Review of Hierarchy / 하이라키

Lately, I’ve been spending so much time watching television and movies. In May 2024 I finally completed my master’s degree, wrapping up my digital humanities thesis on Korean women’s literature 1917-1961 (which you can read about on this site! I made it publicly accessible), so I suddenly had a lot of free time.

Between May and mid-June I pretty much had nothing to do before relocating to South Korea on a government scholarship, I consumed a lot of content throughout this time. Korean dramas have been high on my list, as well as Chinese one, hence the influx of blog posts now (and more are coming soon—I’ve scheduled them up until September right now) on these shows.

Hierarchy was something I had an alert on my Netflix account for it to notify me when it dropped. Every so often I pop into the new and upcoming section of my Netflix just to see what’s coming up on the market, and I flag which ones I’m interested in.

I was specifically into the plot of this show, because if it’s done well, it can do so much for social critiques and commentary. It was also only seven episodes long, which helped me, especially as I did not want to commit too hard before going abroad.

That said, here is my review! I don’t want to ramble too much in the introduction.

At one elite high school, a revenge plot is afoot. But things don’t always go as planned.

Throughout this series, it takes place in a high school called Jooshin High School. It’s a school for the elites of South Korea, and they take classes in fancy rooms with high end amenities. Even their school uniforms are perfectly tailored for the occasion. It was also fascinating that they had an American football team. I found that quite odd.

That said, not many people can get into this school easily if they don’t have money. For those that do, with scholarships, it’s kind of hard straight off the bat. The uniform ties designate your status, so just by looking at the color of one’s tie, you’re going to know who’s not a rich elite.

We meet our male lead pretty early on: Kang Ha. He’s a transfer scholarship student who goes up in front of everyone to give a speech, but they look away and ignore him because he’s a scholarship student. Despite being somewhat kind and smiling at everyone, they treat him pretty poorly early on because he acts like he fits in.

However, he’s come into this school with an agenda: his brother, Kang In-han, was once the top student at the school. Considered to be one of the best students in the country, he had a bright future ahead of him. However, he died suddenly, and Kang Ha is about to get to the bottom of what really happens in this school.

Which involves him with Jung Jae-yi, a student at the school who’s considered to be one of the Queen Bees. She comes from a conglomerate family, making her a chaebol, but she’s from a rival chaebol family to the Jooshin Group. Once, she dated the top student at the school: Kim Ri-an.

Ri-an is the heir to the Jooshin Group, and Kang Ha first hatches his plan on moving forward at a party. While he gets sick of everyone around him during truth or dare, he seeks out Jae-yi in front of Ri-an and makes out with her. As he’s kissing her, he looks Ri-an in the eye.

This kickstarts a war of sorts throughout the school, leading to more drama throughout the course of the series. We’re going to learn more about the real circumstances behind his brother’s death as well, which isn’t very shocking if you know how these school dramas go to be honest.

Overall Thoughts

If we’re going to be honest here, I found this show to be lackluster and quite difficult to get through. While the world of the school is interesting and could be compelling, the plot itself is so predictable.

I also found myself not caring for the characters I was watching on-screen, including Kang Ha. Like what happened to his brother is truly terrible, but there wasn’t an emotional connection. The richer students, too, who are primarily antagonists also feel pretty flat to me.

The second male lead’s acting also did not do it for me. I remember him in King the Land and thought he was better there—it might be a script issues and characterization problems within it throughout this show. I think the show suffers from a poor script.

If you love this show, I’m happy for you! It wasn’t my cup of tea, but maybe it’s someone else’s out there. Neither of us are wrong—taste is so incredibly subjective.

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