This series came heavily recommended to me when I was looking through popular website 'favorite kdrama' categories. The premise is that 8 students are stuck in school during Christmas break in the midst of a snow storm and there's a killer on the loose. Being a mystery fan, I decided to give it a try.

Overall, I'm glad I did but it really wasn't as exciting or suspenseful as some of the reviews made it out to be. The first half of the series dragged and was quite boring. The second half picked up and got better. I wouldn't say it wasn't worth the watch and there were things I liked about it. But I can't give it a much higher score due to the 1) slow, dragging pace of practically half the show and 2) there is a glaring plot hole that stretches my suspension of disbelief a little too much. Let's say that in these type of shows, the police/authorities are usually portrayed as somewhat inept in order for the leads shine in the detective/issue solving. In this case, the error was over the top- I couldn't even imagine a rookie cop making such a mistake. I know they wrote it this way so that the leads could have a needed showdown with the antagonist but I had to take away major points since the flaw is inexcusable.

There are good things about White Christmas. All of the teen leads did a good job with the acting and were able to potray the differences in their characters, as well as represent their character issues well. I also liked how each of them (with the exception of Cho Chi Hoon/Cho Ji Hoon) got some character arc focus at some point in the drama. Park Mo Yul was clearly the MVP, but each of them had their moment to 'shine' or something like that. Their interactions with each other, and with the adult characters, were the highlights of the show for me.

I think White Christmas was trying to achieve something unique with the crime/mystery genre but I'm not sure if it succeeded. I will say that it had significant differences compared to the run of the mill whodunnit murder mystery, police procedural or even Battle Royal/Hunger Games type of show where the leads are pit against each other...but did those differences amount to a cohesive plot where all loose ends are tied up in a way that is credible? I'm not so sure. The drama goes on and on about whether or not 'monsters are made or born?' but it doesn't really resolve it (or even leave an open ended question) in a way that made sense.