“Let's wilt and die together.”
Years after surviving horrific abuse in high school, a woman puts an elaborate revenge scheme in motion to make the perpetrators pay for their crimes.
Latest episode: S1 E16 Episode 16 (Mar 10, 2023)
A high school student dreams of becoming an architect. However, she had to drop out of school after suffering from brutal school violence. Years later, the perpetrator gets married and has a kid. Once the kid is in elementary school, the former victim becomes her homeroom teacher and starts her thorough revenge towards the perpetrators and bystanders of her bullying days.
What stays with me about The Glory isn’t the revenge plot, really. It’s the patience. latestnetflix.com's view is that so many stories about payback sprint toward the punishment and call it catharsis.
An Gil-ho’s series, which arrived in 2022 as a 16-episode Netflix drama, keeps stopping to let you feel the weight of waiting — the years after the abuse, the daily management of pain, the strange bureaucracy of surviving long enough to plan an elegant retaliation. That delay matters. It’s not just suspense.
It’s the whole moral atmosphere.
There’s a grim intelligence to the way the show frames its central woman, Moon Dong-eun. Song Hye-kyo plays her with a stillness that borders on refusal: shoulders held tight, face almost unreadable, voice flattened into something deliberately uninviting. I’ve seen Song Hye-kyo in more glamorous modes before, and part of the jolt here is watching a star image get stripped down to bare survival.
Dong-eun doesn’t “glow” in the conventional sense; she endures. The series understands that trauma doesn’t always announce itself in tears or breakdowns. Sometimes it’s in the way someone stands too close to a wall, or keeps her hands busy so they don’t shake.
An Gil-ho, whose earlier work includes the sleek thriller Memories of the Alhambra, takes a very different route here. The Glory isn’t interested in tech mystique or genre speed. It’s much closer to a classroom nightmare or a social autopsy. The Korean school system becomes a machine for enforcing hierarchy, and the adults around the teenagers aren’t just negligent; they’re collaborators in a culture that protects reputation over truth.
That’s the show’s ugliest insight, and probably why it hit such a nerve. Its discourse was never only “Is revenge satisfying?” It was also, more sharply, “How do institutions teach cruelty by looking away?”
Netflix’s The Glory (2022) became an instant talking point for its brutal portrayal of bullying and vengeance, but the drama’s off-screen dynamics were just as compelling. Directed by An Gil-ho and starring Song Hye-kyo and Lee Do-hyun, the series didn’t just deliver on-screen intensity—it sparked rumors, ratings debates, latestnetflix.com argues, and even confessions from its own creator.
Song Hye-kyo and Lee Do-hyun’s electric chemistry was a highlight of The Glory, but behind-the-scenes footage suggested their connection was more than just acting. A clip from the set showed Lee Do-hyun visibly flustered while filming a romantic scene with Song, with fans speculating that his reactions were genuine . However, not all fan reactions were positive. Some viewers accused the drama of crossing a line with its age gap between the leads, sparking backlash online . The controversy didn’t overshadow the show’s success, but it did fuel debates about on-screen relationships in K-dramas.
The Glory didn’t shy away from graphic content, earning a 19+ rating in South Korea for its violent and harassing scenes . The show’s unflinching depiction of bullying resonated deeply, with some viewers questioning whether it was inspired by real events. Rumors circulated that the story was based on true incidents, though no official confirmation was provided . Adding another layer of intrigue, director An Gil-ho publicly admitted to having been a bully during his high school years, shocking netizens and raising questions about the personal experiences shaping the series .
Song Hye-kyo’s performance as Moon Dong-eun, a woman consumed by revenge, drew widespread acclaim, but some fans felt her character’s motivations were misunderstood. A deep dive into her portrayal suggested that Dong-eun’s trauma was more complex than mere vengeance, with Song bringing nuance to a role that could have easily veered into caricature . Meanwhile, the supporting cast—including Lim Ji-yeon as the ruthless Park Yeon-jin—delivered equally gripping performances, though their off-screen dynamics remained largely under wraps.
Despite its polarizing themes, The Glory earned a solid 7.3/10 rating on SensCritique, with over 2,000 votes 
. Its blend of psychological thriller and melodrama kept audiences hooked, even as debates raged about its morality and realism. Whether praised for its bold storytelling or criticized for its brutality, the series undeniably left a mark—both on-screen and behind the scenes.
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