Fighting Bullies Is On The Curriculum In ‘Weak Hero Class 2’

The high school featured in the k-drama Weak Hero Class 2 is not a place where students can study quietly. Teachers make themselves scarce and bullies abuse their classmates without sanctions. In the first season of Weak Hero Class (2022), Si-eun, played by Park Ji-hoon, saw his friends at another school suffer because they stood up to bullies.

The second season finds Si-eun in a new school, which also has plenty of bullies. Only now, he’s even more reluctant to fight or to make new friends. He’s consumed with guilt about what happened to classmates at his previous school, which he reasons was his fault. It’s easy to feel sorry for Si-eun, but also to admire his resolve. Park ( At A Distance Spring is Green, Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency) portrays a character crippled by his memories. Si-eun must fight through a fog of self-recrimination. Its a very physical portrayal of depression, but Park said it did not require much thought. He just instinctively understood the character’s sadness.

“I don’t think I actually had to make preparations to seem depressed and show the depressed side of him,” said Park. “Because when I think of this character I feel like he’s so lonely. He’s so alone. I thought of my own school days and I also didn’t have that many friends. So I could really relate to Si-eun to some extent, and I could really immerse myself into this character. I could understand his chain of thought and I think I do share some common ground with him. So I was quite quick to immerse myself into the character.”

Despite deciding not to interact with his classmates Si-eun winds up talking to Jun-tae, played by Choi Min-young (XO, Kitty, Twenty Five Twenty One). Jun-tae has been bullied for years, which means his school life is miserable. That short conversation results in Jun-tae deciding he no longer wants to be a victim. He stands up to his bullies and it’s the most intense character transformation in the series.

“Si-eun made Jun-tae face his past and that is really important for Jun-tae,” said Choi. “He was always feeling afraid and yet fearful to face the fact that he was a coward. He was just living his life and compromising himself, thinking that he had no other choice, but he actually did. He didn’t want to face that part, but Si-eun made him face it.”

Eventually Si-eun acquires two more allies, Baku, played by Ryeo Un (Twinkling Watermelon, Death’s Game) and Go-tak played by Lee Min-jae (Crash Course in Romance, Hide). Strong and athletic, they are not the kind of students that bullies usually mess with. Their alliance with Si-eun leads to lots of fight scenes with bullies at the school and with the members of a multi-school network of thugs named The Union. Every episode boasts at least two fight scenes, which required the cast to attend regular fight scene training.

“Together with the stunt actors, we would have rehearsals,” said Lee. “We would have a lot of training and we had it weekly. We had weekly sessions during the shoot and before the shoot, like a month and a half or two months prior to the shoot we would have a very thorough preparation and rehearsals for the action scenes that we have to be in. And also, one other thing is that we ate a lot to make sure we had the stamina and we tried our best to stay safe.”

In one memorable fight scene Ryeo Un uses a basketball to slam dunk a rival. He practiced the scene with wires and a trampoline

“When I was at the action school prepping for the scene, we used both wires and a trampoline,” said Ryeo. “But in the actual scene when we were shooting, we used a trampoline and for safety reasons, we also had mats. So it was shot very safely and we used a trampoline and also used a bit of CGI to finish the scene.”

Perhaps the sequel’s best scene is the rumble that happens toward the series’ end, in which two sides approach each other holding umbrellas and then fight in the rain and mud. It took days to film.

“There were times when there was actual rain,” said Ryeo. “But because we shot that scene for such a long time, there were days when it wasn’t raining, so there would be the water truck pouring fake rain on us. So, sometimes it was really raining, sometimes it wasn’t.”

Either way there was a lot of mud.

What Lee liked best about playing Go-tak, a seemingly tough guy with a kind heart, was bonding with his fellow actors. “I was able to band together with these guys and go over all these obstacles together.”

There are a few times in the script where the characters call each other “lunatics” and they mean it as a compliment.

“My character Jun-tae actually says this once too,” said Choi. “But I think why the word lunatic is a compliment in this series is because not only does it bond us together, because we all think we’re lunatics, but it also embodies the feeling of being very bold, being courageous, and being able to take action instead of just saying words.”

Si-eun’s quiet defiance moves his classmates and their loyalty in turn emboldens him. Park sees Weak Hero Class as primarily a coming of age story.

“When I think back to my school days, there are always some friends who become kind of role models to the other ones,” said Park. “One might be really fun and popular and that person also has good grades and is also kind of a good fighter. Or maybe there is some friend who has a really strong moral compass and people look up to him. I think this show is basically a coming of age story of the four of us plus Suho (Choi Hyun-wook) and my other friends from season one, and they’re still kids, but they really work their best. They work really hard to fight their way through their very difficult teenage years. So, I think that’s the message that this show is trying to convey.”

Weak Hero Class 2 is based on the webtoon of the same name by Seo Pae-seu and Kim Jin-seok. The story was adapted and directed by Yoo Soo-min, who also directed Weak Hero 1. The drama airs on Netflix.