Extracurricular is about a high school student, Oh Jisoo (Kim Donghee) who runs a prostitution ring and the events that unfold when one of his classmates, Bae Gyuri (Park Joohyun) discovers his secret and wants in on it.
I watched this because Jeon Yeobeen's next drama is from the creators of Extracurricular, and Park Joohyun recently won the Baeksang Best New Actress, so I had to find out what the hype was about. And it did not disappoint.
The world building in Extracurricular was great. Set in a high school about students (and some adults) who keep doing amoral deeds and making bad decisions, yet I was hooked. Our main character Jisoo secretly runs the prostitution ring via some fancy technology, but is actually wimpy and quite a coward. Jisoo is fascinating because he is obviously doing bad and criminal deeds which he knows and is therefore deathly afraid that someone will spill the beans, yet claims that he is running a "security service" and in one of the key scenes, kept saying that he did not have any bad intentions. He is a pitiful character with a disadvantaged background, but he repeatedly made bad choices and paid the consequences. I've seen Kim Donghee in quite a few shows now (Sky Castle, Itaewon Class), and he continues to impress.
Our female lead, Bae Gyuri, is a rich brat that everyone will initially hate because her actions kickstarted the trainwreck that happens subsequently. I really liked her character though, because she is SO wily and thus so fun to watch because I can never guess what she will do. Park Joohyun is outstanding and really deserved that award.
Then we have Seo Minhee, one of their classmates who engages in compensated dating and uses the "service". She is played by Jung Dabin, who used to be the child actress in every other show, and I'm so pleasantly surprised by how well she's grown up, and what a good actress she is.
Kwak Kitae rounds up our four leads, who is the school bully and also Minhee's boyfriend. He is mostly used as a plot device, first as the incentive for Minhee to do compensated dating (to make money to buy luxury items for her boyfriend), then going to the Banana Club to wreck the place and finding THAT CAP.
On the adults side, we have Choi Minsoo perfectly casted as Manager Lee who runs the operations. So much gravitas. I was also pleasantly surprised to see Kim Yeojin as the police officer who wants to help Minhee and get to the bottom of things. What a stark contrast from her role as the zumba snake, Prosecutor Choi in Vincenzo. There is also Park Hyuk Kwon as the students' homeroom teacher, and for once, he plays a nice character!
The directing was assured with some really beautiful shots and the action scenes were really filmed. I especially loved the hotel sequence, from the scene of them in the elevator viewed through the CCTV, and the bird-eye-view shots in the hotel room with Jisoo curled up on the floor showing his despondency at the situation.
Extracurricular is a show that I enjoyed much more than I expected to have, and really pushed the boundaries of korean dramas. It is truly only something that could have aired on Netflix in my opinion, because it was REALLY dark, and then it got darker and darker as the story progressed. I'll be happy for a season 2 if there's any, otherwise I'm looking forward to Glitch!