The teen K-drama Teach You a Lesson has topped the charts of the most-watched series on Netflix in 48 countries—including Italy—suggesting that school bullying is a topic that resonates across different cultures. Based on the comic book Get Schooled, it is the latest in a long line of Korean school-based series focusing on bullies, their victims, those who stand up for the victims, and those who seek to trace the family traumas and past abuse experienced by the young perpetrators. From the landmark series Boys Over Flowers and The Heirs to the more recent Weak Hero Class and Study Group, these hugely successful shows adopt the perspective of high school students; Teach You a Lesson, on the other hand, focuses on teachers. Often portrayed as antagonists—who, instead of helping and protecting their students or trying to understand and educate the bullies (convincing the “bad students” that she’s on their side is the goal of the new math teacher Yankumi in the Japanese classic Gokusen, which recently landed on Netflix)— in Teach a Lesson, they, too, are victims: of corrupt principals who protect the bullies—the children of the rich and powerful—as well as of the students themselves and their parents.
In the series, the Ministry of Education establishes the Office for the Protection of Teachers’ Rights (ERPB), entrusting it to a specialized team led by Na Hwa-jin—essentially a lanky Bud Spencer with the face of John Cena (the former wrestler himself pointed this out)—who slaps violent students, setting them straight in the manner that was common among teachers until a few decades ago. The series should be viewed as entertainment, as explained by its director, Hong Jong-chan, who has been accused of making the idea of the heavy-handed teacher seem entertaining—and thus, in some way, justifying it. To tell the truth, the calm nonchalance with which Hwa-jin dishes out slaps is frankly hilarious, and the reason for the show’s popularity is hopefully precisely the vicarious satisfaction that bullied teenagers feel when watching a show where their tormentors suffer the very abuse they usually inflict. The first episode targets the type of bully generally most despised alongside cyberbullying gangs: the privileged, arrogant young man who believes himself immune to the rules and torments the weak out of boredom. His relentless harassment drives a young boy to suicide, forcing Hwa-jin—the embodiment of karma—to beat him senseless and then set his contemptuous father straight as well.
Hwa-jin is the constant in this vertically structured show, which shifts to a different story and a different school in each episode. Teach a Lesson also subverts a cornerstone of Korean (but primarily Japanese) fiction: the legendary school gangs. Often, the children of criminals and mobsters—troubled teens from dysfunctional families or other types of outsiders—serve as the antiheroes in iconic series such as the Japanese Crows Zero or High and Low. They are brutal and violent, but generally only toward one another. In Teach a Lesson, they are punished for having “dragged into it” even the only two mild-mannered students at their notorious school. What makes this K-drama unsettling is that almost every episode draws on real-life incidents: the first is inspired by the Daegu case (in 2011, a student took his own life after repeated beatings); another is inspired by a teacher who committed suicide following false accusations. Other episodes draw on the scandal of rigged exams at a private school and the spread of drugs and medications in schools. Before Teach and Lesson, other action series featuring violent protagonists seeking justice—such as Taxi Driver—have dramatized real-life news stories. The goal is the same: to expose the school system in a country like Korea, where classism, violence, cyberbullying, academic pressure, and the relationship between students, parents, and teachers are deep-rooted problems.
“Teach a Lesson” — was not originally supposed to star Kim Mu-yeol (“The Gangster, the Cop, the Devil”) but rather Kim Nam-gil from “The Fiery Priest,” who, however, sensationally turned down the role due to the source material. The comic book, written by Chae Yong-taek, was in fact accused of racism and sexism, and certain situations and dialogues were deemed so unacceptable that the title was withdrawn from the North American market. Director Hong Jong-chan, who had previously directed another similar series on juvenile violence, Juvenile Justice (on Netflix), stated that he had taken the controversies into account as early as the pre-production phase, toning down the adaptation of the source material’s problematic elements. However, as noted, the scenes in which Hwa-jin unceremoniously beats the students who attack him remain unchanged: “I know that corporal punishment is unacceptable in any form, but in our drama, please consider it an element of entertainment.” Debatable, but true.
