Drama Review: 'Extracurricular' (2020) — chalice.me

This show is included in the list of nominees for the 57th Baeksang Arts Awards

Korean Title: 인간수업
English Title: Extracurricular
Network: Netflix
Episodes: 10
Genre: Teen Drama, Crime
Language(s): Korean

Cast: Kim Dong Hee (Itaewon Class), Jung Da Bin (My Sassy Girl), Park Ju Hyun (Mouse), Nam Yoon Soo (Beyond Evil)
Directed by: Kim Jin Min (The Liar and His Lover)
Written by: Jin Han Sae

Extracurricular is a 10-episode series about high-school student, Oh Ji Soo (Kim Dong Hee) who is at the top of his class but socially-awkward and has no friends. Since he cannot depend on his father, he lives and makes ends meet on his own, using the limited resources that he has at his disposal.

Outside of school hours, he makes his money through illegal means by running an online prostitution ring comprised of teenage girls. He gets entangled with Bae Gyu Ri (Park Ju Hyun) who finds out about his secret side hustle and eventually wants to be let in on the business for the gains.

Extracurricular is a Netflix Original Series written by Jin Han Sae, directed by Kim Jin Min and produced by Studio329. The show is a nominee under three (3) Baeksang Arts Awards categories in 2021 including:

Best Drama
Best New Actor (Nam Yoon Soo as Kwak Gi Tae)
Best New Actress (Park Ju Hyun as Seo Min Hee)

Story

Oh Ji Soo (Kim Dong Hee) is a high school student who was abandoned by his father and lives on his own. He exists quietly in his high school and doesn’t have many friends. He is at the top of his class and it doesn’t take him a lot of effort to rank well in school. His teacher, Mr. Cho sees him as a high-potential candidate for Korea’s SKY universities (Seoul National University, Korea University and Yonsei University) after graduation - however, Mr. Cho also feels as though Ji Soo has very little ambition to pursue university after high school. Ji Soo is very non-chalant about Mr. Cho’s comments and advice regarding university, but the truth is that given his unfortunate living conditions, university is just not something he can afford so easily.

Unbeknownst to the people around him, Ji Soo actually works as a security service provider for an illegal prostitution ring business and goes under the nickname “Uncle (Samchon in Korean)”. Ji Soo serves as a middle person between the customers and service providers by administering scheduling, transfer of funds to/from accounts and calling for back-up protection for the workers when deals don’t go well.

Seo Min Hee is one of the workers in Ji Soo’s prostitution ring and is also a classmate of his at school - but Min Hee doesn’t know Ji Soo is controlling the business since he uses a voice altering application whenever he communicates as Samchon.

At school, Ji Soo is partnered up with his crush, Bae Gyu Ri (Park Ju Hyun) for a class project and they decide to meet at a coffee shop to work on it during the weekend. As a result, Ji Soo decides to cancel all operations for that same weekend.

However, things start to get messy once Min Hee decides to take a request from a high-risk client during that weekend while knowing fully that the security crew is unavailable. Min Hee ends up in a dangerous situation during her time slot and ends up sending an alert to Ji Soo to rescue her from the client - while he is on his study date with Gyu Ri. So Ji Soo ends up leaving Gyu Ri at the cafe prematurely - instantly sparking her curiosity as to why he had to leave so urgently and this is where Ji Soo’s secret starts to be unraveled by Gyu Ri.

Following that weekend at the cafe, Gyu Ri starts following Ji Soo around at school and harassing him to get to the bottom of his side hustle because she believes there’s a lot of gains in the business. Slowly, the online prostitution ring and its connection to Ji Soo start to come to light and the police also catch wind of it and start tracking them down also.

The Verdict

Overall Rating: 9/10

I am actually retro-actively writing this in-depth review on the blog since the only review I ever posted on this show was on my personal Instagram account around the time the show aired on Netflix.

I thoroughly enjoyed this show because the way its written is not confined within the walls of Korean television broadcasting rules and regulations. The screenplay is very close to something you would see out of a film and I think that added a lot of zest to the show.

I don’t typically like watching shows set in high school (because of how cliche and cringey the story lines are). But since this is a Netflix Original, I figured I’d give it a shot. What I found is the Netflix environment enabled the writers to get out of the stereotypical Korean high school story line, remove the dependency for a love line and talk about important (albeit sensitive) topics involving school bullying, compensated dating, online sex work and numerous other issues faced by young adolescents in this online world we live in.

The story line takes after many of the themes shown in the ‘Parasite’ film by Bong Joon Ho, depicting the extent that human beings will go to uplift themselves from poverty. In the context of teenagers, the internet has enabled everyone to monetize almost every single thing and most of the time, it seems harmless and innocent as long as it makes you a buck or two. Extracurricular goes into talking about the pitfalls of conducting illegal activities such as the ones in the drama - but at the same time, shows how the systems designed to protect everyone don’t work in favour of marginalized groups (which force them to have to make money illegally).