A compelling, suspenseful KBS2 Korean Drama Special, available on YouTube (video embedded below), Avici (2016) only lasts about an hour long but tells an intriguing tale of an education counselor whose life goes terribly wrong when she is pursued sexually by an onerous "father" to one of her young rich students. The word "Avici" means the lowest level of eternal hell in Buddhism.

Lead actress was the excellent Shin Eun Jung (Hyde Jekyll And I, The Legend, East Of Eden, Faith, Reset, Solomon's Perjury, Lawless Lawyer) who at times reminded me of an Asian Natalie Wood, elegant and classy. Playing her teenage son fabulously well is Kwak Dong Yeon (Moonlight Drawn By Clouds, Jang Ok Jung, Fight For My Way, Radio Romance, It's Okay Not To Be Okay), a very sensitive young actor who practically stole every scene he was in.

Playing his female classmate whom he becomes intrigued by is Go Bo Gyeol (Hymn Of Death, Goblin, Dear My Friends), a very sympathetic actress whose intelligence and sensitivity shines through the story like a bird dramatically flying through the heavens to escape a dangerous situation.

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The Story:

Min Ji Hye (Shin Eun Jung) is an educational consultant who had raised her two children as a single mother. Her eldest child, a daughter, studies at Harvard University in America, and her second child, a teenage son named Ji Sun Woo (Kwak Dong Yeon) studies at the most prestigious private high school in South Korea. Due to the notable achievements of her two children, Ji Hye works as a private educational consultant for the children of rich parents, so that they can prepare well for college admission to prestigious universities.

It soon becomes obvious that the "father", Park Tae Man (Choi Joon Yong), of one of these children has the hots for Ji Hye. He follows her around and spies on her. His wife (Ban Min Jung) appears to know what is going on but doesn't care, just as long as their young son gets the best level of tutoring from Ji Hye. Weird family!

One day Tae Man follows Ji Hye to a shop run by a kind man named Shin Ki Cheol (prolific character actor Kim Kyu Cheol) whose teenage daughter, named Shin Yoo Kyung (Go Bo Gyeol), was also tutored by Ji Hye so that she could enter a prestigious school. When Tae Man sees her reacting nicely to this shop owner, he becomes jealous, bursts into the place and starts threatening Ki Cheol and Ji Hye. When he threatens to rape Ji Hye she stabs him to death!

Ultimately Ki Cheol tells Ji Hye he will take the fall for her, and claim he was the one who killed Tae Man, as long as she continues to privately tutor his daughter so that she can go to a prestigious school and eventually college! Ji Hye, in shock, all bloody, runs out of the building and drives away in haste. At one point she stops and picks up her own son, Sun Woo, and drives off with him. He of course notices his Mom is in a bloody condition and asks her what happened. She tells him she just killed a man and fled the scene. He is in shock now too!

As she drives away in haste she is pulled over by a bored traffic cop who for some reason doesn't notice her all disheveled and bloody inside her car. Her son hands the cop his mother's driver's license and then off they go. The shop owner is arrested for the murder of Tae Man and his teen daughter Yoo Kyung is gossiped about at school. It turns out that she is in the same class as Ji Hye's son Sun Woo. Now he gets closer to her for the first time, in the hopes of discovering more secrets about her arrested Dad, and how any evidence he could find might affect his Mom's chances of continuing to get away with killing Tae Man.

Will the truth about the death of Tae Man ever come out, or will Ji Hye continue to allow Ki Cheol the shop owner to take the fall for her? How will her decision affect all the children involved?

You can watch the Drama Special Avici here and discover what happens in the end. (If the cops in this story hadn't been so inept I probably would have given this intense Drama Special an A since the acting was so excellent. Oh well, cops in modern day films and dramas are still often depicted as silly as were the silent film days' Keystone Kops!).

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