Review of Weak Hero / 약한영웅 Season 2

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

When it comes to blogging, or even watching movies and whatnot, I’ve been in such a weird headspace lately. I started a new job after quite a bit of a spell of not having any besides freelance and contract work, and now that I am actually working, I’m not watching as much as I used.

Part of it is fueled by my newfound YouTube addiction, but part of it just is that I can’t stay awake long enough to get everything I want done. I haven’t even been going to the movies lately to see them in-person because I simply am just tired after I get everything else done.

Call this a regular phase of corporate America and adulting, but I want to find a balance and go back more to the things I love. Sometimes life is simply trying to find a balance between the things that keep you alive, providing food, shelter, and warmth, and the things that you actually want to spend your life enjoying.

Today’s blog post is a continuation of me binge watching all of the seasons of Weak Hero (at the time of typing this) throughout the course of one week. Like I love it specifically when I watch a show after all of the episodes have been released across seasons. When I am in the mood to watch something after work, that means I can dedicate all of my focus to watching that single show.

And that’s exactly what I did with Weak Hero! It’s something I watched pretty much all the way through, and I published the review of the first season a few days ago. Let’s get into my review of season two though, as I feel like this introduction is getting a little bit rambling for my taste.

After transferring schools, Si-eun gets sucked into the violence of a new high school along with a new crew to take down another set of bullies.

The start of season two takes place not long after the events of season one. Su-ho, after getting beat at the end of season one, is still in the hospital and in a coma. Si-eun is forced to transfer schools after what happened at the end of season one, and because of his record and his old friend’s assemblyman father, he can only go to a school that’s basically for delinquents.

He’s way too smart to be in such a school, but when he rolls up and puts his head down, refusing to talk to anyone, he becomes a target almost immediately. We meet Jun-tae, a shy, timid nerd that is put up to nasty tasks, like stealing everyone’s cellphones, by the local bully Hyo-nam.

When Jun-tae tries to steal Si-eun’s phone, it puts the two boys in each other’s orbit. Si-eun sees Jun-tae as weak and spineless, which he really is in some ways, but it inspires Jun-tae to take action and stand up to the bullies like Hyo-nam. This puts both him and Si-eun in their radar, especially when Hyo-man starts beating up Jun-tae and Si-eun intervenes.

But it’s after that they become more involved with Gotak, whose actual name is Hyun-tak, and his buddy Baku/Hu-min. Baku is the real big fighter in this town and the new game changer in the fight against bullies, as despite Si-eun wanting to get away from this kind of world, he’s sucked back into it because Hyo-man is relentless.

As we see later in the season, though, there are forces a lot bigger than Hyo-man when it comes to violence and going after weak prey. We learn about the Union and the people running it, as there’s an entire group of young, high school aged boys forming groups like they’re wannabe gang members and beating people up that don’t belong or violate their rules.

This season takes it a step further than the first season when it comes to organized bullying. It feels like these kids are straight up running crime rings in their schools and putting on entire hits on other gangs externally, which is wild to see depicting on the screen. Si-eun and his crew are vastly unprepared in the beginning to take such a challenge on, but they rise to the challenge for sure.

Overall Thoughts

As I wrote in my previous review, I find Weak Hero to be like the Korean cinema movies I like from the 2000s and early 2010s, and it’s kind of a nod to turbulent times and how people turn to violence to grapple with their realities. Season two was a bit more elevated in some ways than season one, even though Si-eun has a new crew we have to learn to love.

I enjoyed Baku the most of the group, but Jun-tae’s arc was really interesting to me as well. It felt fresh adding in all of these new characters and the storylines, even though it felt a tad too unbelievable for me at times. I wanted to understand how exactly some of these groups and people ended up where they are in the current moment.

Regardless, I wanted to see this show taken to another level and I think we got that. I would watch a season three if it came out, although I don’t know how long they can sustain similar storylines before it seems a little too overused. I think we’re already kind of getting there, and I would honestly be fine if the series ended here.

Go watch this one if you haven’t already! It may interest you.

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