Actor Lee Sung-min.
The Netflix series ‘True Education’ (directed by Hong Jong-chan) on the OTT platform also features a true grown-up, actor Lee Sung-min.
In ‘True Education,’ released on the 5th, Lee Sung-min took on the role of Minister of Education Choi Kang-seok, showcasing weighty charisma.
‘Choi Kang-seok’ is both the Minister of Education and the linchpin of the Bureau for the Protection of Teachers’ Rights, which analyzes and resolves various problems arising in the field of education. Having led the creation of the bureau to set right broken classrooms, he completely captured viewers with a firm stance that permits no compromise in pursuit of educational restoration.
In particular, lines aimed at school-violence perpetrators such as “Are there sides in education, yours and mine?” and “This is my warning. Do not interfere with sacred compulsory education” revealed unwavering conviction without yielding an inch, delivering a thrilling catharsis to viewers. With his signature resonant delivery and restrained emotional acting, Lee Sung-min convincingly completed the character’s sincerity and added weight to the message the work seeks to convey.
Above all, Lee Sung-min’s performance was the very seasoned presence ‘possible only because it was Lee Sung-min.’ In briefing scenes, he established the authority of the Minister of Education character with an unwavering gaze and steady tone, and in the scene where, alone in his car, he recalls his daughter Choi Ga-yoon (played by Ha Young), who passed away before him, he conveyed loss through restraint, leaving a lingering ache. By delicately expressing the sorrow of a father and human anguish concealed behind strength, he gave the character dimensionality.
He also brought balance to the drama by showing natural chemistry with members of the Bureau for the Protection of Teachers’ Rights, including Na Hwa-jin (Kim Mu-yeol), the fiance of his daughter and a key figure in the bureau. For Na Hwa-jin, he acted as a reliable supporter and spiritual mainstay, adding stability, and to Bong Geun-dae (Pyo Ji-hoon), who inquires about expenses incurred on duty, he delivered unexpected humorand injected vitality into the dramawith the single line “Shall I buy you a sausage?”
In this way, even across diverse episodes, Lee Sung-min set the overall direction as an unwavering axis, proving the descriptor ‘an actor you can trust.’ He simultaneously expressed cool-headed leadership and a humane inner life, completing ‘the face of the true adult needed today.’
Meanwhile, the Netflix series ‘True Education’ is streaming in full, and Lee Sung-min is awaiting the release of the new JTBC drama ‘God's Marble.’
