I came across Live On in a strange way. A certain girl group member was part of this drama and so out of curiosity I just added it to my watchlist. Starring Jung Da-bin (Should We Kiss First, Extracurricular) as female lead BAEK HO-RANG and NU'EST's Hwang Min-hyun in his drama debut as male lead GO EUN-TAEK, this high school coming-of-age drama belongs to a genre that I haven't touched in a while so I'm definitely intrigued to see where we go from here. Let's dive in.
INITIAL THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS (SPOILER ALERT)
It's important to square this off first. The drama title is pronounced like "live on radio" because that's sort of what ties this drama down because it's very much set within a high school's broadcasting club. I literally only just realised this as I started typing this post so yeah, don't make the same mistake as this fool here thinking that it's pronounced like "I live somewhere". With that out of the way, let's get to the meat of the drama.
Our female lead Ho-rang (whose name literally means "tiger") is a popular social media influencer who's famous for being pretty and elegant but has an increasingly bad reputation amongst her schoolmates for being an ice cold standoffish diva. She does things how she wants, when she wants and that draws the ire of many around her. In all honesty, Ho-rang really isn't doing anything to help her case because she's really kind of a bitch. She doesn't mince her words and is frankly quite rude to others, staying true to her aggressive tiger-like nature. However, in several of the announcements made by her high school's broadcasting club, we see that Ho-rang built her self-assured front to deal with something dark from her past, with a long-hidden secret of hers threatening to come to light. Not only that, her parents also seem to be really detached or at least her mother, who only calls and messages her to check up on her. She ends up joining the broadcasting club in order to find out the identity of this whistleblower of sorts, which is where she crosses paths with our male lead Eun-taek.
Eun-taek is the no-nonsense head of the broadcasting club, a really inflexible person whose life follows a strict schedule to a T and who expects the highest standards from the club members. In a bid to find a new anchor for the club, he seeks out Ho-rang, who initially rejects him coldly. For the first time, Ho-rang meets her match as the equally savage Eun-taek rebuffs her and the two have a bit of a tiff. This falls into the initial K-drama trope of the leads not liking each other and we're bound to see that relationship change very soon. Eventually, Ho-rang joins the club with her ulterior motive and Eun-taek slowly warms up to her because she's supposedly putting in a lot of effort into working with the club, seemingly even coming early to clean and put away equipment. Of course, it turns out that it was all a farce and Ho-rang was instead bribing the younger members of the club to do her dirty work for her in exchange for social media fame and other material goods, her only goal in mind being getting into Eun-taek's good books so that she can find out the identity of the whistleblower. The episode then ends with a huge broadcasting accident as Ho-rang storms into the studio to publicly call out the anonymous whistleblower for the whole school to hear, much to the shock of everyone else in the club.
This "secret" plotline is bound to be the underlying arc that ties the whole drama together as it is central to Ho-rang's backstory. We find out through flashbacks that in middle school, she was in bad company with some people who she stumbled upon badmouthing her behind her back. This trauma would undoubtedly cause her to build this wall around herself, and presumably become cold and distant from everyone else. She would also end up falling out with her former best friend and second female lead JI SO-HYUN [Yang Hye-ji (Failing in Love, When the Weather Is Fine)], who's currently the broadcasting club's vice-head. While So-hyun attempts to make up with Ho-rang, the latter shows no desire to rekindle their friendship. In flashbacks we see that they really were once super close but because of a misunderstanding linked to Ho-rang's traumatic past, they end up drifting apart and So-hyun will probably try to bring the truth to light and clear the misunderstanding with her former friend. She also seems to be somewhat smitten with Eun-taek and as the drama progresses, there'll probably be a love triangle with her, Eun-taek and Ho-rang.
In fact it might not even be a love triangle because our second male lead KIM YOO-SHIN (VICTON's Choi Byung-chan in his drama debut) is head over heels for So-hyun. Yoo-shin seems to be Ho-rang's only friend, with his bubbly and outgoing personality contrasting with her cold one and he's certainly going to provide a lot of comic relief and laughter in the series. Outside of this love square of sorts, we also have a completely separate couple with our third leads DO WOO-JAE [Noh Jong-hyun (He Is Psychometric, Kkondae Intern)] and KANG JAE-YI [ex-MOMOLAND member Yeonwoo (Touch, Alice)]. Although they're polar opposites, Woo-jae being the quiet and rational student councilor while Jae-yi is far more outspoken and simple (but in a cute way), it's because of this personality difference that they're super cute together, although their relationship seems to be a huge trainwreck, considering that they've broken up and gotten back together three times. It's absolutely bonkers.
I mentioned in my header that a girl group member piqued my interest in this drama and no, it's not Yeonwoo (who's not an idol anymore anyway). In fact, while she's only a supporting character, Woo-jae's younger sister Woo-sol is played by woo!ah!'s Wooyeon (that's a lot of "woo"s in one sentence) in her drama debut and she's adorable. She probably won't appear in many scenes but based off episode 1 alone, Woo-sol will probably act as the bridge between Woo-jae and Jae-yi, potentially acting as a counselor for their relationship. I foresee shenanigans happening.
As of right now, I'm quite intrigued by this drama. It's somewhat similar to a Playlist web drama that I watched in the past (The Guilty Secret) in that the female lead has a secret that eventually comes to light and she sort of works to solve the problems caused by it. I'm looking forward to the interactions between all the characters, especially our leads Ho-rang and Eun-taek because it's pretty rare to see both leads being this headstrong so their chemistry is bound to be crazy. Considering this is Min-hyun's debut, I'm pleasantly surprised with his ability so far but I'll finalise my opinion on his acting in my series retrospect. As of now, I actually think he's quite similar to fellow idol/actor Cha Eun-woo from ASTRO who's known for playing the strong, silent and frankly monotonous characters because dramas will totally bank on their visuals. I'm getting that vibe from Min-hyun right now but the final outcome remains to be seen.
There're a number of idols making their acting debuts here and I guess it works well for a high school drama. This is also the first time I'm seeing Jung Da-bin in a drama and I've heard good things about her performance in Extracurricular so looking forward to her role here. This drama is really short, only being 8 episodes long so I'm definitely expecting the plot to not go too deep or drag on for too long because of the short total runtime. In fact, as of right now, the drama is still ongoing and the final episode will air next Tuesday so I won't rush my way through it. So for those who want to relive a little bit of their high school angst and whatnot, join me as we watch our cast interact in their school's broadcasting club, Live On radio.
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