As a new school year begins at the exclusive Jooshin High School, the students gather for a first day assembly. The school's motto is "Noblesse Oblige," and following that motto, a new scholarship student, Kang Ha (Lee Chae-min), is introduced. He begins to talk to the students, but is interrupted when Kim Ri-an (Kim Jae-won) enters the auditorium with his friend Lee Woo-jin (Lee Won-jung). Ri-an is the school's top student, as he is in line to take over the Jooshin Group, the corporation that owns the school.
He has no idea of the protocols surrounding Ri-an and the other high-status students there; they admonish him when he gets up to leave the assembly before Ri-an, and criticize him when he mistakenly enters the "special" English classroom.
Stars: No Jeong-ee, Lee Chae-Min, Kim Jae-Won
Meanwhile, there is a small gap in Ri-an's circle; His girlfriend, Jung Jae-i (Roh Jeong-eui), a descendant of a Jooshin Group rival, had been distant from him in the time before she spent the summer in California. During her three months in the United States, she did not contact him at all. Yoon He-ra (Ji Hye-won) senses the breakup and tries to hint to Ri-an that he is rejected. He then goes to the airport to pick up his friend Jae-i.
Jae-i tells He-ra that she wants the four of them to meet at the local racetrack, which He-ra finds mysterious. Before that meeting, she is at a formal lunch with her parents, who are entertaining some bigwigs. A piano plays softly in the background. Jae-i's father takes her aside and tells her that the dress she chose was inappropriate and that her lipstick is "poor quality," as is the woman who gave birth to her (the woman who raised her is her stepmother).
Jae-i sees the pianist, who flirts with her; She asks if he can borrow her shirt. When she meets Ri-an, Woo-jin, and He-ra at the track, she challenges Ri-an to a race in their respective sports cars. She wins and tells Ri-an that they should break up.
Even though other scholarship students told Ha not to "bother" the elite students and warned her that Ri-an was responsible for the death of the scholarship student she replaced, Ha boldly introduces herself to Ri-an.
He-ra takes the opportunity to invite him to a “welcome party.” Apparently, he is there to be ridiculed, and people are even surprised that he showed up. But despite He-ra's attempts to humiliate him with some spiked alcohol, Ha makes a splash just as Ri-an tries to reconcile with Jae-i.
Hierarchy isn't a direct remake of Elite, but it might as well be. It's Elite without sex or nudity; Aside from the connections elite students have to South Korea's family conglomerates, not much else is different.
That doesn't necessarily mean that Hierarchy isn't worth watching. Fans of this genre can't get enough of shows like these, and there's enough soapy stuff to appeal to people who love watching students in preppy uniforms being terrible to each other.
However, none of the characters we have seen in this series stand out particularly. The descendant of a prominent family who has a secret? Check. The dominant “king” of the school who may or may not have violence in his past? Check. The scholarship student who infiltrates the elite despite warnings not to? Check, check, check.
It's pretty obvious that Ha and Jae-i will become an unlikely couple, which may protect him from some of the vitriol that scholarship students often receive. But Ha's purpose for being at the school is revealed at the end of the episode, which might make things a little more interesting than we're led to believe.
It really seems like every country that produces television series needs to have one of these types of shows, if only to show how class differences play out in their part of the world. But they all end up looking alike after a while, so your mileage may vary on this one, depending on whether you're a fan of the genre or not.
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