The Midnight Romance in Hagwon

Upcoming Best Romance Drama currently!!

This looks promising drama!! The texture is same style and genre with "one spring night" drama.

If you like "one spring night" and "something in the rain", you will enjoy this drama too!!

Good directing and cinematography!!

A Realistic workplace plot will be with sweet romance!!!

I am fan of main lead actress and like their chemistry!!

Hope to see more romantic scenes!!!

This will be slow burn romance drama and same vibe and texture with "one spring night" and "something in the rain" drama.

They have 6 years age gap only. Female lead was third year of university student and part-time study guide/instructor (not real teacher) while male lead was in high-school student (will be 18 or 19 age) for matriculation exam.

As per photos of age chart, current FL age is 35 years old and ML is 29 years old , that is why 6 years age gap only.

I enjoy this drama a lot!!! Can't wait to see new episodes!!!!

This show is brilliant in every sense. It gave a good insight on the education system. The script and plot was through provoking and so realistic. Every scene felt natural. The casting was superb. Jung Ryeo-won and Wi Ha Joon's acting brilliantly showed the nuances of their characters. The romance between them was so beautiful to watch as it built up in every episode because their chemistry was in a whole other level. Seo Jung-Yeon who was Gray witch did pretty well and gave me Meryl Streep vibes in Devil wears prada. This is up there with One Spring Night and Something in the rain. I'll surely be this rewatching again.

The first half of this drama was interesting and entertaining enough to keep me watching. The chemistry between the leads worked well, even if it wasn't spectacular, and the story had potential to be something memorable.

But after episode 8, everything started to fall apart. The plot became unnecessarily dragged out, repetitive, and lost all sense of direction. It felt like the writers were adding filler moments just to stretch it to 16 episodes, and instead of deepening the story, they completely diluted it. By the time it reached the finale, all the charm from the earlier episodes was gone, and it felt like a chore to finish.

This drama could have been so much better with a tighter script and fewer episodes. What started off as a promising and simple romance turned into something unnecessarily long and frustrating. A shorter, more focused series would have done wonders for the pacing and overall impact.

A quality drama, don't give up and watch until the end to understand its quality.

Casting is also perfect, there is no doubt, Wi Ha Joon is perfect in the role he plays (I love his acting in both Little Women and The Worst of Evil) the casting and acting of everyone is perfect as if they were chosen with tweezers.. there were moments that made me seethe with rage and there were also those that made me cry with rage.

The drama is a sharp indictment and criticism against the education system in Korea, the pursuit of excellence by memorization and not by self-thinking or analyzing situations, at the same time I have a reservation that the drama is apparently boring, there is a lot of talk about grades/tests and the grading system of tests. Sometimes I found myself repeating episodes or dialogue (one must say witty) to understand things, which leads me to think that the drama mainly speaks to viewers from Korea, they can better understand the depth of the drama than a western audience, most of the filming was done almost in the dark (even the room of The principal of the college it's dark not to talk about intimate scenes and a kiss lol) which made it difficult to watch. There are a lot of silences but the silences are so necessary for the plot (really wonderful acting) I've already seen series that deal with the strict education in South Korea and the attitude of the parents to their children and teachers regarding achievements, but it was on the edge (from what I saw), this drama gave me a different perspective ... Of course, it has many important and universal topics related to education and interpersonal communication, (relationships between students/teachers/and parents and interpersonal relationships on a romantic background and pure and supportive love) The soundtrack of the drama is great and pleasant throughout the drama I rated the drama 9/10 for me it was another introduction to culture and it takes time to get used to its pace and plot... And it may be true that she is not suitable for everyone, this is my personal opinion and I would recommend giving her a chance♥

A romance between the Senior Golden Girl, long-time academy instructor, Seo Hye-jin, and her former student Lee Joon-ho, who returns after 10 years to teach at the same academy where he was previously the #1 student.

This romance is fundamentally of the older woman and young man genre. (But as there are ONLY 6 years between the ML & FL don't see it as anything to even be concerned about!)

The story is in the setting of after school cramming Academies. The rivalry amongst the teaching staff within, the incessant competition for students, and the disturbing unsettling power of the parents.

This is utterly baffling to those viewers from countries where the concept of cramming Academies and the competitive nature amongst them is non-existent, so the setting of this story is completely bewildering and it may as well be set on Mars in another future timezone!

Long lengthy explanations are plentiful and meaningless for a viewer from the UK. But did grasp (1) that the object of Academys is to teach the student to pass the Exams, not necessarily to understand what you are learning in education! And do not for one nanosecond deviate from this method and whatsoever! And (2) that it is first and foremost a BUSINESS!

Sadly these well-known fine actors (Jung Ryeo-won and Wi Ha-Joon) are totally and incredibly wasted, as the Director asks for clichéd performances. However the performance of Seo Jeong-yeon as the powerful Director of the rival academy was noteworthy. She acted out her nickname of "white-witch" with an appropriate amount of venom that one felt she didn't need the Director's suggestions!

Only one scene raises a smile - when the ML falls out the bed as he attempts to seduce the FL (fully clothed, of course, pleeeeze stop this at least a button-down shirt that can be unbuttoned I mean who gets into bed for obvious s*x with so many clothes on in 2024). The couple never seem to have fun together, quite unlike the other popular older woman/younger man genre "Something in the Rain", equally full of family angst and trauma, but where you could see that couple fall in love while having FUN, joyfully discovering each other together in the kitchen, the bedroom, or just walking!

At times it seemed as if this series was bordering on becoming a documentary about Korean Cramming Academies!

Just cannot recommend it.

Korean audio + English subtitles.