I am going to bat for my online friend Jill and writing this review for her website for actor Seo Kang Joon's latest espionage-themed television drama, Undercover High School (2025), where he plays a national security agent, because she told me she couldn't get past the first two episodes, that the story was too predictable for her from the get go. I liked it well enough despite its predictability, and did manage to finish it, so this is my own take on the story.

I know Jill loves actor Seo Kang Joon and wants the best for him. While this drama was nowhere near the quality of his masterpiece drama I'll Go To You When The Weather Is Nice, or the brilliance of his Watcher series, or the intense romanticism of his drama special Haneuljae Murder, it was an easy-going story to unwind to at night and I did enjoy it, especially all the impressive action scenes. There wasn't much romance or skin-ship in this drama (mostly just some longing glances) so if skin-ship is what brings you the most joy in watching Korean dramas perhaps you'd be better off skipping this one. Your choice.

The main female lead was Jin Ki Joo (Scarlet Heart Ryeo, Ruler: Master of the Mask, Sh**ting Stars) who played a high school teacher (and his eventual love interest), and second female lead was Kim Shin Rok (If You Wish Upon Me, Moving, Queen Of Tears) who played the Chairwoman at that high school. Both were well cast, and there was an additional fun support casting of character actor Jeon Bae Su (Extraordinary Attorney Woo, When The Camellia Blooms) who played Kang Joon's supportive senior agent at the National Intelligence Service. He's always an asset to any Korean drama production.

THE STORY:

National Security Agent Jeong Hae Seong (Seo Kang Joon) is one of the best National Intelligence Service (NIS) agents in the organization. However, during one fateful action-packed mission his bullet accidentally breaks a national treasure, the arm of a famous stolen gold Buddha statue, one that the NIS had tried to save from the black market for years. Although they recover it its broken arm makes it almost worthless in historical value.

King Gojong (1852 - 1919)
Did He Really Possess
Hundreds Of Solid Gold Bars?
 

NIS directors threaten to fire Hae Seong but his senior agent Ahn Seok Ho (Jeon Bae Su) sticks up for him and recommends him for an even more difficult mission, one where he will have to pretend to be a high school student at Byeongmun High School, the most prestigious private high school in South Korea. This new mission entails trying to find 800 million won worth of old solid gold bars that had originally belonged to the last King of Joseon, Gojong, gold bars which had been rumored to have been stashed away somewhere on this high school's campus dating from the time of Korea's independence from Japan in the 1940's. Because no one else at the NIS looks young enough to pass for a high school student Hae Seong is ordered to attempt this new mission. If he succeeds his career status will be redeemed.

Reluctantly Hae Seong agrees to attempt this new covert mission, but mostly because he doesn't want to jeopardize his teammates' careers at the agency who were with him during the bungled mission to capture the rare Buddha sculpture unharmed. However, he doesn't exactly relish the idea of pretending to be a high school student, especially since when he was one years earlier he was routinely bullied in school because he was an orphan, and not from a well to do family like the other students. 

To blend in with the high school students, Hae Seong needs to learn how current teenagers talk including their slang words, he has to learn which teachers are favored by the student body and which are disliked, and he has to learn the private acronym the students use while texting each other on their cell phones.

Hae Seong’s homeroom teacher, Oh Su Ah (Jin Ki Joo) soon grows suspicious of him and she tries to dig into Hae Seong’s fictitious family background shown on his school records. She also thinks he resembles a beloved male friend she had lost track of when she was young. As time passes Hae Seong is even dragged into the high school's riff raff student clique, with student Lee Ye Na (Kim Min Ju), the School Chairwoman Seo Myeong Ju's beautiful diva daughter, caught up in the middle of their disagreements and fights. Hae Seong learns, with special difficulty, that many students have extra study time after school until late at night (which he hates because how can he remember all that math and science from so long ago?), and some students even have to take ADHD medication to make them able to concentrate better while studying.

On the positive side, as Hae Seong grows closer to his homeroom teacher he confides in her more, and he starts making some real friends at the school whom he wasn't expecting to like at the beginning. Could some of them even end up joining him in his search for the mysterious lost gold bars of the last Joseon King Gojong? 

Undercover High School is available to watch on Viki HERE. Despite the espionage underpinnings of the story the main thrust of the drama really focuses on South Korean high school students and the strong pressure they face to succeed academically and in their personal lives as well, including the pressure of trying to enter high-profile universities after high school is completed. Perhaps some viewers might feel worried about the teacher - student attraction shown in this drama but since the two main characters were really the same age I don't think it's anything to really worry about. They used some comedy to soften it up. I hope you enjoy it.

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