The School Nurse Files

 The School Nurse Files

4/10

The School Nurse Files

Genre:                                     Episodes: 6                  Year: 2020

Mystery

Comedy

Synopsis:

Ahn Eun Young is a nurse at a high school that has the ability to see jelly like monsters that are formed from the residue of human desires. She uses her special weapons and skills to eradicate these monsters from the school, with the help of the Chinese language teacher, Hong In Pyo, who has a resistance to the effects of the jellies.

Cast:

Jung Yoo Mi (Ahn Eun Young)

Nam Joo Hyuk (Hong In Pyo)

Moon So Ri (Hwa Soo)

Yoo Teo (Teacher Mackenzie)

Song Hee Joon (Baek Hye Min)

Park Hye Eun (Sung Ah Ra)

Hyun Woo Seok (Oh Sung Kwon)

Park Se Jin (Jang Radi)

General Thoughts:

This drama was whacky. And not exactly in a good way. I’m sure there were people that absolutely loved this show (and to be honest, I wanted to be one of them), but I just had absolutely no f*cking idea what was going on.

Just...baffled...

I know I say in a lot of reviews that I don’t know what is going on in a drama, but that’s usually because the plot is ignoring logical solutions or the characters are acting like idiots. In this case, I just literally did not understand what was happening. It’s such an interesting premise, and I loved that the tone was more colourful and off-kilter as opposed to dark and scary (which most supernatural shows are), and there were times when I kind of had a handle on what was happening and was quite enjoying the story.

I am all for Netflix airing odd little K-Drama shows

But then something would crop up and confuse the sh*t out of me again. I would be curious to see how fans of the webtoon found this drama, and whether having the knowledge of the story that the webtoon provides just really allows for the drama version to suck you in and get straight into the meat of the story. Alas, I shall not know, for I hath not partaken in the reading of said webtoon. It’s interesting to see Netflix getting in on the K-Drama game, as the K-Dramas I’ve seen/heard about (Kingdom, Extracurricular) that are Netflix originals have been vastly different in tone to K-Dramas aired on usual networks (SBS, TVN etc.), and tend to have a lower episode count. And you know I just love low episode K-Dramas- so snappy, so easy to get through! I love the experimental nature of these Netflix originals, and while ‘School Nurse Files’ wasn’t a hit for me personally, it was a great break in pace to the usual sort of K-Drama, and hopefully opens the way for more experimental and unique stories. As well as the quirky tone and the 6 episode count, another thing that intrigued me about this show was the casting. Jung Yoo Mi and Nam Joo Hyuk just seemed like such a spectacularly random pair that I was happy to give this little show a shot. Jung Yoo Mi is obviously a very experienced actress, and I don’t think I’ve seen her underperform in anything.

They worked weirdly well together

She tends pick more unique characters, and usually has a pretty good eye for interesting projects. She was a great fit for the role of Eun Young, as she really her threw herself into character and embodied Eun Young’s craziness. There were times when Eun Young would just awkwardly smile because she didn’t know how else to respond, and Jung Yoo Mi just had the perfect expression that showed Eon Young’s hesitation and discomfort, and she just seemed like the perfect embodiment of this strange, jelly-seeing woman.

She can be all kinds of quirky

Jung Yoo Mi brought an excellent balance of unsettling, humorous, and harmless to what I’m sure must have been a difficult character to portray. There was a lot going on with the character of Eun Young, and while I won’t pretend to understand half of it, Jung Yoo Mi did a great job at selling Eun Young’s emotions- I may not be sure what was going on in a scene, but I could be d*mn sure I knew how Eun Young felt about it. In Pyo was a less quirky character than Eun Young, and Nam Joo Hyuk is a less experienced actor. There’s a lot of people out there who don’t like him, but I tend to find him quite endearing and not a bad actor at all (except for ‘School 2015’ which we can all just pretend never happened). I really, really, really liked Nam Joo Hyuk in this role. I don’t know what it is about him as Teacher Hong- maybe it’s the limp, maybe it’s the quiet sadness and loneliness, maybe it’s the faint whisper at an attempt at a moustache, but it all just pulls together to form a really interesting character. Nam Joo Hyuk has a kind of unassumingness to him that perfectly fit in with the vibe of Teacher Hong. In Pyo was overlooked by his colleagues, students, and people in general, and there was something about the way Nam Joo Hyuk played this character that just oozed that sort of non-charisma (which is not a stab at Nam Joo Hyuk, because he can be very charismatic). The only person to really pay him much attention is the school nurse, Eun Young, and that’s because he has a jelly-forcefield that no one else can see.

Even though his forcefield did virtually nothing the entire time

There was one scene towards the end of the drama where In Pyo was struggling up the stairs thinking Eun Young had abandoned him and just broke down crying, and boy did that just pull at the heartstrings. There was a cute if slightly weird chemistry between the two leads, and I was never quite sure if it was a friendship type thing or a romance type thing. Just like the drama, the relationship between Eun Young and In Pyo was unique and a little bit weird- what can I say though, I kinda liked them together. There weren’t really a whole lot of other characters that we saw on a regular basis- Eun Young and In Pyo took up a whole lot of the screen time, which is fine, but leaves me little to talk about when it comes to the other characters and actors. The student characters were all a bit weird, and are one of the things I had trouble wrapping my head around.

Every student at this school was a weirdo

However, I thought Song Hee Joon did a pretty bang up job of being the mite-eater turned human, and she was quite fun (and convincing) to watch. I kind of wish the other students had been a bit more involved as it would have been nice to flesh out their characters a bit more, but as we only had 6 episodes, I wouldn’t go as far as to say I would trade the time we had with Eun Young and In Pyo for time with the kids. I sometimes maybe kinda knew what was happening with Eun Young and In Pyo. That was almost never the case when the story was focused on the students. 

What Was Great:

Hong Teacher:

I talked about this a bit in the above section, but Teacher Hong and his portrayal by Nam Joo Hyuk is what kept a lot of my interest in this show. While Eun Young was the titular character, I felt like we didn’t get a lot of development from her. There was the moment there at the end where she lost her ability to see jellies and her breakdown when it returned and she knew what sort of normal life she was missing out on,

Something about that almost moustache just works for him

but I still felt like a lot of the development and emotion came from In Pyo. Unlike Eun Young, In Pyo has only ever been completely ordinary, maybe even less so due to his leg injury. His small wish for something exciting to happen in his life is a relatable grievance- a lot of adult life feels like getting up and doing the same thing every day regardless of what happens or who notices you doing the same mundane tasks. In Pyo’s affection towards Eun Young and her welcome dose of weirdness was quite sweet, and you could feel his character just yearning to have a friend or just someone to spend time with him. The scenes where he is happily chatting away to Eun Young, oblivious to her completely not paying attention where a little sad, but also a little endearing. In Pyo was an easy character to like, and I felt more connected to his struggles than to Eun Young’s. Even the final act of destroying the school resonated more as In Pyo breaking free from whatever madness his grandfather had set up than Eun Young’s…whatever it was she was doing with the Basement Sanitation guys and Safe Happiness.

Soundtrack:

This drama is super high quality. Like not necessarily the plot and characters and whatnot, but the directing, filming, production- it’s all top notch. Usually these sorts of things fall by the wayside of my attention, but they were so good in ‘School Nurse Files’ that I was actively impressed by it. One of the best aspects of this was definitely the soundtrack. It was the score that could shift a scene from feeling creepy to more lighthearted, or as more often the case, making a regular and mundane shot (of someone standing near a door or in a hallway or something of the like) feel much more sinister and unsettling.

The CGI for the jellies was top notch too

The soundtrack really helped the drama balance nicely between creepy and fun, and the music was just as unique as the show. When you think creepy music you think something slow with bass and maybe strings- in this drama it was more like hearing the theme song clued you in that there was something sinister going on. It was slightly more upbeat than your usual spooky music, but felt a little too odd and strange to be classed as ‘happy’ or ‘comforting’ music. The tunes were often stuck in my head after I finished an episode, and I just adored how unique the soundtrack was to this show- you will not hear a soundtrack like this on many other, if any, K-Dramas out there. 

What Wasn’t:

In The Deep End:

Yeah so the big stumbling block of this drama is that it really gives you nothing solid to go on. Eun Young briefly mentions that the jellies are the remains of human desire and she can get rid of them using her light-up sword and toy gun.

And the gun ends up being less important than you think...

The show does not delve into why the jellies are harmful or why Eun Young needs to get rid of them. They are broadly labelled as ‘dangerous’ and seem to make the characters act in weird ways, but apart from the first giant jelly that made the kids try and throw themselves off the roof, the others didn’t seem that bad. They just made people get all sweaty? The show also glossed over a lot of the character and relationship development which was a bit of a bummer. I know there were only 6 episodes and they were rushing to get to the point of the school being fought over by two factions and Eun Young and In Pyo being caught in the middle,

Sorry but...why are the cleaner people bad again?

but it honestly sometimes felt like I had missed episodes because characters were just suddenly close or clued in on a situation. At the end of episode 1 In Pyo is wanting Eun Young to stay away and is telling her she’s creepy when she smiles (and she hasn’t even told him about her powers and the jellies), and in episode 2 he’s accompanying her to shrines and holding her hand so she can recharge her energy. Like, that’s a pretty big change and we saw none of that. It was a similar thing with the mite-eater girl. All the other students seemed clued in to who/what she was and really easily accepted it. But we never saw anyone tell them or try to convince them of the truth? They were all just suddenly up to speed on what was going on? It felt like a lot of important moments and conversations happened off screen, and I spent a lot of the show scrambling trying to figure out what was going on. Not very much is explained and a lot is left up to the audience to figure it out on their own. It’s not like I want or need dramas to spell out every single detail, but a little guidance on the main relationships and plot points would be nice. I mean, this drama only had 6 episodes and I only kinda started grasping at plot points and what was happening in episode 5- that’s over half the drama where I was just watching things unfold while having absolutely zero idea what relevance it had to anything.

Recommend?

No, I don’t think I would. Like, there is so much that sets it apart from other K-Dramas, but I’m not quite sure that’s a good thing. It’s kinda hard to follow…

But it's also only 6 episodes so if you're tempted, why not?