There's something about dramas with strong female leads that just does it for me. I finished my last drama and wanted to watch another but my laptop charger got burnt all of a sudden. I then had to resort to watching with my phone. So I entered the web in search of a drama and I came across PYRAMID GAME. I didn't know anything else about this drama other than it was about high school bullying. That was enough reason for me to watch it. Lol. (I love going into movies and books with little or no knowledge)
So, I settled for Pyramid Game and downloaded the complete episodes. Believe me when I say this drama is completely worth all your time.
The drama is a total of 10episodes and every episode has a runtime of about 50minutes. It was written and directed by Choi Soo-i and Park So-yeon respectively. It stars actors Kim Ji-yeo, Jang Da-ah and Ryu Da-in
Pyramid Game centers on the lives of students in Baekyeon Girls High School. Sung soo Ji, a transfer student is assigned to Year 2 class 5. Her father is a soldier so she is used to transferring schools frequently. This made her think it'll be easy for her to blend in with the other students but things are different this time around.
On her first day at school, she made friends with some girls in the class, and studied other's characters. Soo Ji is assigned to sit with a girl (Myoung Ja Eun) that reeks of cigarette all the time and whose body is filled with bruises. She tries so many times to make friends with her but Ja Eun is always keeping to herself. Also, Soo ji notices that their class is totally different from other classes. Being the only class in separate building.
One faithful day, Soo Ji happens to see Ja Eun being bullied by her classmates and advises her to report the matter to their class teacher. Ja Eun ignores the advice and instead advises her to run back to the classroom. Soo Ji runs back to the classroom and finds everybody seated on their seats during recess. She later gets to find out that every member of the Class plays a game called Pyramid Game every last Thursday of the month where everybody in the class votes for five others. It's more like a popularity game.
In the game, the person with the highest votes, stays at the top of the pyramid also referred to as Class A. As one's votes decreases so does the popularity class decrease and the person with no vote is referred to as an F. Anybody in class F is referred to as the trash of the class. The person is isolated and bullied among the members of the class. This game promotes differential treatments between members of the class.
Soo Ji is confident that the few friends she had made will vote for her and was so confident that she won't be in class F. Her hopes were dashed when she sees her name in class F with zero votes. She is bullied alongside Ja Eun who refused to participate in the game by other members of the class.
Not able to take it anymore, she implores the help of their homeroom teacher, who instead, is bent on making money out of the issue. That's when she realizes that the school management is aware of what is going on in the class but chose not to do anything about it. And then, she begins to plot on her own how to get out of Class F and destroy pyramid game. But first, she has to know who started the game.
I loved this drama for so many reasons. The whole class bullying and having the school management in support was something every sane human would have questioned. But in this drama, they made it make sense. From Soo Ji being a very sensible character to the naive Ja Eun and the other psychopaths, it all made sense. We were given the why's and how's in this drama soon enough.
I said initially that there's something about strong female leads right? Soo Ji in this drama was exceptionally smart. Her thought process was totally admirable. How she handled things in this drama was perfect. Her behaviours, her cool headed nature, I loved it all. This particularly drew me in.
I'm a lover of Korean high school movies and it's fulfilling when I watch dramas that maintain the same vibe from start to finish. There was no dull moment in this drama. No boring episode. It was very hard for me to drop my phone and do something else. (But I'm on holiday right now so I had to answer when my mom called me. hehe 😂). But this was a very amazing drama.
As much as I enjoyed this drama from start to finish, there was scenes where they portrayed the villain as religious. There was one particular scene where she was reading the Bible and raised her head to give orders on how to cover up the bullying. I don't know what they were trying to portray there but it didn't sit right with me. I didn't like that.
Aside that, the drama was really really fun. I loved it. No sloppy endings, no unnecessary plot twists. It's everything and more one could ask for in a drama.
I'll rate the drama 7.5/10. I'm withholding 1 point till I finally understand what they were trying to portray in that bible scene, Lol.
So, to all K-drama and non-kdrama fans out there, I present to you Pyramid game. Watch it and thank me later.
But I'll say thank you first for reading through.💙