Crash Course in Romance

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 was great entertainment but I think they tried too many stories and they loose a bit of intensity and you also forget at times about events that get no closure.

I loved the main story line if the professor, the academy, the mums and of course his love story. It was quite refreshing watch a more mature couple although they still insisted of making them both completely inexperienced and new to love even pushing their 40s. That's an obsession of koreans and their idea of virginity, but as unrealistic as it can be.

Other than that it was great, despite the 10 years gap between the ages of the leads it looked somewhat believable, but not for their chemistry but for the absolutely amazing acting, they are very experienced actors and you can tell.

The secondary storyline with the teenagers ( love story and school bullying) is another one, and that was very interesting as well ( it was worthy of it's own drama) but the execution wasn't perfect due to the series focusing on all the other storylines so it was left incomplete and the finish was rushed.

The big surprise was the serial killer twist, which was extremely rushed and packed in the latest episodes which made it completely unbelievable and wasn't carried on smoothly throughout the show. I don't think they did a good job with this part but this is what we got.

Overall original and funny but I was expecting more.

I wasn't really interested in watching this, the title made me think it'd be too cheesy. But the title in Korean would have been something like "Top Scandal" instead of Romance so anyway I decided to watch and I'm glad it wasn't just focused on the romance part. By reading the comments here I see that some people find it weird that the female lead was older and "looked like it". That's insulting in so many levels. And more importantly, it happens in real life that people look their age and sometimes they get in relationships with younger people. Both male and female. So that was refreshing to see.

The whole drama managed to include Sky Castle-ish education issues, a mystery case, murder, suic*de (I never saw a trigger warning, maybe I missed it), and others, in just 16 episodes, so that's quite a feat. And that's why it wasn't boring.

The actors were all great, both young and old, as expected in Korean series. If only they spoke juust a bit faster. Watching it in faster speed helped.

Sometimes I was annoyed by how rude they spoke to the brother with Asperger's but I see no one mentioned it so I guess I'm overreacting.

All in all pretty good, and very unexpectedly so!

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.

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.