Ah, time for my absolute favourite K-drama so far.
Sky Castle (Netflix, 2018)
We all lie
Just tell me the truth
Shout it out!
What you want from the world
Money, honour, beauty
Everything you want
Those are the iconic lyrics to We All Lie, the iconic OST of the most popular drama of 2018.
Sky Castle is brilliant about Korean education and hypocrisy, and as such is not the best choice for your first K-drama - get a few others under your belt and get used to some tropes first.
It's a true ensemble piece, with five gen-X couples and their teenaged children, who all live at the eponymous elite apartment complex which is provided by a university trust for their best professors.
- The Kangs: Dr Kang is an arrogant neurosurgeon who is very proud of his position and of having been top of his class at Seoul National (SNU). His wife Seo-Jin is obsessed with getting her older daughter (Ye-Seo, a spoiled monster) into SNU. They both hate the Hwangs (see below) for different reasons. They also have a younger daughter (Ye-Bin) whom they neglect.
- The Hwangs: Dr Hwang is basically perfect - a kind empathic neurosurgeon who specialises in minimal invasive treatment and who's very popular with his patients, and is an adoring and supportive husband and father. His wife Su-Im is nearly as perfect but is something of an interfering moralist, but that's because unlike most of the other characters she has a functional conscience. Their son Uju is also perfect.
- The Chas: Professor Cha is not a doctor and boy does he resent it. He's a law professor who used to be a public prosecutor and would-be politician and is bitter about the collapse of his political career; he takes this out on his twin sons, pressurising them as hard as possible, holding up the example of their older sister who’s already made it into Harvard. His wife Seung-Hye is calm and gentle, and does her best to shield her children from her husband; as the story progresses she decides that's not enough and fights back hard. She's my favourite character in the series.
- The Woos: Dr Woo is Dr Kang's subordinate and is a natural follower; his wife Jin-Hee is a Sloane (sorry, English term - she's from a rich family from a rich part of the city, not clever) who follows Seo-Jin's lead in doing her best for her young son but is often conflicted about how to keep him happy but also on track.
- The Parks: Dr Park was Hwang's predecessor at the hospital; his son Young-Jae gets into SNU in the first episode to general congratulations, and then the family falls apart. Not main characters but very present in spirit (and occasionally in person).
The last important character is Coach Kim, an elite academic coordinator with a 100% success rate at getting kids into SNU. She was Young-Jae's coordinator and is now Ye-Seo's.
The story is complex and incredibly tightly and well plotted, with barely a spare moment. Everyone gets their time in the spotlight and their scene where you'll weep for them (yes, even Dr Kang). There's a lot of unexpected dry comedy (take a bow, Seung-Hye). The writers delight in building up various characters' pomposity and hypocrisy and then puncturing them fiercely. This show is about education, sure, but more than that it's about how the foundations of Korean and every society are built on hypocrisy and lies we tell ourselves and each other.
Sky Castle was very popular and controversial in Korea when it was released and remains extremely influential. If you can take the time and have a Netflix account, I urge you to get into it at your earliest convenience.
Sky Castle (Netflix, 2018)
We all lie
Just tell me the truth
Shout it out!
What you want from the world
Money, honour, beauty
Everything you want
Those are the iconic lyrics to We All Lie, the iconic OST of the most popular drama of 2018.
Sky Castle is brilliant about Korean education and hypocrisy, and as such is not the best choice for your first K-drama - get a few others under your belt and get used to some tropes first.
It's a true ensemble piece, with five gen-X couples and their teenaged children, who all live at the eponymous elite apartment complex which is provided by a university trust for their best professors.
- The Kangs: Dr Kang is an arrogant neurosurgeon who is very proud of his position and of having been top of his class at Seoul National (SNU). His wife Seo-Jin is obsessed with getting her older daughter (Ye-Seo, a spoiled monster) into SNU. They both hate the Hwangs (see below) for different reasons. They also have a younger daughter (Ye-Bin) whom they neglect.
- The Hwangs: Dr Hwang is basically perfect - a kind empathic neurosurgeon who specialises in minimal invasive treatment and who's very popular with his patients, and is an adoring and supportive husband and father. His wife Su-Im is nearly as perfect but is something of an interfering moralist, but that's because unlike most of the other characters she has a functional conscience. Their son Uju is also perfect.
- The Chas: Professor Cha is not a doctor and boy does he resent it. He's a law professor who used to be a public prosecutor and would-be politician and is bitter about the collapse of his political career; he takes this out on his twin sons, pressurising them as hard as possible, holding up the example of their older sister who’s already made it into Harvard. His wife Seung-Hye is calm and gentle, and does her best to shield her children from her husband; as the story progresses she decides that's not enough and fights back hard. She's my favourite character in the series.
- The Woos: Dr Woo is Dr Kang's subordinate and is a natural follower; his wife Jin-Hee is a Sloane (sorry, English term - she's from a rich family from a rich part of the city, not clever) who follows Seo-Jin's lead in doing her best for her young son but is often conflicted about how to keep him happy but also on track.
- The Parks: Dr Park was Hwang's predecessor at the hospital; his son Young-Jae gets into SNU in the first episode to general congratulations, and then the family falls apart. Not main characters but very present in spirit (and occasionally in person).
The last important character is Coach Kim, an elite academic coordinator with a 100% success rate at getting kids into SNU. She was Young-Jae's coordinator and is now Ye-Seo's.
The story is complex and incredibly tightly and well plotted, with barely a spare moment. Everyone gets their time in the spotlight and their scene where you'll weep for them (yes, even Dr Kang). There's a lot of unexpected dry comedy (take a bow, Seung-Hye). The writers delight in building up various characters' pomposity and hypocrisy and then puncturing them fiercely. This show is about education, sure, but more than that it's about how the foundations of Korean and every society are built on hypocrisy and lies we tell ourselves and each other.
Sky Castle was very popular and controversial in Korea when it was released and remains extremely influential. If you can take the time and have a Netflix account, I urge you to get into it at your earliest convenience.
