K-Drama Review: Dream High

Madhulika Pathak, Kolkata, West Bengal

Dream High is a 2011 South Korean television series starring Bae Suzy, Ok Taec-yeon, Kim Soo-hyun, Hahm Eun-jung, Jang Woo-young and IU. It is a high school drama centred around six students who are from Kirin High School. This story is about these six teenagers striving for their dreams. But the path to achieving those dreams is a stumbling block and we see them fighting to achieve those dreams in the drama.

Cast:

Bae Suzy appeared as Go Hye-mi: She originally wanted to become an opera singer but was forced to take up mainstream pop to pay off her father’s debt to a loan shark.

Kim Soo-hyun appeared as Song Sam-dong: He is a country bumpkin who is a music prodigy with a rare hearing disease, He develops a one-sided crush on Hye-mi.

Ok Taec-yeon appeared as Jin-guk/Hyun Shi-hyuk: He is a cool dancer with an impressive personality. But due to some reasons, he has a contentious relationship with his father who is the Mayor. Their story is a bit complicated in terms of the Father and Son relationship but done really well.

Ham Eun-jung appeared as Yoon Baek-hee: One and only best friend of Hye-mi, she was even given a nickname which had a meaning that meant a lot to Hye-mi which was actually heartbreaking due to some betraying issues which was caused between them during an audition which then leads the two of them to become bitter enemies.

Jang Woo-young appeared as Jason: An American-born dancer who plans on making his entertainment debut in Korea and was also fond of showing his mannerism in front of people. He was so into solo stage performances that sometimes he hurt his team member’s feelings but as time passed he changed a lot and almost caught each and every K-Drama lover’s attention.

IU appeared as Kim Pil-sook: She was discouraged from pursuing music because she was shy and overweight.  She was criticized pretty offensively. But she didn’t lose hope because she knew that music was capable of changing her and turns out to be a beautiful swan in the end. She also has the gift of perfect pitch and was said to be a gifted child in the drama.

Plot

This is an encouraging, fun, engaging, fresh and spectacular drama. High school is that phase of time when we need to deal with growing up and finding one’s own dreams. We have to learn and take our first step in the real world during this period of time and be more independent and become someone with a better personality. In this drama, we can see that it has a pretty universal appeal, with its emphasis on every aspect of life. It shows the truth behind dreams. The characters, along with the storyline, were able to teach valuable lessons about self-love, self-discovery, friends and family and also showed us how one needs to pass the obstacles of life to get on the right path to success.

The message this story conveys to us might sound common but if we look into it then we can understand that this drama stands out from other school dramas because of its unique setting. A few things that this drama laid its eyes on were: enhancing talent through efforts, fulfilling and achieving dreams no matter what hardships one can encounter, turning weakness into assets and believing in one’s ability from within. Life is not all about winning and losing. The whole human race is in such a rush to get that first-ranking spot right from an early age in life. But no one cares to look behind and understand what is the beauty of youth life. This drama takes the initiative and leads us to what high school life actually is. Keeping the ‘achieving goals’ fact aside, this drama also showed how important true love is in our life, how teachers give the students wings to fly, how one can develop its own uniqueness and character and much more. This drama is for teenagers as well as for those who are teenagers by heart. Speaking of which this drama tends to teach us the values of life from different perspectives, which is necessary for each and every human to learn.

The story might not sound that fun to you but once you start watching it, you can understand why this drama is said to stand out so much from other K-Dramas. To sum up the whole thing I would say, that this entire thing is about high school life which teaches us valuable lessons, shows all the colours of youth life and amazes us with unexpected situations and daily hassles one needs to go through to learn something new. And the motto for every human being especially high school students is to ‘dream high’ which is what the title of this drama stands for.

Do you like this drama? What are your thoughts on it? Who is your favourite character from the drama? Let us know in the comment section below!