"It's still school, after all."
In a classroom where public education has collapsed and so-called "MZ gangsters" have seized control of the school, Na Hwa-jin (Kim Mu-yeol), an inspector for the Teacher Rights Protection Bureau, asks a male student who dreams of becoming an auto mechanic, "Why do you keep coming diligently to a school like this?" Without hesitation, the student gives this answer. The scene, in which Na Hwa-jin immediately shouts "Correct answer," symbolically reveals the message that the Netflix original "The Manager" seeks to convey. As public education has collapsed, schools have lost their function. Yet for students, school remains a space to prepare for the future and make friends in pursuit of their dreams.
Despite various controversies surrounding the original webtoon, including disputes over racism and sexism, "The Manager" has been reborn as a "well-made fantasy action school drama" that is both lighthearted and satisfying, blending action, comedy, and even thriller elements to depict the collapsed state of public education. All the controversial settings have been removed, and observers forecast that it will become this year's most talked-about work, breaking through problems that are not easily solved in reality with bold imagination while raising weighty questions.
"The Manager" is set in a school where teacher authority has collapsed. Education Minister Choi Kang-seok (Lee Sung-min) establishes the Teacher Rights Protection Bureau, a special organization under the Ministry of Education, to protect the right to learn and teacher authority. Na Hwa-jin, an inspector and former special forces member, is deployed to schools where problems have arisen and handles incidents that cannot be resolved through institutions or common sense in his own way.
The fast-paced development, which leverages the strengths of an omnibus structure dealing with an independent incident in each episode, heightens immersion. From school violence and bullying to MZ gangsters, attacks on teachers using social networking services (SNS), and irresponsible parents, the work unravels various problems likely to be encountered in reality at a comical yet thrilling tempo.
Room for controversy remains. The depictions of violence carried out under the banner of restoring teacher authority may cause discomfort. Nevertheless, the work recalls a long-standing maxim in education circles: "The quality of education cannot exceed the quality of teachers." The current decline in the quality of public education is because respect for teacher authority has disappeared.
