Out of the 89 dramas I've watched, around 10 are crime dramas (give-or-take) and all of them were heart-pounding watches that left me at the edge of my seat. For a drama that's meant to be set in a university, Law School was undoubtedly one of the most insane I've ever come across. A murder mystery woven together with a story that gave us a look at the rigours of an elite course of study, what we got were characters that were super enjoyable to watch on screen and a plot that I was fully invested in. That said, for all the pros of this legal drama, there were a ton of elements that were just frustrating to me as a viewer so taking all that into account, let's dive in.
SERIES RETROSPECT AND REVIEW (SPOILER ALERT)
Right off the bat, the best part about this drama is our male lead Yang Jong-hoon. This man is one of the coolest drama leads I've ever come across, partially because of his deep voice but also because of his self-assured manner and the way he behaves, all of which Kim Myung-min portrays perfectly. He fits the character type of being ten steps ahead of the curve to a T and almost everything that happens throughout the series is just part of some greater plan of his. As a university professor specialising in criminal law, his Socratic style of teaching has made the ex-prosecutor both feared and respected by students and peers alike, who find his teaching methods unorthodox but effective. I often wondered how it would feel like to have someone like Jong-hoon as my lecturer and I think it would be awesome but terrifying. The man is a straight savage throughout this series who pushes his students to do their very best and turn everything into a lesson for them, even when he's indicted for murder.
I mentioned in my initial thoughts post that I thought Jong-hoon would end up playing a similar role to Beyond Evil's Lee Dong-sik in that he would deliberately withhold crucial details so that his students would be able to uncover the truth and I was absolutely right. In a very twisted way (as I said above), he's using adjunct professor Seo Byung-ju's murder case as the realest lesson for his students as they work to prove their professor's innocence and the best part is, Jong-hoon's so confident that the truth will come to light that he never outright denies that he killed Byung-ju, even going so far as to support the stand that all evidence points to him as the killer. The absolute mad lad was so certain that he would be proven innocent that he even taunts the people against him with his blunt words.
Initially, I was unsure if Byung-ju's murder would become the main plot arc throughout the entire series and in some ways I was partially right. Yes, it was still the overarching problem and was basically a huge game of whodunnit or hot potato since the screenwriter continued to mislead viewers as to the culprit's identity, but as we progressed further into the drama, we learn that there's a far bigger fish here and the crime is far more deep-rooted than we thought. Of course, as is the case with all crime dramas out there, the central problem is corruption and boy does Law School have that in spades. An important idea in the series is shown in the words that appear on screen at the start of every episode "truth and justice only by the law" and this directly ties into the corruption aspect of the drama as our heroes seek to bring all the corrupted to justice.
Remember how the very first episode gave us a few possibilities as to who could be the killer based off the footprints found in the room? What started out as a simple guessing game then became so much more as we find out that (with the exception of Jeon Ye-seul, who found the body) all these suspects have far deeper ties to Byung-ju then we know and as the story continued to develop, it only got more and more insane. Whether it's Seo Ji-ho spending the last few years of his life hunting down the man who allegedly drove his father to suicide (which destroyed my theory of him being Byung-ju's son wrong) or Kang Sol B wanting to hide her plagiarism attempt, everyone has their own inner demons and the series links all of them back to Byung-ju.
In fact, Byung-ju's death is itself linked to massive corruption as it's revealed that assemblyman (and big bad) Ko Hyeong-su (Jung Won-joong) not only orchestrated the murder but was also heavily involved in almost everything bad that happened in the past to the drama's characters, including releasing fake news against Ji-ho's father and forcing Kang Sol A's older twin sister Kang Dan to head overseas through a dirty deal. Most importantly, he was involved in the hit-and-run cold case that Jong-hoon could never solve, having influenced Byung-ju (who had been driving under the influence) to keep driving rather than check on the victim. Hyeong-su is the true definition of a dirty politician and will stop at nothing to crush those who stand against him, even if it destroys their lives in the process.
Without really delving into everything that goes on in this drama, the truth comes to light and Hyeong-su is put behind bars. Most of the characters get their closure and the story ends well. Apart from Jong-hoon, who is undoubtedly my favourite character in the entire drama, I also really really liked the interactions and the relatability of the law students. Just by observing their interactions with one another as well as their individual personalities, I feel like viewers can project themselves into these characters and see the drama through their eyes. I'm sure all of us know a genius student like Joon-hwi, a colder silent one like Sol B or even a "class clown" like Min Bok-gi (Lee Kang-ji) and it adds a sense of realism to their character interactions.
Personally, I related to Sol A the most. She's portrayed throughout as the "dumb one" in the group, often scoring badly for tests and at risk of having to repeat her first year. That hit me on a personal level since I was reminded of myself in my school days, constantly being the student who didn't understand what the teacher was going through and needing the guidance of those I deemed smarter than myself. That said, Sol A definitely has her merits as well as we see her being quite a creative thinker and seeing the law in different ways from her more analytical classmates. She's clearly not the best at written tests but her sheer tenacity and grit as well as her quick-thinking makes her someone fit to be a lawyer, and she does accomplish that goal by the end of the series, having become an attorney some years after graduation. I can only hope that I'll be as successful in future.
I also really enjoyed the cast performances in this series. I've already waxed lyrical about Kim Myung-min's portrayal of Jong-hoon at the start so I won't talk about that again but I personally think the next best performance was from Go Yoon-jung as Ye-seul, even better than the lead actors in my eyes (although I'll talk about them later). Ye-seul is shown as a little bit of a ditz, coming off as the pretty girl who's known more for her looks than her brain, evident from her subpar grades. Despite her bright and friendly demeanour, she hides a lot of pain and suffering, specifically from being in an abusive relationship. Her boyfriend Yeong-chang is Hyeong-su's son and uses his father's power to get what he wants, including forcing Ye-seul to do heinous acts like commit perjury to get Jong-hoon charged with murder. That's not the main point though because he's also physically abusive of her, to the point where she's totally covered in bruises, and even rapes her. On top of that, he also installed a spy cam in Ye-seul's dorm room and illegally filmed them having sex, using the video as blackmail.
First off, the abuse made me sick to my stomach and I absolutely hated Yeong-chang's guts (props to actor Lee Hwi-jong for making me hate his character so much) but that wasn't the most important part. Dating abuse in K-dramas is nothing new but what I want to focus on is Ye-seul's reaction and how Go portrayed that perfectly. Their relationship crumbles when she accidentally pushes him in a bid to prevent him from leaking their sex tape, causing Yeong-chang to hit his head and become paralysed on one side of his body. While his injuries are bad, he can get better with rehabilitation but both him and his father press charges against Ye-seul for causing grievous hurt. You would think that after all the abuse she's gone through, Ye-seul would just outright refute the charges and press charges of her own, giving that abusive scumbag his comeuppance but no she doesn't.
Instead she blames herself for his injury and doesn't want to countersue him, saying that everything he did was out of love. At first, I was frustrated by this. Why wouldn't you want to take out all your anger on the guy who most deserves it? It didn't make sense to me but then I realised something. There're many cases of dating abuse victims who've spent so long in such a relationship that they begin to trick themselves into believing that this is normal and that their partner really loves them, even though they get physically and mentally abused. This is something known as the "victim mindset" and Ye-seul is a classic example of this. Go Yoon-jung portrays this wonderfully and you really feel bad for her character when she says it's her fault or when she tries her best to believe her boyfriend did it out of love. At the end of the day, Ye-seul steels herself and breaks free from the cycle, choosing to defend herself properly and also press her own charges against Yeong-chang. Her final trial is one of the best scenes in the entire drama and Go acts her heart out there.
In a similar vein, I'm quite glad that the drama decided to shine a light on very real world issues like the aforementioned dating abuse as well as dysfunctional families, the latter of which we saw with Sol B's family. Sol B comes from a powerful legal family, with many of her family members being judges. Unfortunately, her father (who's revealed to be Vice-Dean Kang Joo-man) didn't become a judge and instead stayed as a legal scholar, eventually becoming a law professor. This creates a huge rift between him and his wife Han Hye-gyeong (Park Mi-hyeon), who constantly belittles him for failing to live up to the rest of his family and turns her attentions to her daughter. Hye-gyeong takes being a tiger mum to the next level and leaves so little room for her daughter to breathe, practically forcing her to live life in a very dictated manner and hence stifling her. She even goes so far as to get her daughter to plagiarise one of Byung-ju's dissertations and submit it for a contest, passing it off as her own.
It all comes to a head when both Joo-man and Sol B decide that they can no longer live this lie anymore and admit to everything. Throughout this entire ordeal, the Kang family can only be described as toxic, with Hye-gyeong keeping Sol B under her thumb by all means possible. She even threatens to overdose on pills to keep her daughter from disobeying her, a plan that eventually backfires once Sol B has had enough of her mother's nonsense. Thankfully, we do see the family getting counseling at the end of the series, actively working to improve their familial relationship. It's nice to see that for once in a K-drama, a messed up family is getting the help they need to get better.
Now, for all the awesomeness that this drama was, I can't help but have gripes with this show. The biggest one is actually a problem that many dramas face and it's that none of the characters behave like a normal human being. Ignoring the obviously corrupt ones who would do anything to cover themselves but in the case of the law students and Jong-hoon himself, they don't act like a normal person would. If I was accused of a murder I didn't commit, I would've immediately professed my innocence among other things, not use the opportunity to teach my students in a roundabout way. Not only that, a good number of students are all hiding their own agendas which only seek to keep the suspicion on Jong-hoon rather than actually step forward and prove him innocent. I can suspend my disbelief because it's a very K-drama thing to do but at the same time, it's completely bonkers how they're willing to play with another person's life just to save themselves. Must be the stress of being in an elite law school, huh?
Another gripe I had was the lack of a conclusion to Ji-ho's story. Long story short, Ji-ho finds out that the prosecutor who publicised his father's supposed crimes when it had yet to be proven was Jin Hyeong-woo (Park Hyuk-kwon), the same prosecutor who indicted Jong-hoon for murder. Hyeong-woo has been working hand-in-hand with Hyeong-su for the longest time, helping him cover up his crimes as well as take down his foes (Jong-hoon being one of them) and is no doubt a corrupt prosecutor. By the end of the drama though, we don't actually know if he gets brought to justice for his crimes, which would've been such a cathartic moment for viewers. Instead, he seems to get off scot-free for everything and the last time we see him, we still don't know if he'll finally be indicted for his role in Ji-ho's father's death. It's a real shame that this semi-villain didn't get his just desserts, especially considering how corrupt he was throughout the entire drama.
This is a real thinker of a drama, with few action scenes and choosing to focus more on its characters, and their interactions with one another and the law. As such, we end up with a series that has a lot of "talking" scenes, which might come off as boring to some. The constant twists and turns in this drama balance that out well though and keep viewers on their toes as we uncover the truth alongside our leads. What I think is quite interesting is that the drama makes it very clear that even if one disagrees with it, the law is the law and whether someone is deemed a criminal or not is determined by said law. Now, South Korea's laws are undoubtedly different from other countries, including my own but it was still super intriguing to see things explained as per their laws.
A line that's said a couple of times throughout the drama is that the law isn't just and to some extent, that could be true. Both in real life and in the series, there're people who twist the law to their advantage, lessening sentences or avoiding them altogether. Likewise, as much as we wish it wasn't the case, there're also dirty lawyers and prosecutors who use the law as a means of making money. Jong-hoon knows this and that's why he's determined to make sure his students don't turn out like Hyeong-woo, someone who uses the law for personal gain. Even if it's an unattainable goal, he'll still try his best to make that happen and do everything he can to help his students on that path. If you were to only take one thing away from this series, it should be that even in the face of insurmountable odds, a great teacher can change your life forever. Don't believe me? Just look at Yang Jong-hoon and his criminal law class in the Law School. Thanks for reading.
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