Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
For anyone who has watched enough South Korean films and television shows, one issue plaguing the country becomes quite evident: bullying in schools. The 2026 Netflix series ‘Teach You a Lesson’ revolves around a special unit called the Educational Rights Protection Bureau (ERPB), established by the Education Minister to tackle school violence, curb bullying, and reform the education system. The bureau investigates not only students bullying their classmates, but also children harassing teachers, educators targeting their students, influential parents intimidating school staff, and most troubling of all: parents abusing their own children.
Directed by Hong Jong-chan (‘Juvenile Justice’, ‘Link: Eat, Love, Kill’), the ten-episode series is based on the webtoon ‘Get Schooled’ by Chae Yong-taek and illustrated by Han Ga-ram. ‘Teach You a Leasson’ stars Kim Mu-yeol as the primary protagonist, Na Hwa-jin, a fierce ERPB inspector who leads the newly formed team and beats up gangs of delinquent teens like a comic-book action hero. And that’s why the show often feels more like an action fantasy, despite featuring no actual supernatural elements. It’s simply unrealistic (yet gratifying) in the way a three-member team travels from school to school, solving cases that eventually spill into the realms of human trafficking, murder, and drug rackets.
Joining Hwa-jin are fellow ERPB inspectors Bong Geun-dae (Pyo Ji-hoon) and Im Han-rim (Jin Ki-joo), while Lee Sung-min (if you’re a horror-comedy fan, watch his film ‘Handsome Guys’) plays Education Minister Choi Gang-seok, the architect of the controversial new bureau. Together, the trio travels from school to school, investigating cases of bullying, abuse, and corruption that conventional authorities fail to address. So, each episode of ‘Teach You A Lesson’ dives into a different case, each involving some sort of emotional or physical abuse.
Given that ‘Teach You a Lesson’ is based on a webtoon, the inspectors always find a way to tackle bullies, and abusers, even when they’re up against whole gangs. “Are you crazy?! Do you have extra lives or something?,” a shocked teacher asks Hwa-jin in one of the episodes, after he performs a daring stunt to protect her. And you’re left chuckling, because she is right in wondering if he has spare lives, since he keeps fighting like his bones are made of steel.
Unlike the strict rules and guidelines that bind teachers and educators in South Korea, the ERPB is granted special immunity and allowed to deal with troublemakers in whatever manner it sees fit, including corporal punishment. It’s as if Teach You a Lesson is promoting the adage “spare the rod and spoil the child,” or, perhaps more accurately, endorsing the idea that “an eye for an eye” can sometimes set things right. Which is why, when Hwa-jin arrives at a school in the first episode to investigate a student’s suicide, he doesn’t hold back when confronted by the school bully, the son of a powerful politician, who believes he is above the law.
Politics in-fact plays a big role in ‘Teach You a Lesson’, with Education Minister Choi Gang-seok constantly locking horns with other politicians, some of whom are rivals, others who simply don’t want the system to change, as it would put their kids at a disadvantage. To add a personal touch to the tale, viewers are early on informed that Hwa-jin’s fiance was a teacher, murdered by a student, who gets a lenient sentence for being underage.
A parallel sub-plot across episodes of ‘Teach You a Lesson’ steadily unravels the deeper connection between Hwa-jin and Gang-seok, and what really happened to Hwa-jin’s fiance Choi Ga-yoon (Ha Young). The ERPB of course soon gets entangled in controversy over the inspectors being driven by their own personal agendas, and faces lots of backlash for endorsing violence against students.
It’s only in episode 3 of ‘Teach You a Lesson’, that the ERPB visits a Seoul school in order to dig into a teacher suicide and support another teacher being maliciously targeted by a calculative, influential student. Jin Ki-joo as Im Han-rim gets to step up in this chapter, since it unfolds at an all girls school. She is almost as lethal as Hwa-jin when it comes to combat and dealing with teen bullies and provides a lot of comic relief through her short-tempered, loud, unhinged personality.
Kim Mu-yeol delivers a suitably terminator-like performance as Hwa-jin. A former soldier, the character isn’t exactly a cyborg assassin, but his personality rarely extends beyond tracking down and punishing bullies, with little room for emotional expression. It’s the supporting cast of students and teachers who do much of the emotional heavy lifting in “Teach You a Lesson”, giving viewers compelling personal stories to invest in.
Among the standouts is Lee Sang-hee as high school homeroom teacher Jung Seon-yeong, who finds herself targeted by a manipulative student influencer in Episode 3. Then there’s Song Si-an as elementary school teacher Choi Ji-seon in Episode 5, a storyline that explores the relentless pressure and psychological abuse educators often face from overprotective parents. Ji-seon begins as an optimistic and caring young teacher devoted to her students, but her cheerful demeanor gradually erodes under a barrage of complaints, accusations, and harassment.
Among the student-focused stories, Kim Tae-young makes a strong impression as teenager Jung Hyeon-min in Episode 8. Subjected to constant psychological pressure from his mother to excel academically and become a doctor, Hyeon-min has been raised to obey rather than think for himself. Tae-young convincingly portrays a teenager who passively accepts an impossible schedule and crushing expectations because he has never known anything else. It is only after the ERPB intervenes that Hyeon-min finally begins to break free from a destructive cycle that could have derailed his entire future.
Overall, ‘Teach You a Lesson’ is an entertaining unrealistic series, one in which the ERPB functions as a team of superheroes swooping in to rescue students and teachers failed by the system. While the show consistently defends its “eye for an eye” approach, it also raises an uncomfortable question: how does one reform a broken education system where violence & bullying becomes the norm, without resorting to force or questionable tactics? Unfortunately, the series offers no real answers. Instead, it serves as wish-fulfilment fantasy, providing the oppressed with a special unit that works tirelessly to deliver the justice they rarely receive in real life.
If the makers get a green-light to renew ‘Teach You a Lesson’ for some new chapters, I’d definitely watch a season 2.
Watch ‘Teach You a Lesson’ on Netflix.
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