Weak Hero Class 2 Review: New Friends, Bigger Fights
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Remember how Weak Hero Class 1 ended with protagonist Yeon Si-eun (played by actor Park Ji-hoon) transferring to Eunjang High School after he seriously wounds his chief tormentor and gets blacklisted by the bully’s influential father? The climactic scene shows Si-eun introducing himself to his new class, and then being targeted by a new bully during the break. And thus, the violent cycle of bullying begins again, or so the cliffhanger of season one indicates!
Season 2 of Weak Hero kicks off with a cold open: a dramatic rainy scene where dozens of students clash with each other, while Yeon Si-eun runs toward them, possibly to intervene and end the fight. “I have to catch everybody, if they start to go over the cliff,” his familiar voice says in the background. Things then rewind to a few weeks in the past, showing Yeon Si-eun living a surprisingly solitary and low-key student life. However, when timid classmate Seo Jun-tae (Choi Min-yeong) decides to stand up against the school’s top bully Choi Hyo-man (Yoo Soo-bin), Yeon Si-eun once again finds himself caught up in violence. But this time, Si-eun plays ‘savior’ for Jun-tae, like Su-ho (Choi Hyun-wook) had stepped up for him in the past.
Also Read: Weak Hero Class 1 Review: Brutal Beatdowns for Action Fans
A lot of new primary characters and antagonists are introduced in Weak Hero Class 2, including red-haired Park Hoo-min (Ryeo Un), who looks more like he jumped out of a Japanese manga than a Korean webtoon. Park Hoo-min is a quirky, comical, brawny basketball player who is feared by everybody on campus, but he’s a strong anti-bullying advocate who keeps villains like Choi Hyo-man in check. Park Hoo-min’s character instantly reminded me of Vasco from Lookism, the 2014 Korean webtoon that came out before Weak Hero Class 1. Like Vasco, Park Hoo-min likes to defend the weak, even though he doesn’t have his own gang. Actor Lee Min-jae plays his friend Ko Hyeon-tak, and soon, these two, along with Seo Jun-tae, become Si-eun’s new friends.
While the rivalries and enmities in Weak Hero Class 1 were more personal, the creators escalate the scale in season 2 by introducing an organized group of thugs called the ‘Union,’ which has members in every school in the region. Led by Na Baek-jin (Bae Na-ra), a model student with great grades and a violent streak, the Union makes money through various illegal rackets targeting high school students, like stealing phones, bikes, or taking on ‘hit jobs.’ Si-eun’s Eunjang High School is the only school that isn’t part of the Union yet, and for some reason, Bae Na-ra is hellbent on getting Hoo-min to join the gang. This leads to several violent confrontations between the Union and Si-eun’s new group of friends.
Bae Na-ra, in his introductory school scene, looked like he was a teacher at the high school, he could pass off as someone’s dad and didn’t look like a teen at all! It was hilarious to have to believe he is a nerdy kid moonlighting as a gangster after school hours. Even Ryeo Un as Hoo-min seemed as if he must have failed the same class at least five times (which might as well be the case) but his character brings much-needed comic relief to Weak Hero Class 2. His antic even make the perpetually sad Se-eun crack a smile now and then! Ryeo Un gives Hoo-min a gregarious, larger-than-life appeal and serves as a great breather in Si-eun’s grim, dull life. Choi Min-yeong (foreign viewers might recognize him from the Netflix series XO, Kitty) is perfect as the mousy Jun-tae, both believable as a teen and someone who’d be an easy target for bullies. Jun-tae’s optimism, simplicity, and ‘never give up’ attitude are both adorable and comical.
Just like Weak Hero Class 1, this season too delivers several brutal beatdowns, with episode seven, the penultimate chapter, setting the stage for a massive showdown between the Union and the boys of Eunjang High School. Again, this series is perfect for action fans, with relentless fights and a crazy finale that’s almost war-like in nature. We get a rain-soaked, cinematic face-off between rival gangs in the climax, and while the setting is epic, the action execution feels just a tiny bit underwhelming. The action choreographers needed to up their game for the curtain-call violence, which is supposed to be a wild wager to possibly end the Union’s tyrannical rule over high schools.
Once again, while Park Ji-hoon is excellent as the brooding, exhausted, emotionally spent Si-eun, he is often overshadowed by other characters in Weak Hero Class 2. Over-the-top, gritty, and often exaggerated – you’d think all the kids are mini-Wolverines given how often they get beaten to a pulp, then recuperate like nothing happened – season 2 of Weak Hero is a binge-worthy follow-up for fans of the series, despite its flaws.
Rating: 7.5 on 10. Watch Weak Hero on Netflix.
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