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This article mentions suicide.
Netflix’s new thriller Friendly Rivalry is gripping and intense from start to finish, and fortunately, it is not the only great thriller K-drama about revenge, love, and betrayal. Based on a webtoon of the same name by Song Chae-yoon and starring Lee Hye-ri as Yoo Jae-yi and Chung Su-bin, Friendly Rivalry focuses on Woo Seul-gi, a teenager who transfers to the prestigious Chaehwa Girls’ High School. The students at the high school come from wealthy families, are insanely competitive, and are willing to do anything to become the best.
While not a streaming original, Friendly Rivalry has joined Netflix’s long list of K-dramas and found great success worldwide. Given that Friendly Rivalry focuses on intense academic competition and rivalry between students, K-dramas with similar themes are the perfect ones to watch after seeing the Korean series. From coming-of-age K-dramas to thrillers, there’s no shortage of Korean TV shows with a similar setting to Friendly Rivalry that audiences can delve into.
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Hierarchy (2024)
Hierarchy might just be the perfect show for fans of Friendly Rivalry. Written by Chu Hye-mi, the teen drama centers around students at Jooshin High, an academy where the children of Korea’s top 0.01% go to school. Similar to Friendly Rivalry’s Chaehwa Girls’ High School, Jooshin prides itself on providing the best quality education to its elite students. Although Hierarchy’s premise was interesting enough, the K-drama received mixed reviews from critics and audiences alike.
Hierarchy doesn’t bring anything new to the genre and fails to set itself apart from K-dramas that have the same themes. It instead tells a story which focuses on the elite class in Korea that has been done countless times before, and in some ways, better. Despite its shortcomings, Hierarchy’s high school setting, storyline, and characters are something that those who liked Friendly Rivalry will enjoy. It might not be as intense as Friendly Rivalry, but it offers enough material to keep it entertaining.
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Bitch X Rich (2023)
Set at Chungdam International High School, Bitch X Rich follows Kim Hye-in, a student who transfers to the school for the rich after witnessing a murder. While there, she encounters Baek Je-na, a person who is suspected of the aforementioned murder. Hye-in and Je-na begin to engage in a battle of wills until one of them ultimately loses.
The characters in Friendly Rivalry and Bitch X Rich have similar backgrounds and stories. Like Seul-gi, Kim Hye-in is a poor student who transferred to an elite high school (albeit under different circumstances). She and Je-na, the most powerful and feared student at Chungdam International High School, begin to engage in psychological warfare. If you enjoyed Friendly Rivalry because of Seul-gi and Jae-i’s dynamic, then Bitch X Rich should be your next watch due to how intense Hye-in and Je-na’s relationship is.
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Cheer Up! (2022)
- Release Date
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2015 – 2015-00-00
- Network
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KBS2
- Writers
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Jung Chan-mi
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Jung Eun-ji
Kang Yeon-doo
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Starring Han Ji-hyun and Bae In-hyuk, the college romance K-drama, Cheer Up! Follows Do Hae-yi, a poor student at Yonhee University who joins the school’s cheerleading squad. Unlike her squadmates, Hae-yi is in it for the money and not necessarily for sportsmanship. She and the team’s captain, Young-woong, don’t get along, and their dislike for each other turns into a rivalry. Eventually, Hae-yi and Young-woong sort out their differences, and their relationship evolves from being enemies to lovers.
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Although Cheer Up! is mostly focused on sports and not academics, its themes of ambition, rivalry, and personal struggles are similar to Friendly Rivalry’s. Its school setting and complex characters are something that people who enjoyed Friendly Rivalry but are looking for a teen K-drama that doesn’t have academic competition at its core can enjoy. Cheer Up!’s love story is another way it’s different from Friendly Rivalry, but it adds to the charm of the K-drama.
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Class Of Lies (2019)
- Release Date
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2019 – 2019-00-00
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Yoon Kyun-sang
Ki Moo-Hyeok
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Lee Jun-young
Yoo Beom-Jin
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Choi Yu-hwa
Cha Hyun-Jung
Gi Moo-hyeok is a lawyer who is down on his luck after being fired by his firm and losing his license. Determined to set things right, Moo-hyeok assumes a fake identity and gets a job at the elite Chunmyung High School to investigate the murder of one of the students there. Class of Lies’ murder mystery and power struggle themes are similar to Friendly Rivalry.
Unlike Friendly Rivalry, one of Class of Lies’ primary protagonists isn’t a student. Despite this difference, the mystery and high school setting of the K-drama can be a huge draw for fans of Friendly Rivalry. Class of Lies also features a group of students who hold all the power at the prestigious high school and control everyone there.
5
Law School (2021)
Set in Hankuk University Law School, the legal K-drama stars Kim Myung-min, Kim Bum, Ryu Hye-young, and Lee Jung-eun. Law School centers around Yang Jong-hoon, a former prosecutor turned professor. Jong-hoon’s fate changes when another professor at the law school is murdered, and he and his students have to solve the case.
Like Friendly Rivalry, Law School features intense academic competition between the university’s best students. The characters in the K-drama are also similar to those in Friendly Rivalry in that one of them comes from a poor background, while the others want to succeed at all costs. Law School’s college setting, murder mystery, and conspiracy are the Korean series’ biggest draws. The K-drama delves into how the pressure to succeed can corrupt even the most morally upright people, which is a theme that Friendly Rivalry also explores.
- Release Date
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January 17, 2020
- Runtime
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91 minutes
- Director
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Ray Xue
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Spencer MacPherson
Ian Gordon
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Brittany Raymond
Miriam Randall
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Keenan Tracey
Derek Gordon
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Released in 2020, Extracurricular follows Jisoo, an intelligent and top student who runs an illegal business to save for his college education. Jisoo’s life turns for the worse when Gyu-ri finds out about his covert business and decides she wants to be part of it. As Gyu-ri and Jisoo interact, they are forced to make risky decisions to support themselves.
One of the best things about Friendly Rivalry is its dark themes. Similarly, Extracurricular also explores the dark side of ambition and the consequences of trying to survive in a competitive and thankless system. Extracurricular’s morally ambiguous characters and drama make it one of the best coming-of-age K-dramas that fans of the genre can appreciate.
3
Pyramid Game (2024)
Based on Pyramid Game by Dalgonyak, the K-drama stars Kim Ji-yeon and Jang Da-ah. When Seong Su-ji transfers to Baekyeon Girls’ High School, she expects to have a quiet academic life until she graduates. Unfortunately, she discovers that the students at her high school participate in a sinister game called the Pyramid Game. In the Pyramid Game, students vote for who is the most popular among them, and the loser gets tormented by her classmates.
Pyramid Game offers a unique take on the teen drama genre. Similar to Friendly Rivalry, Pyramid Game explores themes of bullying at a prestigious high school. Su-ji, like Seul-gi, tries her best to ensure that she isn’t tormented by her classmates by climbing the social ladder. Pyramid Game’s characters and intense premise are undoubtedly the K-drama’s biggest draws.
2
Revenge Of Others (2022)
- Release Date
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November 9, 2022
- Network
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Disney+
- Directors
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Kim Yoo-jin
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Chae Sang-woo
Ki Oh-seong
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Seo Ji-hoon
Seok Jae-beom
Revenge of Others is a coming-of-age K-drama with a twist. After the death of her twin brother, Ok Chan-mi transfers to his former school in order to find out if he really died by suicide. While there, she gets entangled with Ji Soo-heon, another student facing difficult circumstances. Together, Soo-heon and Chan-mi work to bring justice to students who are preyed on.
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Revenge of Others is a combination of everything that makes Friendly Rivalry such a great K-drama. It includes a competitive academic environment, moral dilemmas, and characters that have to make difficult decisions. What results is an engaging storyline that delves into dark themes but with a revenge storyline.
1
SKY Castle (2018)
SKY Castle is one of the best Korean dramas of the past decade. The critically acclaimed Korean TV show follows upper-class women living in a prestigious neighborhood and the lengths they will go to ensure that their husbands and children are the best of the best of the best. SKY Castle unflinchingly shows what happens in South Korea’s elite families and what the wealthy do to succeed.
While SKY Castle’s main characters are not students, the academic pressure that their children face is almost the same as that of Friendly Rivalry. The high-stakes K-drama explores how high expectations placed on students can negatively affect them. SKY Castle’s complex plot, twists, complex characters, and elite high school are perfect for fans of Friendly Rivalry.
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