Revenge is a dish best served cold. Take it from 19-year-old high-schooler Ok Chan-mi, the steely star of in Disney+’s new K-drama offering, Revenge of Others.
Promising to be an action-packed revenge thriller, the show begins with Chanmi (Shin Ye-eun, He Is Psychometric, More Than Friends) learning her twin brother, Park Wonseok (Kang Yeol), has died in circumstances that she refuses to believe or accept. She’s the star of her high school shooting team butChan-mi upends her life and moves cross-country in pursuit of his could-be killer. It’s at her new school Yongtan High that she meets the righteous Ji Soo-heon (All of Us Are Dead star, Lomon), a self-aware student who seems optimistic and level-headed despite his dysfunctional home life.
Soo-heon’s character shines. Popular at school and instantly likable, he emerges over the first two episodes as a mature and principled (albeit troubled) student. He fights for his bullied classmates, which makes him the perfect sidekick for Chan-mi. The more headstrong of the pair, she is brand new to Seoul and on a quest for retribution. However, seriously unfortunate circumstances throw Soo-heon’s future into doubt within the first episode. Despite this, they develop an endearing bond that you immediately hope will somehow change Soo-heon’s situation, so their potential as some sort of unimpeachable force for good can be realised.
One thing is for sure by the end of episode two, and that’s that everybody is a suspect in the case of Wonseok’s death. Despite Soo-heon’s likeability, there are some things as yet unexplained that mean we can’t rule him out. Spine-chilling school bullies that seem the perfect culprits appear, and Seok Jae-beom (Signal and My First Love star Seo Ji-hoon), a revered Grade-A student and the son of elite parents, is revealed to be re-sitting his senior year due to cryptic medical issues – which raises even more questions.
At first glance, Revenge of Others indeed has all the makings of a fantastic teen revenge-thriller. It’s stylish and has that early ’00s teen horror charm – set in a creepy, gothic school, with bullies that invoke unimaginable fear among their peers, two (so far) platonic, heroic leads that might just save the day if they put their own issues aside.
The script, penned by Lee Hee-Myung (screenwriter of Into The World Again, Beautiful Gong Shim), is at times overwhelming. Major bombshells are dropped and new characters and potential arcs are introduced so quickly it feels like one is barely even explored before there’s another – and that’s just the first two episodes. Nevertheless, Revenge of Others’ aesthetic charm and the sublime performances of Lomon and Shin as Soo-heon and Chan-mi are reason enough to give episodes three and beyond a chance.
Revenge of Others is available to stream on Disney+ now.