One thing I can tell you right now is that The Heirs is unashamedly a Korean drama about rich teens who couldn’t care less about whatever is happening around them as long as it doesn’t affect them.

Every character is problematic in their own way, and even though the scriptwriter tries to redeem each of them by giving them very torturous backstories, it doesn’t help at all.

The relationship between our Cha Eun Sang (Park Shin Hye) and Kim Tan (Lee Min Ho) is crippled from the onset by the simple fact that he is the son of a very well-off man, while she is the daughter of his maid.

You might see this and immediately think, “Well, this is very cliche,” and assume it has probably been done over and over again, but surprisingly, this is literally the first and the last Korean drama I have ever seen about a boss and his maid starting a relationship, which is good considering how individually problematic they all are.

While this is billed as a high school drama, I could very well lead a panel arguing against the classification because at several points, I totally forgot that the leads were essentially middle school students. At the end, they finally graduate into high school, and to tell you, I was shocked is a very big understatement.

Related: 15 Interesting High School K-Dramas That Will Make You Feel Young

Before you get in, just know that The Heirs has a very chaotic and complicated love triangle, and one of the teens (our boy, Kim Tan) has been engaged to another character, Rachel, for years, the number of toxic relationships everywhere almost gave me whiplash.

I know I should probably be more lenient while reviewing this drama because it’s an old one, and if you’ve watched old dramas, you can know how problematic they all are, but I simply can’t overlook this trainwreck.

One good thing that came out of this drama are the many stars that were noticed when this aired and the wonderful OST that has always stayed with me. 

If you watch this drama, you’re going to see everyone from Park Hyung Sik who is now the lead of a medical drama called Dr. Slump, and funny enough, his female lead is Park Shin Hye from this drama, who is our main lead in this drama. Kudos to the casting director; never on this earth would I have imagined that combination.

There is also Lee Min Ho who everybody knows, and if you don’t know him, you’re probably living under a rock. And Kim Woo Bin, who is part of the trio of hottest men in Korea because he’s actually very good-looking, and even Kang Min Hyuk who starred in the Netflix original Celebrity last year and had the whole world absolutely gushing.

But by far my favorite cast members who are now super popular are Kim Ji Won who played Rachel (Kim Tan’s rude fiancé) and Krystal Jung, who played Lee Bo Na, the girlfriend of one of the side characters who was always jealous of Park Shin Hye. 

One thing I feel that Korean dramas of every age always manage to do is introduce an ensemble cast where every single character has their own drama that they are dealing with in their day-to-day, and it’s also thrilling. 

Without dropping spoilers, there’s everything from an inheritance battle to exploration of social disparity to the unfettered love of a mother to miscommunication between friends and just a whole lot of other things that you probably wouldn’t expect from an everyday drama.

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All in all, I’ll give this drama a 6/10, and that is maybe very generous because I genuinely did not like it. I will give the OST a fantastic 9/10 because I watched this drama for the first time about 6 years ago, and I never forgot any of the songs, and watching it again for me to write this review just had me in my feelings because I remembered how much I loved the tracks then.

What’s funny is that I loved this drama (like, really LOVED it) when I watched it twice in the past, so this third watch was a letdown, and this will form the base of my argument in favour of banning rewatches.

So, what do you guys think? Is my rating fair? Have you watched The Heirs? If you have watched it, will you give it a higher rating? Did you enjoy it? Let me know the answer to all these questions in the comments section.

And don’t forget to check out the related post for more Korean drama reviews that you’ll absolutely love.