For this week’s K-drama review, I’m finally writing about ‘Extracurricular’. It’s taken me a hot minute, considering that I watched it pretty much straight after it came out on Netflix back in April.
The 2020 drama was directed by Kim Jin-Min who also directed ‘Lawless Lawyer’ and ‘Pride And Prejudice’ so you know the drama was in good hands. I genuinely enjoyed the way the drama was filmed. The hallucinations were excellent and ‘Extracurricular’ had quite a few violent scenes, so those were excellent.
The writer of the drama was Jin Han-Sae. As far as I can tell from looking around online, this was his first writing project. I’m pretty sure he’s going to get more opportunities after ‘Extracurricular’ because the buzz was quite big.
Plot
‘Extracurricular’ tells the story of a handful of teenagers who are all struggling with themselves, family and more specifically money.
Ji-Soo, portrayed by Kim Dong-Hee who was also in ‘Itaewon Class’ is a model student, however he’s been living by himself for a while because his mother abandoned him and his father kept losing money either in bad investments or while gambling. To earn a living he starts a protection business for prostitutes, together with Lee Wang-Chul (played by Choi Min-Soo). Ji-Soo solely works remotely, using a phone and a locker in a station to communicate and make exchanges with Wang-Chul.
It works well, until it doesn’t. A girl in Ji-Soo’s class from a very wealthy but toxic family discovers what Ji-Soo has been up to and she wants in. Bae Gyu-Ri, portrayed by Park Joo-Hyun has big plans, maybe too big, especially for something this illegal. She makes a bunch of bad decisions and gets all of them in trouble.
This drama runs only for ten episodes, and I think that was a smart decision. There are a lot of good things about ‘Extracurricular’ but I wouldn’t say it was a perfect drama either. However if you’re looking for an exploration in students’ mental health, money and power struggles, this is definitely a must-watch. The performances were all stellar. There was a bit of buzz around a second season, but so far Netflix has yet to confirm anything.
You can find the trailer for the K-drama ‘Extracurricular’ here.
