It’s unrelenting in its twists and turns and characters are seen to go to their limits as they are continually tested by moral questions. It is also extremelty well-paced, well-written and well-shot, making for a very tense and thrilling 20 episdoes. It raises a lot of important moral and ethical questions and this is what sets it apart from eberything else. What I loved about this show is that it’s not your typical k-drama which centres around some romance. The craziness really begins to show once this personal coach is hired, as it truly starts to reveal the inner desire and greed of these families and how far they are willing to go to achieve their goals, including sacrificing those around them. While some children are also ambitious themselves, many others find this a form of living hell, and self-harm and suicide are definitely unfortunate consequences of this whole process. Whether the child themselves want it is irrelevant. Others use their child to show off to other families. Some want their child to succeed because they want to prove themselves as a worthy parent and ensure they continue the legacy of doctors in their family.
The motives also vary between households. It could even just be sending them to nightly tutoring even if the child does not seem capable. It could be through sheer discipline and strictness imposed on their children, including locking them up in study rooms, drilling them on exams and physical beatings if they are not performing well. This could be through hiring a personal coach who has a 100% success rate of getting students into SKY universities (at an annual cost probably equivalent to purchasing a family house). Each household have a different style and approach to educating their children, but for most, the key goal is to be able to get their child into one of the prestigious universities by whatever means available. In particular, the story focuses on the housewives of each family and the friendships, bonds and rivalry that are formed between them. Access to this area is limited to doctors and professors who are alumni of the SKY universities and reserved for the ultra-rich. The story revolves around four key families living in the luxurious residential area called SKY Castle in Seoul.
Whilst obviously dramatised and exaggerated at times, I think a large portion is based on reality and the crazy world of those wealthy families are exposed here. In the case of this show, that university it one of the top 3 Korean universities: Seoul National University, Korea University and Yonsei University.
For the ultra-wealthy, this also means accessing university coaches, whose sole purpose is to make sure the child gets into the university they want to. This means spending their entire teenage lives devoting every breath to getting perfect marks on exams, participating in extra-curricular activities to have a well-rounded university application and maintaining the best health. Whilst this may not be as relevant in Western countries, it’s a big deal in Asian culture, whereby a lot of parents aspire for their children to go the best universities and achieve academic success, above everything else and sacrificing everything else.
Original release date:23 November 2018 – 1 February 2019Ĭast: Yum Jung Ah, Lee Tae Ran, Yoon Se Ah, Oh Na Ra, Kim Seo Hyung, Kang Joon Sang, Kim Hye Yoon, Lee Ji Won, Choi Won Young, Kang Chan Hee, Kim Byung Chul, Park Yoo Na, Kim Dong Hee, Jo Byung Gyu, Jo Jae Yoon, Lee Eugene, Kim Bo RaĪside from being immensely popular (at one time, it had the highest viewer rating of all cable TV shows in Korea), SKY Castle stands out because of the sensitivity topic it discusses: education in Korea.