Director: Lee Seong-taek
A middle-aged gang lieutenant with an unfinished education gets an unlikely second chance at both school and self-respect in this 2024 Korean series.
What is High School Return Of A Gangster about?
Kim Deuk Pal is forty-seven, has spent his life inside a crime organization, and has never stopped wishing he could have gone to university. When a desperate act by a bullied teenager crosses paths with his own, Deuk Pal unexpectedly wakes up inside the younger man's body and inside his life — classroom, tormentors and unresolved problems included. Adjusting to being a first-year student again, Deuk Pal starts confronting the boy's bullies head-on while building an unlikely friendship with a classmate who is fighting battles of her own at home.
Cast & crew
Yoon Chan-young carries the dual role at the center of the series, supported by Bong Jae-hyun, Won Tae-min, Lee Seo-jin, Seo Tae-hwa, Kim Se-won and Joo Yoon-chan, with Lee Kyung-young among the adult cast anchoring the gang side of the story.
Context & significance
Directed by Lee Seong-taek, the series pairs a body-swap fantasy premise with a drama about school bullying, using its central gimmick to look at both problems from an adult's blunt, no-nonsense perspective. Released in 2024, it built a strong 7.8 rating on IMDb, among the higher scores in its category, on the strength of a premise broad enough to be funny and serious enough to land its points about violence among teenagers. The contrast between Deuk Pal's blunt, streetwise instincts and the rules of ordinary high-school life supplies much of the show's humor, even as the bullying storyline is treated with real weight.
Where & how to watch
High School Return of a Gangster streams on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles available alongside the original Korean audio. Watching any episode requires logging into a free K-Time account, though the page itself can be read without one. K-Time's Farsi interface and subtitle tools are built for Persian-speaking viewers following Korean drama.