Solomon’s Perjury is about a high school that is turned upside-down after a student dies. The death is quickly ruled a suicide as the school and police look to move on. But the students believe something more is going on and take it upon themselves to uncover the truth.
Solomon’s Perjury is one of those dramas that is really quite good, but it just wasn’t my kind of drama. It’s like a legal drama disguised as a high school drama. And well, legal dramas aren’t really something I love.
Now I did know going in that the plot involved a sort of mock trial put on by the students to get to the bottom of things. But I didn’t realized it would consume so much of the drama! The whole thing felt like a cop/legal drama except with teenagers playing those parts. Now there are actual cops too, but they are more secondary figures compared to the students.
Solomon’s Perjury actually has a really solid story and an interesting mystery to uncover. It slowly reveals pieces of the puzzle as the students work to discover the truth. The picture begins to come together to deliver answers to our mystery.
But the drama seemed like it wanted to have this dark, heavy vibe, but instead it felt more calm and laid back. The pacing also felt very slow to me. The plot developments were there, but I just didn’t feel the stakes were very high. I think a lot of this stems from the fact that many of the important plot developments are exposed at the trial in a more matter of fact manner. For me, this made these very emotional moments seem sterile.
Kim Hyun Soo was wonderful as our leading lady Seo Yeon. She is a kind and smart girl who ends up leading the charge to discover what really happened to So Woo (Seo Young Joo). She did well at carrying the drama.
Pretty much all of the student actors except for Kim Hyun Soo felt pretty green to me. A lot of them were on the stiff side, and I just found them all to be pretty bland. Though I did enjoy the actual characters of Ji Hoon (Jang Dong Yoon) and Joon Young (Seo Ji Hoon) and their stories in particular.
I do think many of the actors improved towards the end of the drama though. We got some emotional performances from many of the teens in those last few episodes as many issues finally come to a head.
The drama does touch on some very heavy subjects including bullying, child abuse, domestic violence, and suicide. That’s a lot of heavy themes. While I thought it gave a good effort in addressing these topics, none of them were hit on particularly deep. But there are definitely those heartfelt moments where the characters open up about these struggles.
I think it would have been more helpful to actually get to know each of the characters. Most of their pain and struggles were touched upon in a more matter of fact way rather than spending quality time really getting deep with them.
And some of the characters that went through the most difficult circumstances, like Woo Hyuk (Baek Chul Min) and Joo Ri (Shin Se Hwi), were so unlikable for most of the drama that it was hard to feel sympathy for them.
Even as we learn about their struggles they remain unlikable people because they seem so uncaring. Of course, we do eventually see some movement, but I really had to work hard to keep the circumstances that made them into who they are in mind in order to create some sympathy.
While I most certainly enjoyed parts of Solomon’s Perjury and appreciated what it was trying to do, it just wasn’t to my tastes and didn’t really come together for me. Even though it wasn’t really my kind of drama, Solomon’s Perjury is solid enough that if you like high school, mystery, and legal dramas, I would recommend it.
My Rating: 5.5/10
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