KDrama to Miss: Crash Course in Romance (2023)

Crash Course in Romance (2023)

Grade: C+

16 episodes, 70 min each

Viewing Platform: Netflix

Nam Haeng-seon is a Korean side-dish shop owner, raising her sister's daughter, Nam Hae-e, as her own. It's the teen girl's junior year in high school, with intense competition and pressure to do well on the national college placement exam. Hae-e's friend encourages her to study harder, and she gets into a prestigious private after-school program. Haeng-seon wasn't much of an academic herself (she retired as a handball athlete when her sister abandoned Hae-e), but she decides to support her niece as best she can – even if it means dealing with a curmudgeonly “star” teacher at the Pride academy. Choi Chi-yeol is in fact a very talented math teacher, with millions of dollars to his name for his efforts – but he doesn't enjoy what he has. He is so stressed out he can hardly eat, having lost a student to suicide several years ago, due to the extremely competitive academic environment. What happens when he encounters Haeng-seon's home cooking? Will the intensified attacks on those around Chi-yeol finally lead to tragedy, or revelation?

*The romance between Chi-yeol and Haeng-seon is cute, but it is only a tiny part of the drama. They're not physically a great match, either (he is more handsome than she is pretty). The whole drama was too reality-based for my liking, even with a serial killer plot line sprinkled in it. The bad guy “offing” himself felt super convenient, and Chi-yeol doesn't appear to give a second THOUGHT to the betrayal or death! With all the misery Chi-yeol felt at losing one of his students, which is heavily played up with his eating disorder, his under-reaction is bizarre. At times it feels like the show is a condemnation of the competitive culture in Korea – but Chi-yeol does nothing to change the system. Then the ending is much softer than I was expecting, considering the violent buildup with the villain and the rather despicable antagonist side characters. Wouldn't watch again.*