Hierarchy (2024)

A Bland Blend of High School Drama and Unfulfilled Revenge

"Hierarchy" initially promises an intriguing blend of mystery, high school drama, and intricate character dynamics but ultimately falls short of its potential. The series struggles with pacing issues, lackluster character development, and a revenge plot that never fully comes to fruition.

One of the most significant issues with this drama is its inability to establish a clear identity. It attempts to blend elements from popular series like "Elite" with traditional kdrama tropes, but the execution is inconsistent. The show's tone oscillates between dark, gritty drama and lighter, more conventional high school scenes, creating a jarring viewing experience.

The central revenge plot, which could have been the driving force of the series, takes a backseat to less compelling storylines. Kang Ha's quest to uncover the truth behind his brother In-han's death is diluted by subplots involving superficial high school romances and power struggles that lack depth. Instead of focusing on the core mystery and building tension around it, the series meanders through trivial conflicts and repetitive interactions.

Character development is another area where this drama falters. The main leads, particularly Kang Ha and Jae-i, fail to evoke empathy or investment from the audience. Kang Ha, despite being positioned as the protagonist, is bland and one dimensional. His motivations are unclear, and his actions often feel inconsistent with his character. Jae-i, who is supposed to be a complex, conflicted figure, comes across as cold and detached. Her chemistry with Kang Ha is almost nonexistent, making their romantic scenes awkward and unconvincing.

Ri-an, another central character, shows some growth over the series, but his arc is not enough to salvage the show. His character's transformation from a typical bad boy to someone seeking redemption is poorly executed, and the final episodes' attempt to humanize him feels rushed and unearned. He-ra, on the other hand, stands out slightly better due to her strong performance, but even her character suffers from inconsistent writing and a lack of clear direction.

The supporting characters, who could have added layers to the narrative, are underutilized and poorly fleshed out. They serve more as plot devices than as integral parts of the story. This lack of depth makes it difficult to care about their fates or understand their motivations.

The show's pacing is another major flaw. The episodes are often padded with unnecessary scenes that do little to advance the plot or develop the characters. Key revelations and twists are either shown too early or dropped without sufficient buildup, resulting in a lack of suspense and engagement.

Visually, this drama has some redeeming qualities. The cinematography and production design are polished, capturing the opulence of Jooshin High and its surroundings effectively. However, good visuals alone cannot compensate for the weak narrative and character flaws.

The final episode attempts to wrap up the numerous plot threads but ends up feeling anticlimactic. The revelation of the true events behind In-han's death is predictable and lacks impact. The post-credit scene, intended as a cliffhanger, feels more like a desperate attempt to hook viewers for a potential second season rather than a satisfying conclusion to the story.

Overall, "Hierarchy" is a disappointing series that fails to capitalize on its intriguing premise. The acting, especially from the main leads, is subpar, and the writing does not do justice to the complex themes it tries to explore. With unlikable characters, a sidelined revenge plot, and inconsistent pacing, the series does not offer enough to make viewers care about the outcome.

Read More

Another Big Budget Disappointment

It is as I expected just a korean version of elite + bullying. None of the characters especially the rich brats be it the FL or SML or others are likeable as each is just selfish.
The cast has surely done a decent job with their characters and makes us want to root for some and hate others. Although I would say this is RJE's weakest performance till date.

ML is out for revenge but has gotten wavered by a pathetic FL who only cares to protect SML.

Fl's character is a total damsel in distress who all she does is cry and beg. I really didn't like her character at all. A cold ice queen type who slowly opens up to ML or SML about her inner pain surely would have been better instead of a FL who is a weak crybaby from the start but anyhow this is how the show makers wanted it. RJE was a total miscast for this role and has zero chemistry with any of the leads and was bland the entire time with her acting.

SML is an A grade trash who deserves to be sent to prison. Dude is ruthless with no remorse for his actions. I am glad he doesn't get ML's forgiveness till the end.

Frankly Both SML and FL deserve each other as both were pathetic. One enjoys bullying other students while the other one only watches it and not once tried to stop it and then both acted all guilty and how sad they felt for ML's brother death. Not even once did any of these two tried to stop it, had they done it he would be alive.

The bullying shown in this drama is something I have seen many time before in Kdramas and is quite prevalent in South Korea's schools and colleges.
The show's story screams how much it is influenced by spanish drama "Elite". All the bullying, sex, drugs, filthy rich morons and their brats, parties, pregnancy ..... just reminded me of it. The only good thing about the drama is the production value and nothing more.

It is another disappointment after "The Impossible Heir" although the acting is good in this one.

Read More

Failed Attempt, one of the worst kdrama (Spoiler Alert)

They gave so much hype to the series. But didn't workout. This series have the same story as dokgo rewind season 2 (which was supposed to happen, but didn't happen). In dokgo rewind season 1 they ended as there will be a 2nd season also the main plot was revealed too. Surprisingly hierarchy have the same story lol? . Also the main lead actress don't have emotions while playing it's really hard to know whether she is acting or not. Some may say it's because of her role...but we have seen many actors playing the same type characters, even though in these type of character they may show some emotion so that we could literally understand what they are trying to convey. Also in the end male lead doesn't have the real revenge. In the end director just want to make like the heroine is innocent,she didn't do anything wrong, she is always right and also she's the main soo she can't down like that. When her boyfriend (2nd lead) was bullying main hero's brother she was just looking at that and didn't even care about that. Not just that she is the reason for hero's brother got bullied. Even though in that situation director tried his level best to prove she innocent, she is scared and she is conquering..But in the same time hero was trying his best to solve this and truly loving her. The 2nd hero's bullying led to the death of hero's brother (not saying they are fully responsibile, but they are playi g major role in that incident). If they do bullying, they must be punished. Instead of that heroine gone against hero and trying to save 2nd hero. On that time the main content was changes. Just like the main hero did something wrong and heroine is right and she is doing the right thing. All faults was by the heroine. And director tried to glorify her actions. That's the failure. Her character build up and story ending make the whole series a failure. If dokgo rewind 's 2nd season release, we could see the story focused series. I hope they would do the 2nd season (2nd season of dokgo rewind). And don't release the 2nd seasons of hierarchy. As a k drama lover it's an utter disappointment to watch hierarchy. 1.5/10 my rating to the hierarchy

Read More

Skippable. No really, don't bother.

A synopsis that had me hopeful for a good revenge drama, eventually disappointing me two episodes in.

Basically the writers focus so much on the struggles of the rich kids that the viewer is left with "I really don't give a shit." There are ways to concentrate on the antagonists without making them into the main character. Meanwhile this drama has managed to show that the only thing we are supposed to care about are the societal and familial struggles of rich kids rather than the literal boy who died because of their actions. That's..ridiculous.

Every minute I wondered: can we get back to the student that DIED already? Or maybe show us what the kids who get bullied go through? The pressure on the scholar student kids who act shitty because of the rich kids pressure? Show us their home life, their decision making, their pain. Hello??? Show us anything, literally ANYTHING relatable.

I'm used to revenge stories to focus on the revenge not trying to humanize shitty rich kids who didn't give two fucks when people were bullied and beaten up around them. It made me feel nothing but annoyance. Maybe I would have cared had they not been such shitty, dismissive, entitled people about everything that didn't directly affect them. So yeah, I don't have a single care for Jaein and Rian's "star crossed lovers" arch...

Also how are they not mentioning that Ri-an is a toxic boyfriend? He's controlling, he literally has people beat up just for befriending his girlfriend and he won't take no for an answer and the writers gloss over it completely.That's crazy.

The acting is stale and the story presented forgettable. This is something you can watch if there is literally nothing else to watch out there, which is not a thing.

I found this drama by chance only to realize that it's giving Elité season 1, if it was bad and not fully thought through.

Read More

Visually pleasing, but the rest made zero sense

You wouldn't believe how excited I was after looking at the cast and watching the trailer. I really had high hopes for this one. Unfortunately, the only things I liked were the vibes and aesthetics. The story made no sense, the characters made no sense, the flow of the show made no sense. The whole drama felt pointless. It looked cool enough for me to finish it and I like the main cast from other dramas, but this frustrated me a lot. If you want to turn off your brain completely to watch rich people nonsense and impressive glamorous high school parties, and don't mind the characters not having much personality, I'd say go ahead. Otherwise, you wouldn't miss much and it that's really disappointing for me.

Read More

The script of the series falls into clichés from time to time

It successfully reflects the emotional depths of the characters. However, some of the side characters are not explored in depth enough, which weakens their roles in the story and causes them to remain superficial.

Questioning the effects of power and money on society the series manages to make the audience think and raise awareness. However the fact that some criticisms remain superficial and are not examined in depth somewhat weakens the social criticism power of the series.

The fact that some of the side characters in the series were not expanded enough caused the character played by No Jeong Ee to stand out even more. In this case while on the one hand it was advantageous from the perspective of having the player's capacity on the other hand it affected the overall distribution of the series.

To be honest, I didn't like Roh Jeong Eui's acting sorry Jeong Ee can use similar acting techniques in some of her roles. This may give viewers the impression that they are stuck in a certain role type or character mold. It may be necessary to break this perception by giving more diverse performances in different types of productions By the way, I really liked Yoon He Ra's acting, I hope her success continues.

Read More

Gorgeous to look at but that's it **SPOILERS**

Hierarchy sets out to be a riveting tale of murder, mystery, luxury, and of course, romance. Unfortunately, it falls flat in every single one of those categories. To put it simply, Hierarchy wishes to mirror the early seasons of the Spanish drama Elite. So much so that I found myself drawing parallels between the two at nearly every corner from set design to characters. Now I'm in no way saying that Elite is heaps and bounds better but I will say Elite took its time with characters and at least for the first few seasons had a plot line to follow (can't say anything past season 4 I stopped watching as it become boring and redundant).

The biggest issue that I found with this show was there was quite literally very little plot just gorgeous actors and gorgeous scenes but nothing of substance. The dialogues felt generic and insignificant and everything kind of felt pieced together. We didn't see characters develop.

The story primarily revolves around 5 characters: Kim Ri-an (the main rich boy), Jung Jae-i (main rich girl Ri-an's ex/gf), Kang Ha (the protagonist?, "revenge" seeking boy), Yoon He-ra (Regina George, Jae-i bff?), Lee Woo-jin (confused very gorgeous, relatively insignificant boy, nice to look at). The main story pretty much only involves the first 3 with the last 2 kind of being there.

Character breakdown:
Essentially Kang Ha makes his way into this hyper-elitist high school as a scholarship kid in order to find justice for his dead twin brother while facing the discrimination of his peers. So to make a long story short he doesn't really do this. Instead, he falls in love with Jung Jae-i and cries. Sure he reported people to the cops and held people "accountable" but honestly this plot line, which is supposed to be the main plot imo, takes a back seat and we get a classic romance where Kang Ha plays the second lead to Ri-an. This would be fine if I cared about the characters. The problem with this whole show is I have no sympathy or affection for any of these characters. The whole cast could have faced a zombie apocalypse and passed away and my reaction would have been welp. Especially Kang Ha. He is the one I am supposed to be rooting for but I don't care enough for him. In fact he frustrated me the most. He repeatedly claims that these people killed his brother but does so little to portray that. There's a scene where Jae-i claims to have killed Kang Ha's brother and by the next scene, Kang Ha is still expressing his love for her. It just doesn't make sense for his character. You play the voice of reason, justice, yet people you like get a pass? Also, there is one scene where he essentially says "Jae-i, you're not like the other people here, you're nicer so I can't hurt you." I'm glad you feel this way but bro why? Because she shows you basic human decency that you could get anywhere else outside of this school? How do you know she actually treated your brother nice huh? Seems to me Kang Ha's ideology mirrors the school's, the same ideology he's been desperately trying to destroy this whole time: people you like or have an affiliation with will get a pass.

Jae-i is so boring she has so much happen to her but not a single reaction she is like a doll with one reaction. All she says is that she wants to protect Ri-an but why? Sure you find comfort in each other but I'm failing to understand why she couldn't have told Ri-an about her pregnancy. Like ya'll are billionaires figure it out. Not to mention earlier in the show it seemed that both families were happy about the potential merging of Ri-an and Jae-i's families. What motivation does Jae-I have to sacrifice herself? What is she protecting him from because his mother seems relatively submissive as long as Ri-an portrays a clean image? Also, I don't like how Jae-i is supposed to be the hand that saves the plebians. All she did was talk to Kang Ha's brother and after seeing him pass decided to help Kang Ha out of guilt. She is not different. She had years to treat the scholarship kids like people. She just feels guilty and is trying to ease that guilt. No better than Ri-an or the rest of the elitists imo.

He-ra was my favorite character. She actually had depth and reasoning to her character. Her motivations were clear and the actions she took made sense. For example, she went after Ri-an romantically not because she hated her friend but because she had to secure her father's business and supplement her inferiority complex. She is also the only one we see develop as a character as she goes from only valuing herself through wealth to eventually understanding the weight of her friendships. Also, the actress for He-ra had the best performance imo.

Woo-Jin was simply there to introduce the killer teacher (the one who actually killed Kang Ha's brother) and serve looks. His whole schtick is that he loves He-ra and can't tell her because He-ra is preoccupied with securing the bag and confessing to Ri-an. Honestly, I was more invested in He-ra and Woo-jin and sympathized with them much more than the other three characters because they felt human and had the potential to grow. The others stayed stagnant.

Overall the plot is predictable, the characters are generic, and the show moves extremely slowly even for only having 7 episodes as opposed to the typical 16. It's something that should be played in the background while you are doing something else. A decent watch to pass the time.

Questions:
Why was Kang Ha's brother recording stuff in the first place?


Things I liked:
-Set design/cinematography: very nice to look and and the shots were unique and fun to look at
-Cast: all are extremely gorgeous, doesn't have much to do with anything but they were gorgeous that's it. I also think they did a pretty decent job for what they were given acting-wise. Especially the Ji Hye-won (He-ra)
-Music: the title song was a bop, will be adding it to my playlist
-Fashion: the outfits were so cute omggg, love the elegant yet classy vibe
-Kim woo-Jin

Read More