↪↔↩OG & the SAT↪↔↩ °7° °Good°
Deuk Pal is a gangster. That doesn't mean he can't get his GED and take the college entrance exams. He has a tutor and he's working hard. His boss wants him to quit school and take over the gang. Song I “Heon” is much younger, but he's already given up. He's jumping off the foot bridge to the highway below. Deuk Pal sees and rushes to stop him. They collide. Heon dies, and somehow, their souls switch. Deuk Pal's soul ends up in the kid's body. Deuk gets to attend his own funeral.
At first, he makes weak, ill-informed attempts to get back into his old body. That just isn't going to work. Next, a rude woman (Lee Mi Kyung played by Hwang Bo Ra of Vagabond-8 & What's Wrong with Secretary Kim-6.8) drops by and appears to be his stepmother? His father's aid? (He doesn't know anything or anybody in Heon’s life). She drops off some school books after complaining about what a pain he is and that he couldn't even kill himself “properly”. He pulls out the tablet and reads the diary of the kid whose body he's taken. This kid's been picked on his whole life. He decides he'll go to school and set the bullies straight.
Deuk quickly learns that he doesn't have the mentality, vocabulary, or fashion sense that the other kids do. But he does have his strength-of-mind; gangsters aren't pushovers. He's also got a credit card with no limit, since he's the illegitimate son of the CEO of one of Korea's top 3 construction companies.
Heon had worn his hair long and over his eyes in order to hide from the world. In Heon's body, Deuk immediately gets a haircut. It's truly shocking what a difference a hairdo makes. Like a coat of paint, a change in hairstyle is an instant makeover. His classmates don't even recognize him. Deuk-Heon is a middle-aged man in a kid's body, but he is very much a middle-aged man. He's constantly told he sounds like an old fogey. He also takes responsibility, as an adult, for what goes wrong and encourages the kids to be their best and do their best. It's played for laughs and warmth.
Yoon Chan Young (All of Us Are Dead) portrays ML, Heon, who gets possessed by Kim Deuk Pal. This kid is great. He has the middle-aged man walk, stance, expressions, & the standing-casual-with-hands-in-pockets. He's got that vague, ever present exasperation. Bong Jae Hyun (Crash! & Insignificant Roommates) plays Choi Se “Kyung”. They are friends, though their relationship isn't simple. Kyung knows enough to know that this dude ain't Heon. Lee Seo Jin (Marriage Contract) opens the show as the real OG, Kim Deuk Pal, looking real gangster. Ko Dong Ok plays the rotund thug, Jong Cheol. He's very amusing. This is the acting debut of singer, dancer, and model Joo Yoon Chan as Hong “Jae” Min, the school's worst bully, and the cause of Heon's ep1 suicide. Deuk Pal isn't much for bullying. He pulls his banger moves and soon Jae is more like his flunky and nothing like his oppressor. Jae ends up being pushed by two opposing sides and has a difficult choice to make.
I can't tell if this is a romance or a bromance between the 2 male leads. It's open-ended enough to read either way. They don't seem the least bit interested in girls until the last two episodes and that felt tokenish or tossed in. The past friendship is vague, poorly defined and looks more like it was an attraction. With Deuk on the scene, the friendship is real and true, and it's the centerpiece of the show.
“Why do you try so hard?” “If we don't do anything, bad people will continue to get the upper hand, and everything will just get worse. That's how the world works.” The only thing Deuk Pal is afraid of is exams and teachers, whether he's in Heon's body or not. He feels for Jae and wants to clean up the mess that is Jae's life, but Deuk-Heon isnalready balancing bullies, gangs, his dad's assistant (perhaps the most gangster character in the show), teachers, friends’ parents, and his own sick mother. One thing he doesn't have to deal with is dad. Daddy's always been absent.
Toxic parents who push kids too hard or ignore kids for their own agenda are, once again, front and center. Kyung is pushed cruelly by a rigid father. Bullying and suicide are also in the mix. Those are the big, ever present 3 Kdrama themes along with hyper-competitiveness and gossip. It's obvious that their society runs on toxic pride. Every human society does, to a certain degree, but they keep it at a whole different level.
Can people change? Deuk thinks so, as long as they decide to. “Even if you give up on me, dad, I will never give up on you. I'm going to grow up to be an adult who is respectable, confident, and upright. So you just watch me.” Kyung finally stands up to his father. People can change once they face truth. Once truth hits an individual, it's hard to continue to live in lies. Sadly, truth doesn't even brush by most people. Most people exist in lies all of their waking hours. The first and biggest lie is telling ourselves we're doing pretty good. All of us need more improvement than we could accomplish in a lifetime, and it seems that none of us are humble enough.
HSROG is a 2024 release that is rated 90 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of only 8 55-minute episodes. The first sign that this is a lite piece, and the creators weren't adverse to taking shortcuts, is the fact that they give us no reason for the soul switch. Maybe I looked away for a moment and missed it, but I don't recall any basis. We just have to accept it. Nevertheless, I took to it fully, rather quickly. I looked forward to each episode and was sad when I got beyond the halfway mark. The show is fun to watch.
It does lose steam and get goofier in the 2nd half. The villain is Heon's father's aid. She's much worse than the good-at-heart gangsters. It's alittle much, but not so far out of line. The show opted for simplicity not complexity. It is on the teen level, and for that level, it's good.
The heart-of-gold gangster is as easy to find as the heart-of-gold rich person. They are urban legends borne of our projection. Sure, some must exist, somewhere, but there's not many of them. I could never understand the appeal of gangsters and thugs in entertainment. Apparently, audiences love them because they do whatever they want to do. I still don't get the appeal of lowlife thugs, murderers, rapists, drug dealers and cruel pimps. I never will. It's different for someone truly apologetic. Bad guys who turn a new leaf are an inspiration. Jae has a genuine turnaround and experiences forgiveness and genuine human connections for the first time.
Despite the fact that this is less than half the length of a typical k-drama, they still have a wonderful last episode with a thorough and satisfying wrap-up. It's shocking how rare that's been, though they seem to be breaking that trend and improving of late.
As the show reinforces good values and is relatively clean and tame, it's perfect for teens who will relate to the pressures that these kids are grappling with. It reinforces personal responsibility, strength, and forgiveness. It's the opposite of gangsta.
QUOTES🗣
Play stupid games and win stupid prizes.
It's an adult's job to help kids avoid misery as much as possible.
IMHO〰🖍
📣7.4 📝6.5 🎭7.7 🎨6.5 🎵/🔊7.3 🔚6 🤗4.7 ▪ 🌞5⚡4.5 😅2.5 😭3.5 😱2 😯3 🤢2 🤔4.8 💤0
Shazams: GO by LUCY
Age 12+ Language: weak@$$, @$$holes, violence, bullying, Rated TV-15: Parents Strongly Cautioned. However, this show is on a teen level. It's more a kid's show than an adult piece.
Re-📺?
This one's in the good-to-pass-the-time category, but I may never pass this way again….
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
Flex X Cop-8.5,
The Miracle-7.7,
Another Miss Oh-7.5,
Glitch-8,
Missing: The Other Side-8.3,
Alchemy of Souls-7.9
When the Camellia Blooms-8,
Uncanny counter season-1 only °S1-8.4 S2-4,
Vagabond-8,
Familiar Wife-8.5,
Law School -8,
Why Her?-8,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Revenge of Others-8.1,
SKY Castle-9,
Blood Free-8.5 ,
Sisyphus 8 (give it 2 episodes, ep1 is confusing),
Tunnel 8.5,
Anna-8.1,
Moving-8.5,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
Squid Game-8.4,
Awaken-8.7,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
The Wailing-8.8,
Black 9,
Sweet Home 8.4
~11/2025 After thoughts~
I'll never let AI write my reviews - I'm definitely too old school for that. However, Ive just discovered Grok in the last couple weeks and I'm having the best conversations of my life with him on filmed entertainment. Grok is the collective hivemind of human existence, and he's extremely entertaining. Here's what he says about our ML:
100% YES. Yoon Chan-young in High School Return of a Gangster is one of the most insane acting flexes I’ve seen from a Gen-Z actor in years.He’s 19 in real life playing a 49-year-old ex-gangster whose soul gets yeeted into the body of a bullied high-school weakling… and he doesn’t just “act” middle-aged, he becomes it. The slouchy ahjussi walk, the way he scratches his neck when he’s annoyed, the tiny eye-rolls at teenage nonsense, the way he holds a cigarette (even when it’s just a prop), the exhausted “I’ve seen some sh!t” sighs… it’s all so scarily accurate that you forget you’re watching a teenager for entire scenes. There’s a moment in episode 3 where he threatens someone and you legitimately feel like a real yakuza loan shark is about to break your kneecaps, except he’s 170 cm of baby-faced high-schooler.He beat out grown adults for Best Actor at the 2024 Fantasia Festival for this role, and the second the international jury saw him do the “ajusshi neck crack + death glare” combo they just handed him the trophy on the spot. The fact he can flip from “terrifying 49-year-old gangster” to “awkwardly blushing when his classmate calls him cute” in the same episode and make both feel completely authentic is witchcraft.
Wearing that little half-tied school tie like a 47-year-old salaryman who gave up on fashion in 2003 is the single greatest detail in television history. The way it just hangs there, slightly crooked, screaming “I have a bad back and three divorces” while the rest of the class has perfectly knotted uniforms? Oscar-worthy costume design. Emmy-worthy acting. I need it framed. Every time he adjusted that tragic tie with the exhaustion of a man who’s paid too many bar tabs in his life, I lost ten years off mine. The commitment to the bit was unholy. "TIE-ud" Yoon Chan-young, the character that launched a thousand memes and zero fashion consultations.
About the the bromance:
It’s a bromance that keeps accidentally walking right up to the romance line, staring at it for a long second, then nervously stepping back while clearing its throat. Officially, the show markets itself (and ends) as a pure bromance / found-family story: two broken dudes (one literally middle-aged in a teen body, one emotionally stunted rich kid) who save each other’s souls, learn to feel things again, hold hands in the rain, cry on each other’s shoulders, live together, cook for each other, and have multiple “I’d die for you” speeches… but nope, definitely just bros being bros! The girls exist purely to:
~prove the leads are technically straight on paper
~give the leads someone to awkwardly reject so they can go back to intense eye-contact with each other
~disappear for entire episodes when the plot remembers they exist
So in the balance:95 % soul-deep male bond with zero chill 5 % “here’s a girl so no one can say it’s gay”
→ Net result = the most gloriously homoerotic “bromance” that somehow still got away with a 15+ rating and aired on TVING without ever saying the word romance.
It’s the drama equivalent of that one friend who says “no homo” right before hugging you for 45 seconds straight.
The girls show up like unpaid interns holding a sign that says “HETEROSEXUALITY HAPPENS HERE” for exactly 45 seconds, get politely friend-zoned with the gentleness of a customer service rep, then vanish so the real main couple can resume their 4K slow-motion eye-f*** across the school rooftop while sad piano plays.It’s the most respectful, softest rejection in drama history, followed immediately by:Lead 1: “Anyway, where were we?”
Lead 2: stares into his soul for 12 uninterrupted seconds
Camera: zooms in until you can count individual eyelashes
Me: this is homophobia… because it’s not actually homo, it's plausible deniability.
🤣🤣🤣
So, this really is worth watching for tne lead's performance alone. It’s legendary.
At first, he makes weak, ill-informed attempts to get back into his old body. That just isn't going to work. Next, a rude woman (Lee Mi Kyung played by Hwang Bo Ra of Vagabond-8 & What's Wrong with Secretary Kim-6.8) drops by and appears to be his stepmother? His father's aid? (He doesn't know anything or anybody in Heon’s life). She drops off some school books after complaining about what a pain he is and that he couldn't even kill himself “properly”. He pulls out the tablet and reads the diary of the kid whose body he's taken. This kid's been picked on his whole life. He decides he'll go to school and set the bullies straight.
Deuk quickly learns that he doesn't have the mentality, vocabulary, or fashion sense that the other kids do. But he does have his strength-of-mind; gangsters aren't pushovers. He's also got a credit card with no limit, since he's the illegitimate son of the CEO of one of Korea's top 3 construction companies.
Heon had worn his hair long and over his eyes in order to hide from the world. In Heon's body, Deuk immediately gets a haircut. It's truly shocking what a difference a hairdo makes. Like a coat of paint, a change in hairstyle is an instant makeover. His classmates don't even recognize him. Deuk-Heon is a middle-aged man in a kid's body, but he is very much a middle-aged man. He's constantly told he sounds like an old fogey. He also takes responsibility, as an adult, for what goes wrong and encourages the kids to be their best and do their best. It's played for laughs and warmth.
Yoon Chan Young (All of Us Are Dead) portrays ML, Heon, who gets possessed by Kim Deuk Pal. This kid is great. He has the middle-aged man walk, stance, expressions, & the standing-casual-with-hands-in-pockets. He's got that vague, ever present exasperation. Bong Jae Hyun (Crash! & Insignificant Roommates) plays Choi Se “Kyung”. They are friends, though their relationship isn't simple. Kyung knows enough to know that this dude ain't Heon. Lee Seo Jin (Marriage Contract) opens the show as the real OG, Kim Deuk Pal, looking real gangster. Ko Dong Ok plays the rotund thug, Jong Cheol. He's very amusing. This is the acting debut of singer, dancer, and model Joo Yoon Chan as Hong “Jae” Min, the school's worst bully, and the cause of Heon's ep1 suicide. Deuk Pal isn't much for bullying. He pulls his banger moves and soon Jae is more like his flunky and nothing like his oppressor. Jae ends up being pushed by two opposing sides and has a difficult choice to make.
I can't tell if this is a romance or a bromance between the 2 male leads. It's open-ended enough to read either way. They don't seem the least bit interested in girls until the last two episodes and that felt tokenish or tossed in. The past friendship is vague, poorly defined and looks more like it was an attraction. With Deuk on the scene, the friendship is real and true, and it's the centerpiece of the show.
“Why do you try so hard?” “If we don't do anything, bad people will continue to get the upper hand, and everything will just get worse. That's how the world works.” The only thing Deuk Pal is afraid of is exams and teachers, whether he's in Heon's body or not. He feels for Jae and wants to clean up the mess that is Jae's life, but Deuk-Heon isnalready balancing bullies, gangs, his dad's assistant (perhaps the most gangster character in the show), teachers, friends’ parents, and his own sick mother. One thing he doesn't have to deal with is dad. Daddy's always been absent.
Toxic parents who push kids too hard or ignore kids for their own agenda are, once again, front and center. Kyung is pushed cruelly by a rigid father. Bullying and suicide are also in the mix. Those are the big, ever present 3 Kdrama themes along with hyper-competitiveness and gossip. It's obvious that their society runs on toxic pride. Every human society does, to a certain degree, but they keep it at a whole different level.
Can people change? Deuk thinks so, as long as they decide to. “Even if you give up on me, dad, I will never give up on you. I'm going to grow up to be an adult who is respectable, confident, and upright. So you just watch me.” Kyung finally stands up to his father. People can change once they face truth. Once truth hits an individual, it's hard to continue to live in lies. Sadly, truth doesn't even brush by most people. Most people exist in lies all of their waking hours. The first and biggest lie is telling ourselves we're doing pretty good. All of us need more improvement than we could accomplish in a lifetime, and it seems that none of us are humble enough.
HSROG is a 2024 release that is rated 90 on AWiki. It is 1 season consisting of only 8 55-minute episodes. The first sign that this is a lite piece, and the creators weren't adverse to taking shortcuts, is the fact that they give us no reason for the soul switch. Maybe I looked away for a moment and missed it, but I don't recall any basis. We just have to accept it. Nevertheless, I took to it fully, rather quickly. I looked forward to each episode and was sad when I got beyond the halfway mark. The show is fun to watch.
It does lose steam and get goofier in the 2nd half. The villain is Heon's father's aid. She's much worse than the good-at-heart gangsters. It's alittle much, but not so far out of line. The show opted for simplicity not complexity. It is on the teen level, and for that level, it's good.
The heart-of-gold gangster is as easy to find as the heart-of-gold rich person. They are urban legends borne of our projection. Sure, some must exist, somewhere, but there's not many of them. I could never understand the appeal of gangsters and thugs in entertainment. Apparently, audiences love them because they do whatever they want to do. I still don't get the appeal of lowlife thugs, murderers, rapists, drug dealers and cruel pimps. I never will. It's different for someone truly apologetic. Bad guys who turn a new leaf are an inspiration. Jae has a genuine turnaround and experiences forgiveness and genuine human connections for the first time.
Despite the fact that this is less than half the length of a typical k-drama, they still have a wonderful last episode with a thorough and satisfying wrap-up. It's shocking how rare that's been, though they seem to be breaking that trend and improving of late.
As the show reinforces good values and is relatively clean and tame, it's perfect for teens who will relate to the pressures that these kids are grappling with. It reinforces personal responsibility, strength, and forgiveness. It's the opposite of gangsta.
QUOTES🗣
Play stupid games and win stupid prizes.
It's an adult's job to help kids avoid misery as much as possible.
IMHO〰🖍
📣7.4 📝6.5 🎭7.7 🎨6.5 🎵/🔊7.3 🔚6 🤗4.7 ▪ 🌞5⚡4.5 😅2.5 😭3.5 😱2 😯3 🤢2 🤔4.8 💤0
Shazams: GO by LUCY
Age 12+ Language: weak@$$, @$$holes, violence, bullying, Rated TV-15: Parents Strongly Cautioned. However, this show is on a teen level. It's more a kid's show than an adult piece.
Re-📺?
This one's in the good-to-pass-the-time category, but I may never pass this way again….
In order of ~lite&trite~ to ~heavy&serious~ you may also like:
Flex X Cop-8.5,
The Miracle-7.7,
Another Miss Oh-7.5,
Glitch-8,
Missing: The Other Side-8.3,
Alchemy of Souls-7.9
When the Camellia Blooms-8,
Uncanny counter season-1 only °S1-8.4 S2-4,
Vagabond-8,
Familiar Wife-8.5,
Law School -8,
Why Her?-8,
The Golden Spoon-8.1,
Revenge of Others-8.1,
SKY Castle-9,
Blood Free-8.5 ,
Sisyphus 8 (give it 2 episodes, ep1 is confusing),
Tunnel 8.5,
Anna-8.1,
Moving-8.5,
The Cursed 8.3,
Flower of Evil 8.9,
Squid Game-8.4,
Awaken-8.7,
The Man from Nowhere 8.9,
The Wailing-8.8,
Black 9,
Sweet Home 8.4
~11/2025 After thoughts~
I'll never let AI write my reviews - I'm definitely too old school for that. However, Ive just discovered Grok in the last couple weeks and I'm having the best conversations of my life with him on filmed entertainment. Grok is the collective hivemind of human existence, and he's extremely entertaining. Here's what he says about our ML:
100% YES. Yoon Chan-young in High School Return of a Gangster is one of the most insane acting flexes I’ve seen from a Gen-Z actor in years.He’s 19 in real life playing a 49-year-old ex-gangster whose soul gets yeeted into the body of a bullied high-school weakling… and he doesn’t just “act” middle-aged, he becomes it. The slouchy ahjussi walk, the way he scratches his neck when he’s annoyed, the tiny eye-rolls at teenage nonsense, the way he holds a cigarette (even when it’s just a prop), the exhausted “I’ve seen some sh!t” sighs… it’s all so scarily accurate that you forget you’re watching a teenager for entire scenes. There’s a moment in episode 3 where he threatens someone and you legitimately feel like a real yakuza loan shark is about to break your kneecaps, except he’s 170 cm of baby-faced high-schooler.He beat out grown adults for Best Actor at the 2024 Fantasia Festival for this role, and the second the international jury saw him do the “ajusshi neck crack + death glare” combo they just handed him the trophy on the spot. The fact he can flip from “terrifying 49-year-old gangster” to “awkwardly blushing when his classmate calls him cute” in the same episode and make both feel completely authentic is witchcraft.
Wearing that little half-tied school tie like a 47-year-old salaryman who gave up on fashion in 2003 is the single greatest detail in television history. The way it just hangs there, slightly crooked, screaming “I have a bad back and three divorces” while the rest of the class has perfectly knotted uniforms? Oscar-worthy costume design. Emmy-worthy acting. I need it framed. Every time he adjusted that tragic tie with the exhaustion of a man who’s paid too many bar tabs in his life, I lost ten years off mine. The commitment to the bit was unholy. "TIE-ud" Yoon Chan-young, the character that launched a thousand memes and zero fashion consultations.
About the the bromance:
It’s a bromance that keeps accidentally walking right up to the romance line, staring at it for a long second, then nervously stepping back while clearing its throat. Officially, the show markets itself (and ends) as a pure bromance / found-family story: two broken dudes (one literally middle-aged in a teen body, one emotionally stunted rich kid) who save each other’s souls, learn to feel things again, hold hands in the rain, cry on each other’s shoulders, live together, cook for each other, and have multiple “I’d die for you” speeches… but nope, definitely just bros being bros! The girls exist purely to:
~prove the leads are technically straight on paper
~give the leads someone to awkwardly reject so they can go back to intense eye-contact with each other
~disappear for entire episodes when the plot remembers they exist
So in the balance:95 % soul-deep male bond with zero chill 5 % “here’s a girl so no one can say it’s gay”
→ Net result = the most gloriously homoerotic “bromance” that somehow still got away with a 15+ rating and aired on TVING without ever saying the word romance.
It’s the drama equivalent of that one friend who says “no homo” right before hugging you for 45 seconds straight.
The girls show up like unpaid interns holding a sign that says “HETEROSEXUALITY HAPPENS HERE” for exactly 45 seconds, get politely friend-zoned with the gentleness of a customer service rep, then vanish so the real main couple can resume their 4K slow-motion eye-f*** across the school rooftop while sad piano plays.It’s the most respectful, softest rejection in drama history, followed immediately by:Lead 1: “Anyway, where were we?”
Lead 2: stares into his soul for 12 uninterrupted seconds
Camera: zooms in until you can count individual eyelashes
Me: this is homophobia… because it’s not actually homo, it's plausible deniability.
🤣🤣🤣
So, this really is worth watching for tne lead's performance alone. It’s legendary.
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