Canons I Love: KBS White Christmas

by corvidology 

There are so many canons I love, but I want to focus on the ones that don't get enough love. Once again we're visiting one that I love enough that I've written fic for it without even the boost of an exchange behind me.



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White Christmas is an 8-episode kdrama that aired on KBS in 2011. For those of you for whom this means something: it was written by Park Yeon-seon who also wrote another of my favorite kdramas Age of Youth (streaming on Netflix as Hello, My Twenties).

Watch on YouTube

Here's a fanmade trailer that doesn't give too much away

But this show is tonally nothing like Age of Youth. It's a psychological thriller, and it's basically about the power of psychology. (Though if you're a psychologist, you should not watch this show.)

The premise: It's Christmas break for Susin High, an elite private school--so elite, in fact, that only the top 1% of students in the country can get in. Susin is already a place of cut-throat competition and a bad environment for anyone who cares about mental health. But things are about to get a lot worse.

In the days leading up to Christmas break, seven students receive black envelopes containing a threatening and ominous message, asking them to stay behind at the school over break.

You tainted me, made me pitiful.
You made me a monster in the corner.
You silenced me.
You ridiculed my false hope.
You took the only thing I had and put it around your neck.
I held out my hand and you let go.
You deleted me from your eyes.
Finally, you overtook me.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
After 8 days, walk up the path by the zelkova tree.
Under the clock tower you will see someone dead.
The night that Jesus was born, I curse you.

So when everyone else packs up and leaves for the holiday, those seven students and one teacher/chaperone are left in this glass labyrinth of building in the mountains, miles away from the nearest town. A stranded stranger survives a car wreck nearby and stumbles to the school to ask for shelter.

And then, of course, there's a snowfall, trapping them there until New Year's Day.

And people start dying...

The appeal: It's really hard to describe what it is that works about this show because it's so different than any other kdrama I've ever seen.

The characters are (almost) all damaged teenagers who have tons of baggage--the school bully, the school prankster, the model student, the school sweetheart who's turned into a bad girl, the neurodivergent kid, etc. All of them are interesting and compelling and all of them are really hurting. They're smart, smart enough that sometimes you forget how young they're supposed to be, and then they'll do or say something that reminds you, "Oh, yeah, these are just kids." I love to make jokes about my murder babies, but I sincerely love all of them Me earlier that day: I never cared for Mooyul.

And the modus operandi of the villain (if this show can be said to have something as conventional as a villain) is to use each kid's trauma against them. They're trapped in this labyrinth with their own pain and with the question that hangs over everything: are monsters born or made?

The plot is twisty, in a "look what human beings will do" kind of way. The suspense comes mostly from asking what people are willing to do to survive. It's an ensemble and each character gets a moment to shine, but it's got the benefit of being short, especially for a kdrama.

There's also the appeal of the cast. For reasons I'm not quite clear on, they cast a bunch of models, so almost everyone is very good-looking and very tall. And a bunch of them--Kim Woobin, my boy Sung Joon, my girl Esom, Lee Soohyuk, Kim Youngkwang, etc.--went on to have really interesting careers as actors in addition to modeling. They aren't all the most seasoned thespians in this particular drama, but I think all of them inhabit their characters really nicely.

The downsides: This show skews WAY more male than it really needs to. I can only imagine if they'd made Mireu or Chihoon or somebody a girl instead of a boy. There are two female characters, both of whom are very cool (for certain values of the word "cool"), but I really don't understand why it's so boy-heavy since it doesn't seem to be saying all that much about gender (except that, you know what? It really sucks being the girl that everyone has a crush on. It really does). Especially considering that the writer went on to write my favorite show with an all-female leading cast.

It's also dark. Not that dark--it's not graphic, there's no real sexual violence, the trauma that the kids are carrying around is more alluded to than explored deeply. But it does contain themes of suicide and self-harm and there is some blood, so it's definitely not one you should watch in a fragile moment.

And the final episode has some plot holes...but they're plot holes. The ending is (to my mind) incredibly emotionally satisfying despite them.

Warnings for: Suicide, self-harm, drug abuse, medium-intensity violence.

Where you can watch it: Viki--at least in some countries--and various illegal sites if you, like me, think that it's okay to stream or torrent things if the powers that be won't make them legally available in your country. If you're wanting to find it, I'll help you out.

For those of you who love Age of Youth already: It is really, really interesting seeing some of the writer's interests from Age of Youth showing up in this show in a completely different genre.

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I really love this Canons I Love thing because it gives me the chance to harp about things I already harp about. It's fun to be able to nag people to watch/read the thing I love that I've been nagging people about for years, but to have an excuse to do so.

"March is for canons I love," I say with a shrug. "What can I do?"