Friendly Rivalry Kdrama Caught My Heart Instantly | Honest Review

Nobody expected much of this drama of Hyeri and Subin to become a hit. Honestly, I didn't expect it either. We all know how conservative SK really is when it comes to GL or BL dramas, right? And some Kdrama fans are not into GL either. I've seen a lot of commenters on my FB page about not wanting to watch it because of that particular theme but hey, look at how it did! It's a hit! It's actually a really good drama, I tell you. It's not that typical GL drama where the females are having the smooching and bed scenes as the highlight. It has a veeeery good story to tell and how it was told was truly beautiful. I suggest you watch it if you haven't. 

Anyway, the story revolves mainly around Woo Seulgi (Chung Su Bin) and Yoo Jae Yi (Lee Hyeri) but some interesting characters are also present here like Joo Yeri (Kang Hye Won), Choi Kyeong (Oh Woo Ri), Jo Ara (Chae So Eun) and more. The story started with young Seulgi getting lost in a field trip and ended up in an orphanage. She grew up there, struggling to make a presence and the only way she saw her life to acquire good changes was through studying. She tried to get away from life miseries and school bullies by getting good grades. Seulgi's ranking went from 15 in the entire class to rank 15 in the whole school and later on (after staying up all night by drinking unprescribed medicine), she managed to rank 1st in the whole school. One day, she left the orphanage because she has been found by her dad. But it turned out that her dad has passed away and the only person left to be her guardian was her step mom. 

Under her step mom's custody, Seulgi transferred to Chaehwa High School and there she met the "perfect" top student, Yoo Jae Yi. And meeting Jae Yi made Seulgi's life filled with colors and true safety was met. TBH, up until now, I'm still in awe with how amazing Yoo Jae Yi really is. I'm not gonna lie, I was doubtful of her intentions towards Seulgi at the first half of the series but... as the story goes by, I can already see the green flag patterns being made by Jae Yi. Obviously, Jae Yi was made to be misunderstood because she was built to show no emotions at all by her father. She grew up in an environment where she was raised like a robot, therefore, it became a flaw for her to be misunderstood by her peers. But thankfully, despite having on and off special friendship with Jae Yi, Seulgi was able to understand the deepest contents of Jae Yi's heart in the end. 

Jae Yi promised to keep Seulgi safe and she kept the promise until the very end after sacrificing everything for her. Jae Yi managed to break free from her dad too and Seulgi became one of her reasons to do so aside from her other own interests like saving Jena and all. 

Anyway, to make everything short, Friendly Rivalry made me realize what genre I really like the most in watching Kdramas. It's the mystery and thriller/suspense kind of drama. Recently, I've been watching a lot of Kdramas that I ended up dropping because they don't meet my expectations or they're just boring enough not to make me hooked with each episodes. But with Friendly Rivalry, it's different. I got hooked the very first episode until the very end. Aside from the interesting story, direction and cinematography of the drama, perhaps it also have something to do with the short duration of each episode. I've watched this series while it was on-going and it's aired every Mon-Thu. There's not a day or night I was not excited to see an episode because every end of the episode made me curious of what's next to happen. Seriously, when was the last time I felt this way for a kdrama? It's probably been a long time. I'm glad I really watched Friendly Rivalry. It's definitely part of my HIGHLY recommended Kdrama of all time now. So if you haven't watched it yet, I suggest you start NOW.