SKY Castle

Overall Rating: A
Subtitles: Strong subs.
Brief Synopsis: In a gated community known was the SKY Castle, families go to extreme lengths to get their children accepted into the nation’s elite Universities. Watch it on Viki here.

**Full show spoilers below the image. If you do not wish to be spoiled, do not proceed**

Ending Type: I’d call this ultimately a happy ending. Kang Ye Seo and her mother choose to do the right thing to save Hwang Woo Joo and the family ultimately leaves SKY Castle for their own health and well-being. The other mothers come around and learn to value their children over their children’s grades. Kim Joo Young goes to prison (but then seems to come back?). Overall highly positive.
Characters:
I’m going to list the moms only and Kim Joo Young as they were often the critical characters, but a full list of families and kids can be found here.
Han Seo Jin (Yum Jung Ah)
Kim Joo Young (Kim Seo Hyung)
Lee Soo Im (Lee Tae Ran)
No Seung Hye (Yoon Se Ah)
Jin Jin Hee (Oh Na Ra)
Full review:
It can be hard to convince me to watch K Dramas that involve 0 romance but I am so glad I gave this one a try. It was so buzzed about and so highly rated that I couldn’t help myself, and joy ensued.
Ok joy is maybe the wrong word.
This one is intense from front to back. It opens with a kid running away and his mom committing suicide. It doesn’t really lighten up from there. Aside from emotional (and implied physical) child abuse and some psychological torture, this also featured actual child murder and a cover up that involved framing another child for it. Not for the faint of heart. And the writing and acting really capture how dark and intense and f*ed up the whole situation is, so it’s no joke.
I loved that this show focused on and featured the moms, showing the way they mitigate and/or exacerbate the messed up family dynamics between valuing their children only for their grades and ability to get into elite colleges, supporting high powered husbands, and maneuvering social situations to their advantage. I especially loved how they were all just a little different, showing their affection for their families in unique ways. No Seung Hye was obviously my favorite, taking a bold stand early on to protect her kids from the burden of expectations her husband placed on them. Despite seeming initially like the weakest and silliest of the moms, she was by far the strongest and most powerful and made huge changes in her family based on her own convictions.
Lee Seo Im was a phenomenal foil to our leading mom, Han Seo Jin. Where Han Seo Jin was obsessed with image and following exactly the right rules and right path to get her daughter to make it into her dream school, Lee Seo Im was primarily concerned with her son’s happiness. The way this manifested in their children was really telling, with Hwang Woo Joo being kind and popular and loved by all and also high achieving, while Kang Ye Seo was an absolute nightmare.
Kim Joo Young’s character was terrifying, but what was more terrifying was seeing Han Seo Jin’s desperation and the way she was willing to overlook and even be an accomplice to Joo Young’s psychotic deeds. This was obviously a drama, but it struck a chord with so many people because of the realism of that desperation, the way getting into elite colleges is such an obsession for so many families.
As someone from outside this culture, seeing the amount of hours spent both in school and at academies and in tutoring was really shocking. I know it’s not the reality for everyone, but it’s certainly real for plenty of people. I can’t imagine a childhood so focused on school and grades that free time to play and explore yourself in such critical developmental periods. I appreciated that the ultimate lesson all these moms learned was to let their kids be themselves and just love and support them. It was wonderful, but also I think powerful that the show ended with a demonstration of how the rest of the world was very much carrying on per usual.
Honestly the writing, acting, and story for this were phenomenal. Highly engaging, well worth the watch.
High Points: The acting. Wow superb. The story was also phenomenal, very engaging and suspenseful with an ultimately important message.
Low Points: Honestly I can’t think of anything that was actually lacking in the story or the writing.