Content Warning: Mentions of Physical Abuse, Mental Abuse, Torture, Sexual Abuse and Real Life Accounts of Bullying, viewer discretion is advised
The searing hot sizzle of the curling iron, the sharp pinpoint of a hair pin, the searing pain and agony of beating and kicking a fellow student to the point of emotionally and physically scarring her for life. This is the story of The Glory on Netflix that showcases an in depth look into the searing life and scars of Moon Dong-eun as an adult who has dedicated her entire adult life to crafting a meticulous Taken style plan to take down her former abusers.
Jung Ji-so as a teenaged Moon Dong-eun/Graphyoda/Netflix
A young Jung Ji-so portrays a young Moong Dong-uen who is an elementary school student who is brutally terrorized with burns all over her body by her fellow classmates in an act of barbaric bullying which is hauntingly based on a true incident that occurred in 2006, at a girls’ school in Cheongju, South Korea. In this case, three ninth-grade girls bullied their classmate for an extensive period of 20 days, including burning her skin with a curling wand. Hauntingly, the abuse resulted in a six-week hospitalization for injuries, among them a protruded tailbone. The school violence cases are too graphic to pen down, the physical and mental torture of bullying thurst me as a viewer to the incident in fifth grade, when I freshly transferred schools and I was very different from the crowd at my school even though I had a group of friends, a majority of nefarious of my fellow students started bullying me and I still can’t understand why.
They put paints in my water bottles, shamed me when I performed a solo dance routine for dance class, the worst part of it was it was physical but our homeroom or main teacher ignored all signs but a fellow teacher stepped up and told my parents to withdraw me from the school as I was a sensitive child. As I had set fire ( lit a match from the art class to activate the fire alarm as I felt unsafe) to seek help but I was shamed.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t the end , the two main bullies followed me to the transferred schools to target me again in a new learning environment. That was the turning point when I became assertive and confronted them in the hallway in front of my teachers and loudly shamed and warned them that if they don’t leave this school, I will be filing a police report for harassment and stalking. Luckily, from day 1 all teachers at the new school supported me whole heartedly and stood beside me to actually take immediate action against these two students.
But the support whether it was parental or from the school administration was non-existent towards Moong Dong-uen, which shattered my heart into a million pieces.
Please feel free to vent in the comment section with your feelings on this subject matter.
The Glory Poster and Screenwriter Kim Eun-sook/allkpop
The writer of this show is a highly respected and accomplished screenwriter who is named Kim Eun-sook who actually took inspiration for this harrowing series from was inspired to write The Glory when her teen daughter asked her a jarring question:
“Mom, would you be more heartbroken if I beat someone nearly to death or if I got beat nearly to death by someone else?”
With The Glory, Kim set out to answer that question.
Park Sung-hoon as Jeon Jae-joon harassing Moon Dong-eun/NYTIMES
In creating The Glory, Kim researched the systemic school violence that has impacted Korean society for decades and if you watch k-dramas like me, it is a recurring theme in most k-dramas with prominent celebrities loosing their careers over divulging school bullying and violence records in public. Bullying is a widespread problem in Korea, where suicide has been the number one cause of death for young people since 2007.
In the past few decades, it has also become a much-discussed one, as Asian Boss did a street interview with passing Korean locals who relate to the show as they themselves have been bullied in school. While the government works to combat the problem, the main root causes of this problem are much more complex.
In 2004, Korea passed a law called The Special Act on School Violence Prevention, following the tragic and senseless and preventable deaths of several teenagers by suicide after they were bullied. The legislation led to the formation of school committees to monitor bullying, but according to this recent Korea Times article, bullying is still a major problem as committees help to some extent but they aren’t the solution that will reduce the climbing 40,000+ cases of school bullying and violence, they need to be a overhauling of the whole school system where the school teachers need to be trained along with parents to spot the signs of bullying as it happens on school grounds to nip it in the bud before it even escalates to physical abuse. They needs to be open, honest exchange of feelings between the students, teachers and parents periodically to keep abreast with any concerning developing issue even before it snowballs into something serious physiological and emotionally scarring vulnerable children for life, the trauma mainfests in various ways in grown adults that can be prevented with these steps.
Part 1 begins the story, chronicling Dong-eun’s psychological and physical torment in gruesome and meticulous detail. While in Part 2, we finally learn if Dong-eun gets the justice society so frustratingly refuses to provide in the ultimate karmic showdown with a thrilling showdown that you wouldn’t want to miss.
The cast of the Glory/ KDramaDairy
The cast of this show is as brilliant as the story of this show from Moon Dong-eun, Lee Do-hyun as Joo Yeo-jeong, Lim Ji-yeon as Park Yeon-jin, Jung Sung-il as Ha Do-yeong, Yeom Hye-ran as Kan Hyeon-nam, Park Sung-hoon as Jeon Jae-jun, Kim Hieora as Lee Sa-ra, Kim Gun-woo as Son Myeong-o, Cha Joo-young as Choi Hye-jeong.
Oh Ji-yul as Ha Ye-sol/Kpop Chart
The cuteness can be contained by seeing the lovely Oh Ji-yul as Ha Ye-sol who is legal daughter of Park Yeon-jin and Ha Do-yeong. However, her biological father is Jeon Jae-jun, as her mother was having an affair with Jae-jun during her marriage. What can you do when your mother is the devil incarnate along with her father but atleast her legal father is a better man and father.
Without going into much detail, I will leave you to discover the show all on your own, do share your thoughts down below, they are much appreciated.