Not Your Average Drama
The minute I began watching this drama I knew this would not be like any of the others I'd watched so far. Similar in tone to Parasite and many other Korean movies, this drama portrays a very realistic and gritty take on life and what it takes to survive.The strongest point of this drama is its plot. Void of stereotypical cliches, it leaves you on the edge of your seat guessing what will happen next. Although high schoolers running a prostitution business seems extremely out-there and unrealistic, the genius-level writing of this drama has made me realize that this may very well be reality for people living not only in Korea, but other developed countries too. I'm glad that this drama is a Netflix Original, because it would not have been as dark nor as great had it been picked up by Korean networks that have to abide to the KCC's laws. I have never felt the way I've felt over the course of this drama, from developing a strong attachment to Oh Jisoo in the first few episodes to being disgusted with myself & his actions in the last one. The characters are all extremely well written and I enjoyed watching them struggle to conform to the rapidly changing circumstances. The actions & motivations of the four leads are such that you can never truly root for any of them despite either having begun as a favorable character, or become one through their character development. While there are some questions that remain unanswered, the open ending of this drama has me believing that the story is not complete and we will get a 2nd season in which those questions will be answered. In all, the plot will have your brain running a mile a minute, thinking of theories and motivations for days after completing it.
I have never been good at telling good & bad acting apart, but judging by the way the lead four, especially Gyuri & Jisoo made me feel, I think their acting is nothing short of amazing, especially Kim Dong-hees's. He portrayed such strong emotion, especially anxiety, that I felt my stomach bunch up into knots while watching him.
The only reason I have given a less than stellar rating to the soundtrack is because, while it was good, it wasn't all that memorable. I watched this drama a few months ago and yet when listening to the soundtrack I fail to place what scenes the songs were used for. On top of that, I felt like the theme song was kind of cliche. To me it felt like the stereotypical theme song for a dark, crime drama rather than being one that really mirrored this story. To be honest though, this drama was so good that even a less than perfect soundtrack did not detract from it. Like I said before, the plot is so entrancing that you will barely register the soundtrack. Perhaps that's what happened with me.
Rewatch value-wise, I gave it a lower score not because I would not enjoy rewatching, but because this is the type of drama you can only truly experience once. It is riddled with plot-twists that leave you gasping for air, akin to Parasite, and I just do not feel like you can re-experience the same feelings while rewatching it because you know what will happen next which is absolutely essential for this drama. With that being said, if there was ever a device invented that let you wipe shows from your memory, I would be first in line so that I could watch this for the first time again. I am planning to rewatch it with my friend soon, so who knows, I might feel different about it then.
TL;DR: Absolutely amazing drama, will have your emotions running high. Must Watch.
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This review may contain spoilers
From the trailer I assumed it would be a typical drama about genius main protagonist who develops an amazing app and together with his friends he is trying to make money from it. It was so much more different from my expectations. The first episode left in shocked and I have binged watched the whole series in about 2 days. This drama follows four high school students and their struggles. Our main protagonist who seems to be a goody-shoe from the beginning turns out to have a complex personality. Despite receiving a large amount of hate due to his acting in Itaewon class when his character turned to be a "villain" Kim Donghee has shown us, that he is a very capable of playing a villain. Throughout the drama I have loved and hated every character. From the beginning I truly rooted for Oh Jisoo despite the fact that he was actually a "pimp". Through his background I could see where he was coming from and why he chose to be involved in such unethical business. However as I continued watching, I found it more difficult to understand his choices and couldn't of his actions.
Bae Gyuri's struggles come from her parents who hold high expectations therefore they pressure her into being an ideal daughter. Her stress and unwillingness to live is invisible to her parents. She joined hands with Oh Jisoo thinking that she could escape for her life. In my opinion those two are very toxic for each other, but at the same time they both rely on each other to make it through another day.
The remaining two characters who were a couple - Seo Minhee and Kwak Kitae I found the most annoying and least relatable. With Seo Minhee I found her at certain point a pitiful character. Despite being surrounded by her friends and having a boyfriend, she is very lonely. No one actually cares about her. This is why she was so attached to Mr. Lee, because in her mind he was the only one who actually cared about her. However I found it very ridiculous that she sold herself to buy her boyfriend expensive gifts. Her boyfriend was even bigger trash for playing dumb even though he knew about it. I felt very frustrated to see her and her boyfriend being angry at Oh Jisoo after finding out that he was the "pimp". The business was all consensual and it wasn't like he forced her to do anything, so why getting angry. The boyfriend knew about it but he chose to stay silent and enjoy the expensive gifts from his girlfriend. Obviously in the end Jisoo's behavior when Minhee found out was unnecessary and at that point I didn't root for anyone anymore.
The drama is very dark and not suitable for those who are looking for lighthearted school drama with romance. It shows the dark side of the students and their shady businesses. This drama makes it very hard for you to root for a certain character because each character has flaws. A lot of people are expecting a season 2 for Extracurricular, but honestly I don't want it. I am content with such open ending and I don't think it is necessary to have another season. However if there is a second season I will definitely watch it.
ps: I'm deducting one point from the ost because it doesn't have an official release. I love the opening song and I wish the production team would release it.
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Worth watching
Ok so first of all I have to begin by saying that 'Extracurricular' is actually one of the 2 kdramas I've finished watching. Yeah that's true I've only watched 2 kdramas this one and 'Are You Human?'. I'm that kind of person that starts watching or doing something and the next 5-10 minutes gets bored and moves on to the next interesting thing to do. I think I began watching at least 40 kdramas (and cdramas too) to put it mildly. I mean, it's not like all of them are boring or something, some of them are the most popular ones, some of them are the genres I'm looking for like mystery or crime or supernatural or sci-fi and again it's not like all of them have bad plot or bad actors or some cliche storyline. It's just me that gets easily bored. Like you have no idea how easily bored I can get at doing almost anything. OK maybe some of them I've watched only like 1-2 episodes or just a half of the first episode but a big part of them I've watched a substantial amount of episodes like 5-6 maybe even 8-9 (lmao) and a few of them I can say proudly that I've almost finished them almost (lmao) like I've got only 1-2 episodes left to watch, but the big majority yes I didn't even start them properly like only 1 episode or something.There are so many reasons for all this kdramas dropping of mine like I didn't really like the female lead or the male lead or both of them or sometimes one of the support roles yes I know they don't appear that much that's why they are called support roles but if I don't like someone it means I don't like that person (lmao) or maybe the storyline was too boring or too cliche or maybe it was meant to be a supernatural drama but the supernatural part was only 1-2% of the whole thing or I didn't like the acting of someone or they were talking too much yes it could happen lmao so to sum up I rarely rarely extremely rarely find a good drama that could satisfy my short attention span and believe me my short attention span is like really short. If nothing interesting happens or at least if it would give me a sign that something unexpected is going to happen in the next 30 minutes or at least in the next episode that's a big no no for me. I'm just going to stop and move on to the next kdrama.
So in other words if that kdrama doesn't have at least one moment that could catch my attention per episode and to make me want to go on with the series watch the next episode and see what happens then that's just a no no. I don't know about you guys but if that drama ain't good enough for me to watch if I already know how it's going to end because again cliche storylines are everywhere even if the actors are some big names then it just ain't worth my time. And believe me I wasted a looot of time trying to figure out if that drama is going to be a good one or just a flop. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say that if someone says that kdrama is bad don't waste your time on watching it it doesn't necessarily mean that if that person didn't like it you are not going to like either. You don't have to take someone's opinion so seriously like you can read other viewers' opinions but you don't have to listen to them. Like believe me I've read people's opinions that were saying that some kdrama was sooo good but after I've watched a few episodes it was just a flop or some other kdrama is really bad and ain't worth watching it but after I've watched a few episodes I realized that it was pretty good and I might actually finish it (yes I've got some good kdramas in mind that I would really like to finish them besides the 2 I've mentioned above lmao).
So what I want to say is you don't have to care so much about other people's opinions if you want to watch a kdrama and you read some bad reviews about it or you see that it got a low score don't get discouraged just try watching it and maybe you like it and the same for the popular dramas. Even if it's really popular it got a lot of reviews and everyone's saying that it's really good and they really enjoyed it it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to like it too of course you can try watching it but believe me I've tried some of the 'popular' kdramas and in my opinion they ain't worth their popularity but again that's only my opinion.
OK so enough with my blabbering and back to the review I just wanted to let you know guys that I'm very very picky when it comes to kdramas so if you see me writing a review about a drama that I've actually finished well that's not something very common I could actually say that's pretty unusual lmao
So to finish this review all I want to say that this kdrama is worth your time and you should give it a try.
OK I just realized that maybe I've used to many 'so' LMAO
So just watch 'Extracurricular' cause it's good. Believe me, I've dropped a looot of kdramas.
OK maybe you wander why I'm telling you guys that this kdrama is so good that I didn't drop it but I gave the re-watch value a 1... Well that's because I don't re-watch like never ever. I mean I barely watch 2-3 episodes of a kdrama how could I re-watch it? Lmao
So just watch this one. It's gooood
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This review may contain spoilers
So I put the spoiler tag. To make it short: The series is well done. From the very beginning it's obvious that this is really good. Good actors, good script, good dialogues, good production. Still it took me 2 episodes to get hooked, but then I was REALLY hooked. It got better and better - until the last two episodes which I didn't like at all. So my issues with the series: The character were not likable and the plot became strange at the end. Gyu-Ri was so sassy and cool, wasn't she? The girl messed up everything. If you think about it, the moment she got her hands on the Ji-soo's phone sh*t happened. All the blood that was shed was because of a new client she scouted. She didn't do it on purpose and it really looked like she was in love with Ji-soo and she later proved how far she was willing to go to save him, but still. The girl messed up EVERYTHING. I was constantly thinking *Just let the man do his business*. But the man became a wimp later on. The only character I was rooting for was Mr. Lee. And then he died. And then he didn't. And I'm not a fan of that kind of plot where a characters comes back just to die again. I liked Min Hee mostly because she was friends with Mr. Lee. But otherwise she was not very likable either. The main character had a very questionable personality to begin with. I mean, if you do that kind of business you sure are shady! But he proved that he was willing to risk his life to save Min Hee (he tried to hold back the bad guys so she and Mr. Lee could escape), just to let her die an episode later. It just made no sense. I don't know if you can call that "character development" or bad writing. The end felt strange to me. Like it was the end of a season and not the end of a series. I enjoy an open end if it's well done, but here it makes no sense. We don't know if Min Hee will live, die or survive with brain damage, we don't know if Ji-soo survived or not, we don't even know if Mr. Lee survived. The police officer never said clearly that he was dead. Everything was resolved more or less, but we don't know what happened to the characters. That was left completely open. So yeah, objectively speaking this series was very well done, very suspenseful (I had to hold my breath several times and binge-watched it in 2 days), but subjectively speaking I don't like the end, I don't like the characters, and I was in general very disappointed. So I'm conflicted about the rating. It's too good to rate it lower than 9, but I wished for a different end. I wished for the main character to die, honestly. I didn't hate him, but I thought his death would have been a better closure. I saw rumors about a season 2, so the end would make more sense considering there will be a continuation. Still I wonder how this season will look like. Ji-soo and Gyu-Ri have to flee, leave the country maybe, will we see new characters and a completely new story? Nothing is confirmed at this point, so well, whatever. Was this review helpful to you?
Didn't expect much - Got near perfection
I didn't expect much from Extracurricular, but my oh my did it deliver way way way more than I ever imagined. I think what made me take to this drama was how relatable the ML was to myself. Of course I'm not a criminal, but from the personality/character it was like I was looking into a mirror. A unique and well thought out story was a great thing to see too, with all characters being truly developed throughout.I also love how it implied the romance without really having much romance. I would also love a second season, but to be fair, I always say this. Maybe I need to be less greedy.
Haha. All in all though, a must watch!
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Uninteresting at first, intense at the end
What's in each episode:1. At first, the drama is not so interesting. It shows some women working as "entertaining" women. They smoke and drink beer, a job that is considered illegal in South Korea. Nothing really interesting in episode 1. You gotta hang on to it.
2. You start to understand what is this drama about: A student running a secret-modern-remote security service where he is unknown to his employees and clients.
3. Romance stuff kicks in, but it's not overloaded.
4. Conflicts intensify.
5-8. You really enjoy the drama because of how stupid the characters are to solve their problems.
9. You start to think about how this drama ends.
10. The conflicts are still on fire that you now look for the ending. Some are somewhat satisfied (like me) and some are unsatisfied.
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i wrote this review at 2 am because everything is fucked up
Wow... okay.... i feel so whoozy rn.. not gonna lie the main reason why im watching this was because of jung dabin. i love her character on live on so i decided to give it a try. shes sooo amazing!!!! what i liked most about this drama is the characters. i love that the direction of the plot depended on the characters decision its a whole characters driven drama !! the butterfly effect got me so fucked up in my bed screaming IF YOU DIDNT DO THAT THEN ALL OF THIS WOULDNT HAPPEN its frustrating but i enjoyed it. jisoo... gyuri.. minhee.. kitae and the adults too... i enjoyed them. i enjoyed the fact that everyone is so fucked up in the head. the actors also did a good job. kim donghee did so well that i was able to sympathize with jisoo (man..he just wanted enough money to live a normal life). the drama carries around a very heavy topic and its 2 am i dont have energy to think about it so im just gonna say stuff about the characters. i still dont know how i overally feel with this drama tbh i dont think it got me extremely moved. esp the ending got me doubtful... gonna have to see for the next few days. if it still haunts me i have no choice but to say its super good and i have to recommend it to any of you who likes a drama full of fucked up characters because for real bruh (p.s just a heads up if youre planning to watch and are wondering how much violent it is; on the end of ep 6 and 9 and maybe also 10 ? theres extreme violence going on w a lot of stabbing and bashing and blood so if you cant handle it you can just skip)Was this review helpful to you?
...
the production was good, I can't complain .I also say that the performance was incredible, it would be a sin if I complained.
I love the actors, I loved the characters.
Of course, not everything is perfect, I can't lie, but what a drama that doesn't have a single flaw.
So in conclusion, I recommend...
I say it's worth watching, maybe it's bad for some, but for me it was good.
This is just my opinion, you better watch it and have your own opinion.
I don't know what to say, because I think everyone has their own opinion.
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This review may contain spoilers
From what I saw, and read, I understood that this is a drama that you either love, or you hate. No in between.I do understand why: characters are messed up, there is no silver lining and the episodes get so tense that is hard to actually pinpoint the moment you fall for this scheme.
For all those who hate it, but watched it until the end: congrats, you just wasted your time! For everyone who actually, even without enjoying it, liked the drama: hi, I'm one of you.
I was really excited to see this drama, and I've watched it fairly quickly, because I couldn't look away from my laptop.
The plotline, I admit was not of my favourites: everything was fine, until Gyuri just pushes her way in Jisoo's life and chaos ensues. The drama probably would haven't had that push to it, without Bae Gyuri : thank you for being the actual plotholder, the bad guy and the saviour all in one!
It's not hard to dislike Gyuri, let's be honest, but at the same time I related to her on so many levels: her internalized hatred for everyone and everything, her sociopathic side being full on display, and her just being a badass in a noir way. What changed Gyuri, and made her less obsessed with her own personal dilemmas was Jisoo. I think these two dysfunctional characters work so well with and for each other that it's hard to separate them. I loved the scene in which Jisoo and his father are drinking and just insulting each other while laughing. It was intensely sad, but also sarcastic.
I think all about this drama was doublefaced: Mr. Lee being a veteran with wars in his head, trying to fight them while protecting someone, Minhee who found a parental figure in Mr. Lee and just went berserk because she was lost, and Kitae, who hid his feelings that deep they came out too late and ended up being just a burden, for both him and Minhee. These characters are real, they are scarred, pitiful and rotten on the inside. But not everything is gone: the homeroom teacher, the detective (which paradoxically are adults, and instead try to fight for their gone kids, instead of kids trying to fight the rotten adult world) still believe there is something in them that it's worth looking at, fighting for.
If you don't see it this way, I'm sorry for you because you lost the biggest lesson of this drama: it's hard to keep a dream, and life does not help, so don't take short ways to achieve it, because it's probably gonna end bad. This drama is a massive warning about the bad sides of things and how quickly we are to judge everything around us.
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The characters are believable, though not very relatable (esp the ML). But you end up rooting for them even though they are clearly not doing lawful things. You just keep finding excuses for their wrongdoings, and just feel horribly sorry for them that things just spiral downwards exponentially after a few episodes.
What kept me going I guess was hope that the ML will find a way out of his abyss. I had hopes for FL to be the guiding light but she is anything but. Also, circumstances had forced ML to be in that sticky situation that he had delved in so deep, he does not know the way out anymore.
Pretty dark and twisted show, but I enjoyed it. Though I needed something lighter after that to lighten me up.
Side note, I watched Itaewon class after this kdrama and surprisingly found the ML as a supporting role.
Watch it! There is also a bit of gore... I don't think I can stomach anything more than this after this kdrama!
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Did I just not get this show at all?
This might be a kind of critical and morals centered review, but there’s just way too many things wrong with this drama (at least in my opinion).Knew it was supposed to be violent; didn't imagine how unnecessarily violent it was actually going to be. I lost count of how many people (/almost) died. Ambiguous ending which I don't particularly enjoy. Normalized underage prostitution??? This just immediately ruined it for me, although I decided to finish it to see how the topic was handled. Ended up extremely disappointed.
I did considered giving it a higher rate because the overall filming and editing styles are really interesting/‘cool’, but there’s just too much wrong with the plot, so I couldn’t bring myself up to do it (I did actually plan on rating it a 0, but you’re not allowed to lol).
Still, I have come across a tiktok about this drama and everyone was praising it in the comments, so I do wonder whether I did not get it or whether people just do not gaf about everything wrong with it.
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