Weak Hero - Class 1

Story: Yeon Si-eun (Park Ji-hoon) is one of the best students at school. His parents are separated, and he lives with his father, who hardly takes care of him. For Si-eun studying is everything, but in his class, there are a few problem students led by Seok-dae (Shin Seung-ho), who bully their classmates. And Si-eun becomes their target as well. The boy may look weak, but he doesn't put up with anything, and his high intelligence, his knowledge of physics and his attention to details make sure that he can use his surroundings in an optimal manner so that he is able to defend himself against Seok-dae. Furthermore, there is Su-ho (Choi Hyun-wook), an excellent fighter who works after school instead of going to a tutoring school like everyone else, and he actually just wants to have some peace and quiet. He makes sure that no one in the class goes overboard. In the past, he had to defend Si-eun a few times too, but one day, he even has to put him in his place. But Su-ho tries to make friends with him and when a new student, Beom-seok (Hong Kyung), joins the class and is chosen as the bullies' next victim because of his shyness, Su-ho steps in as a protector again. The three eventually become friends, but keep getting into trouble with Seok-dae, who has connections to gangsters. Seok-dae ultimately sets his gangster friends on the three boys, and soon the whole thing isn't a game anymore ...

Review: I actually stumbled across "Weak Hero" more or less by chance. The series briefly showed up in the Netflix top ten, and the trailer's atmosphere, which moved between tragic drama about bullying at school and surprisingly hard action, caught my interest. In addition, the series only has eight episodes. The first three episodes also immediately manage to be captivating, as we get a hero who is not the typical victim of bullying. He almost seems like a savant, as he can use his surroundings to his own advantage with a scary level of precision. Which makes it possible for him to stand up to opponents who are clearly physically stronger than him. This is not what you would typically expect from a "nerd". And Si-eun is actually just that: He is only interested in learning and wonders why people don't just leave him alone. And that's where the series gets really interesting. In addition to the various entanglements with gangsters, it is the characters who manage to be fascinating. Each of them has their own strengths and weaknesses, and in the end, it is not that easy to draw a clear line between good and evil. Because even Si-eun crosses that line here and there and has to be kept under control by Su-ho. This also creates an exciting dynamic between the students.

When Beom-seok, the typical shy boy, joins in, things get even more interesting at first. The trio is a very colorful mix. Si-eun doesn't really want any friends, Beom-seok is happy to finally feel like he belongs somewhere and to have a strong protector with Su-ho, and Su-ho himself is a free spirit and fighter but smart enough not to join the clique of thugs. He likes to protect the weak but also shows them when they themselves take it too far. He brings balance to the class. On the other hand, things are not quite that simple. Because Su-ho's constant interference can also be seen as patronizing. For Beom-seok, the moment comes when he feels just as incapacitated by him as he does by his father, who is a powerful politician. This change in the friendship dynamic - everything seems to fall apart - leads to a rather long-winded episode, after which I almost didn't give the series another chance. But it's actually after that that it gets really exciting, and the characters get even more depth. However, it has to be mentioned that much of what goes on with the characters is conveyed in a rather subtle way. You can take that both as a positive and a negative thing.

This is especially noticeable with Si-eun. It would have been nice to learn a little more about his life and especially his relationship with his separated parents. A lot of things are only outlined here. Actor Park Ji-hoon, who used to be part of the boy band "Wanna One", is able to deliver a pretty convincing performance, though. He often puts on a face conveying that people should just leave him alone, but sometimes he also seems tortured or as if he thought he was better than everyone else. So, the hero of the story is completely different from what you usually get to see in stories like these. This is probably also due to the fact that the series is based on the webtoon of the same name by Seopass and Kim Jin-seok. With material like that you often get far more innovation than with series which are simply written for television. As mentioned before, though, you get the feeling that the story could have shed a little more light on the individual characters. Especially towards the end, when new scenes from the trio's friendship are shown in flashbacks, you ask yourself why the series didn't take a little more time to elaborate on the friendship between the students before. The fact that the directors missed out on that also takes away some of the intensity that the emotional roller coaster ride could have had.

Each of the characters portrayed is somehow broken and carries some kind of burden with them. How the individuals deal with that differs in detail, but in the end, it always includes some kind of violence. In this respect, "Weak Hero" is anything but a typical school drama because it can get pretty dark and brutal. At the beginning, the little gang of gangsters bring more seriousness into the matter, but even among them there are a few people who are quite ok. Later on, however, the spiral of revenge escalates so much that there are quite some unpleasant scenes. Eventually, almost everyone reaches a tipping-point. While the brawls are quite unspectacular at first, there are a few real highlights later on. Still, you shouldn't expect an expertly crafted choreography here. Instead, the fights manage to convince with their unfiltered violence. Si-eun, for example, isn't a good fighter, but he's an incredibly good observer with a quick grasp and is therefore able to emerge as the winner in some fights, even though you wouldn't have thought it possible. But not always, and that's exactly what makes it so believable. In addition, he is not the knight in shining armor, as already mentioned.

As the story progresses, there are always moments in which you ask yourself how things could have come to this. This speaks for the organic development of the story, although it has to be mentioned that, especially in the second half, some things seem a bit hasty. Above all, however, I liked the fact that this is not your typical story of bullying at school, although that's exactly what it's all about. A particularly strong scene even reminded me of "Once Upon a Time in High School: The Spirit of Jeet Kune Do". The entire system (and not just the teachers) is blind to the students' problems and therefore forces them into a vortex of violence, which is also caused by individual problems at home. "Weak Hero" is an excellent series in which the focus lies on the characters, even though they could have been fleshed out even more. If you're wondering why the second season is coming out so soon, you should know that the series is from 2022 and was bought by Netflix after the streaming service put a second season into production. We can only hope it doesn't just rehash the same themes from the first season and that the series will be able to maintain its high level of quality.

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