Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
‘Friendly Rivalry’ starts off with a tragi-comic scene of protagonist Woo Seul-gi recalling how she got lost as a little girl during a school outing to the beach. Because she harped on wearing a princess dress instead of the uniform. She grows up in an orphanage, is terribly bullied at her public school. She soon realizes rising to the top of her class is the only way she can escape the life of poverty and abuse.
This sixteen episode teen thriller starring actor Chung Su-Bin as protagonist Woo Seul-gi isn’t a simple tale about ‘friendly rivalry’. Instead things get twisty when Seul-gi moves to an elite all-girls school, and starts receiving inordinate friendly attention from the Yu Je-Yi (Lee Hyeri), the most popular girl in school, with the best grades to boot.
The makers of ‘Friendly Rivalry’ go a little over the top with the portrayal of Je-Yi’s popularity at school – girls practically swoon over her and fight over grabbing the seat next to her. However, Seul-gi is instantly suspicious of Je-Yi, even though she finds herself falling for her new classmate’s charms.
Actors Kang Hye-won and Oh Woo-ri play Je-Yi’s close friends Ye-Ri and Cho Gyung respectively. They study as a trio, with access to exclusive tutors to prepare for the rigorous CSAT exams. While Je-yi and Gyung ambitiously aim for medical school, Ye-Ri is content with picking music. It’s only in the new private school that Seul-gi realises getting rank 1 isn’t going to be easy.
And just when you think ‘Friendly Rivalry’ another ‘rich girl versus poor girl’ teen drama, ‘Friendly Rivalry’ gets darker by introducing a possible murder mystery. Seul-gi’s biological father dies under suspicious circumstances and Je-Yi’s influential surgeon father Yu Tae-jun (Kim Tae-hoon) is suspected of foul-play. So is Je-yi really interested in being friend with Seul-gi or is she playing a bigger game to get something?
Lee Hyeri is the star of this show, you simply cannot trust her as Je-Yi, the class genius on the path to becoming a surgeon like her father. Like Seul-gi, viewers might find themselves getting confused over whether they should love or hate the manipulative brat.
The teens in ‘Friendly Rivalry’ have exaggerated cinematic lives… each one facing their own dark demons. A lot of the twists in the tale feel forcibly structured, yet, the writers keep you invested in the Seul-gi and Je-Yi drama until the end. Th
Rating: 7.5 on 10. Watch ‘Friendly Rivalry’ on Netflix.
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