I knew that “Study Group” (which is available on Viki) was going to be a great show about 5 minutes into the first episode. At the end of that first episode I immediately texted a kdrama buddy and told her to start “Study Group” ASAP. For the next several Thursdays as new episodes were released we would text each other and say, “It’s Study Group day!” The show came out of nowhere with limited promotion and became a fan favorite very quickly – and I was no different.
This is another show lifted from a separate source, this time being a Naver webtoon by Shin Hyung-wook. “Study Group” follows a not-bright but earnest student Yoon Ga-min (excellently portrayed by Hwang Min Hyun) as he deals with bullies at a rough high school while simply wanting to study hard and achieve his dream of getting accepted into college. The premise sounds a bit weak on the face of it, but this is a delightful action-comedy with well-choreographed fight scenes, villains you love to hate, and a core band of misfit students who just want to study unbothered and a young teacher who wants to help them. Here’s the trailer:
Cha Woo Min, who plays Ga-min’s primary nemesis, Pi Han-wool, is also relatively new to acting, having started his career in a BL show “The Tasty Florida” in 2021, followed by “Weak Hero Class 1”, “Night Has Come” and then in 2025 three larger profile projects (“Study Group,” Netflix’s “Melo Movie” and Hulu’s “Buried Hearts”). He has already proven a nice ability to flip between menacing (in “Study Group”) and mildly goofy (in “Melo Movie”). I think he’ll carve out a very nice career for himself. In “Study Group” he portrays Pi Han-wool as jaded, numb, and bored while also tightly controlling the violent chaos he causes in his school. And despite the character having a very stereotypical background (an overbearing gangster-like father with a violent streak of his own) with his strong, sharp visuals Cha Woo Min represented his character very well.
The rest of the cast is fantastic as well. In particular, Lee Jong-hyun (previously seen in “Duty After School”), portrays Kim Se-hyun, Ga-min’s first friend who is one of the top students at the school but extremely reluctant to stand out or join Ga-min’s study group. Another cast member was Hong Min-gi (who was fantastic in 2025’s “Love Your Enemy”), as Park Geon-yeob, a mysterious student who unexpectedly comes to the rescue during a few key moments throughout the series.
For me the joy of watching the show came from the action choreography and the unexpected comedy. Finding out that Ga-min is one of the worst students in the school despite all his efforts made me laugh out loud. Watching a bully attempt to beat up Ga-min who cluelessly evades every attack had me in awe at the unexpected creativity of the fight scene. As the show continued it became clear that the fight scenes were set up to be comic-book style (in one example, Pi Han-wool levels a punch at Ga-min which literally sends him through a brick wall), but that did not diminish my enjoyment of those scenes. Additionally, the OST for the show was incredible, with the show’s theme song “Backpacker” by Seok Matthew and Zerobaseone’s Gunwook going into heavy rotation during my commutes to/from work each day.
At only ten episodes, the show never got boring (although one of the later episodes did feel like pure filler to me) and told a concise story with an ending that was satisfying and yet could be left to interpretation that more was on the way. Seeing as Hwang Min-Hyun is about to begin his military service, we will all need to wait at least two years for any potential Season 2, but fortunately Season 1 is still very satisfying and can stand on its own. This one will easily be on my year-end “best of” list if I am inclined to create such a list.
My rating: 4.5 out of 5.0 stars
