Crash Course in Romance

Instead of Jeon Do Yeon, Jang Young Nam would have looked much better for the female lead character role.

No doubt the performance by every actor and actress was great, but lead couple's age gap was rather unsettling.

Male lead actor Jung Kyung Ho who in fact is actually over ten years younger than the female lead actress Jeon Do Yeon.

Off course, the decade of age gap between the lead characters in a Kdrama is not completely new, it's just that female lead character looked very aged compared to the male lead, I'm not pointing fingers at the actors instead I'm just not satisfied with casting team. Jeon Do Yeon is rather a very skilled actress, even her latest movie Kill Boksoon was an amazing example of her skills.

It's hard to capture what it's like to be falling in love with someone, especially if they are not able to express their love to one another. He believes she's married. She's not exactly a "catch" being a single mom with a difficult uncle in the family. She's had a difficult life. So you can really empathize with her situation, and with the fact that he recognizes what a good person she is. It's a very special program and I'm recommending it to everyone. Maybe it's because they are both such admirable people that you really want them to find the happiness they deserve. And also, the male lead is truly adorable! It's a premium to be tall, even in Korea!

At first, this show is really great! It's everything you want out of a rom-com k-drama. Likeable leads, nice flow, good acting, high production value. It's a bit heavy, but it's to make a point about the state of the insane educational environment currently prevalent in South Korea.

But, wow, when it starts to stray and put more focus on some of the other plotlines (around episode 10 I think it was), it gets real silly, real fast. It really loses all idea of what it's trying to say, and common sense flies entirely out the window in the process. Side characters become complete caricatures, situations become super forced. In particular, the first hour of the finale is wretched. It is, in all seriousness, truly insultingly bad. Literally everyone starts acting completely out of character, in an attempt to create as much random drama as possible when one can only assume they had completely run out of ideas and are trying to fill time until they can get to the proper wrap-up.

Anyway, overall it's worth watching, because it really is quite good for a while, but you might find yourself rolling your eyes a lot as it enters the stretch run, as I did.

As an Australian and an educator, it is difficult to imagine the intense pressure put on high schoolers to do well in exams, especially leading up to college entrance. This series portrays those pressures in a variety of ways; overbearing mothers; competitiveness of trying to get into top academies; the need to study to the point of exhaustion; the extremes some students go to, and more. The 16-episode format allows for in depth explorations of so much and this is one reason why they have become so popular.

Crash Course in Romance also deals with common K-drama romance tropes such as class difference, with the well-off main character falling for a natural, struggling, hard-working woman, rather than the privileged, rich, and in this case, more beautiful counterparts. Upper class female characters are often portrayed quite negatively, and this is no different. It certainly reflects some stifling aspects of Korean society, where those with money seem fixated on appearance and gossip and are ready to judge extremely harshly those who step out of their class boundaries. One shrieking intense mother played by Kim Sun-young does this in consummate style, but then she is such an experienced actor, this is no surprise.

It has a darker element running through it, which adds intrigue and mystery. This certainly helps maintain interest, which is so important over the 16-episode format.

Finally, there is a sensitive portrayal of a character on the spectrum. Oh Eui-shik as Nam Jae-woo is extraordinary in this role, helped by good script writing. The whole family unit of the main players works so well with convincing relationship dynamics. The young Roh Yoon-seo, consolidates her position as a rising star after her award for Our Blues. Her portrayal of Nam Hae-yi was understated, controlled and therefore quite tricky to maintain. She did her character justice. I also liked the evolving relationship between Choi Chi-yeol (Jung Kyung-ho) and Nam Jae-woo, which was done so sensitively and beautifully.

So this series is packed with good acting, believable characters and there is a good deal to recommend it.

This series has ripened into two worthy examinations. The first being the fire like role of gossip and inuendo and it capacities for social damage, and the second searingly important role of academic pressure for young adult learners. What high school students navigate in today's world of academic admissions, the grueling realities of rank in social ordering connected. It has really gotten out of control and proportion. This series set in Korea, examines something happening world wide. The rest of the series provides the cushion for this examination to happen and land, in a loving family order that draws the mathlete star into their warm orbit, and they act as the cushion for the series hard edges of cold sky scrapers and other cold realities. The main characters are not perfect but in the end something works. I didn't enjoy the show the first time round, but have fallen in love with it on the second or third watching I remain confused about the female protagonist wardrobe. It feels like they were dressing her through a stylist of some kind that was popular at the time and often what what she was in did not suit her. But it did bring out her sweetness and quirkiness.