and the interrupted mock trial. He was seen deleting a folder in his laptop. Why would he delete something in the middle of an arrest? What could be the contents of that folder? 

I could be totally wrong in these assumptions, but these could also hold water. After all, in a drama that started with death, anything is possible. So, to see these characters evolve and show their true selves would be very interesting allowing multiple story arcs to form and making the drama’s plot thicken. 

What to expect for the upcoming episodes

With what we have seen at the end of episode two, Professor Yang Joong-Hoon looks at Han Joon-Hwi and tells him that it was him who killed Professor Seo Byung-Ju with a flashback scene of the former pushing the latter on the stairs. We can surely expect that in the next two episodes on Wednesday and Thursday all the attention will be shifted to Han Joon-Hwi. How he will prove his innocence will I believe the focal point of the episodes. 

Moreover, the teaser clip or the next episode showed what seemed to be a collusion of Joon-Hwi with that of the criminal Lee Man-Ho. From that, we can expect more secrets to be spilled and twists around the corner. To answer our assumptions, there is nothing left to do but stay tuned for the next episodes. 

If you are like me who are a sucker for law school drama like this one, spill your thoughts in the comment section below and let’s start a conversation, a debate would be fitting…

See you on the next updates!