Extracurricular (2020)

It was only 10 episodes

WOW. I watched it because it has 10 episodes but i wasn't expecting this story.
•It's one of my most favorite dramas.
•I didn't have any expectations for this drama but then 🤯 i was like 'OMG WHAT I AM WATCHING'
•When i finish it , i realized how special and addicted it was.
•Personally it was so good the acting.
•Especially one character of the main protagonist i wanted to punch their faces every time when i saw them:)
•I loved ost.
•Its not a typical action plot.
•The production was very good.
But :
•I don't know if i liked/or not the character who play the girl protagonist. I was confused by her action .

Anyway,
Well done 👏

Leia Mais

REVIEW

For me one of the best dramas i have watched. A well-crafted scénario. The topics are very interesting. I think it kinda shows many bad and immoral sides of humans. because the purpose behind the show and the characters as well is definitely not to paint virtuous people that we will appreciate. I really liked how the series was constructed and the direction that the story has taken bc for me the ending was unexcpected and i really wanted to see how this whole thing will end. Im glad that they didn’t make a simple and boring end. (but i still need a season two !) The acting was also perfect and the characters were well developed. And i think every scenes were important, i would definitely be able to rewatch it a second time.

Leia Mais

stroryline

Don't get me wrong, this show was mediocre. The storyline was great but what I disliked the most was how dumb they made the male lead be. Oji made me so so mad, with the way he followed Minhee around and the way he sometimes had to make a dumb decision only for Gyuri to save him.
I get that he was going through things and all but his mindset made me so angry, they made him seem like a push over and he was just so submissive sometimes which also annoyed me.

I loved how the drama was not too centered on high school romance but the ways and means people strive for survival.
From Gyuri's pov, it was made clear that no matter how much money you have, there's always a need to have that inner joy hence the consequences of her actions. I really liked Gyuri's character throughout the drama, she was stubborn, yes but she was headstrong and smart and could think on her own compared to Oji.

Minhee Seo really did well portraying her character but I'm sorry her character was also dumb. She always did the opposite of what she was told so I wasn't really angry as to what happened to her in the end. If she had really listened to Mr. Lee, I guess she would have been okay to the very end.

Leia Mais

The darkest teen k-drama that I've ever watched

To be honest, I had interest to watch this series because of Kim Dong Hee. After I watched his performance at SKY Castle and Itaewon Class, I think I should appreciate more about his work. Therefore, I decided to watch Extracurricular.

In my opinion, Extracurricular is the darkest teen k-drama that I've ever watched. I never thought that the crime that involved the main character is about underage prostitution.

From the first episode, I was a little bit shocked because of the topic of this drama is very dark. I am aware that some student could involved in some crime to pay their tuition fee. But, I never thought about the underage prostitution. I believe that this topic is very sensitive, especially at Korea itself. So, it's very interesting to know more about this drama.

Well, to be fair, it's not only about the underage prostitution that has been unveiled through this drama. You can also see about the bullying issue at school. Even though we always try to against bullying, in the real world, those act still happening.

More review could be read through this link: https://www.theredglowofthedawn.com/2020/08/k-drama-review-extracurricular-2020.html

Leia Mais

The show would’ve really benefited from being at least 2 eps longer.

I literally hate everyone in this show (apart from 2 people).

Jisoo was stupid(ly weak) and a sex trafficker, so minus points for that.
Baegyul was stupid(ly ambitious) and an aspiring sex trafficker, so minus points for that.
Mr Lee assisted in sex trafficking but went out with a final bang — still minus points, though.
Kwak Kitae would definitely be an incel irl, so his minus points are so large, they’re touching the floor of hell.
Jisoo’s dad is a pathetic wasteman.
Justice for Minhee.
That home room teacher didn’t deserve all this trouble.

I don’t think I’ll ever watch this show.

Leia Mais

Great drama.

I dont bother to read comments as everyone to their own. I enjoyed the drama as it wasn't cheesy. No giggly girls in it and it was a dark series which I like. The main cast were excellent portraying their parts.
There was enough gore to set it apart from
the ordinary crime storyline.. In fact all in all a great watch... I have only just watched it in 2023 so there was no second series which was a pity. This is what I hate about asian dramas there are no follow up series even if it ends with an open ending. We want finales and endings that satisfys the viewers..

Leia Mais

The High School for Villains.

This is a 10 episode ride of total insanity, where I witnessed some of the most innocent and meanest students choose the worst decisions in the world in an attempt to overturn their immediate future.
What I liked about this? The characters. I admit, I hated almost every single one during the first three episodes, but slowly began to get accustomed to their ways. Every single one of the students at the school are abhorrent in their own unique manner and I would love to meet their parents.

Oh Ji Soo aka Oji, a paradigm outstanding student has a secret: he is abandoned by both his parents. And to make ends meet, he designs a service... which provides "compensated dating" with a catch -- the clients receive exclusive security if things take a dark turn. However, his secret is discovered by his classmate, Baek Gyuri, destroying his careful routine.

Now, let me start off by telling that I had absolutely no idea what was happening in the first two episodes. I just knew that some really shady business had to be going on based on the users' comments that I had read a long time ago.
But, this might be where the drama's strength lies: it's ambiguity.
Ji Soo might either be the worst or the best character based on how you view him. How is he good?
** He accepts clients who sign up and give them protection along with a blacklist of people who are potentially dangerous. He never forces anything upon them if they are hesitant.
How is he bad?
** He is a pimp. Plain and simple. But, he was also, one of the most careless characters I have seen to date. Dude, if you are doing underworld activities, at least be good at it!
I understood his desperation and urgency. Viewing the world through his eyes, he is doing what he could to survive. Except that resorting to crime is not exactly what I would call the best avenue.
Kim Ji Hoon delivered an absolutely strong performance. I couldn't help feeling bad for him at times.

Baek Gyuri... the infamous female lead as someone mentioned in the comments. She has to be one of the most entitled "brats" I have seen onscreen. Why do I say so? Because purposefully messing up with someone's personal life is heinous. I hear the word being "human" and "real" being mentioned. I accept that statement to an extent, but there is a stark difference between being plain bad and committing something bad in a spur of the moment.
She is one of the well written characters. Out of every single one of them, it was she who was the most calculative and manipulative. But, the little cracks that we see through her brave girl façade couldn't convince me 'why' she had to seek out to be a part of this dangerous job. In the end, I felt that she was deceiving herself to maintain her sanity. The manner in which she handled issues was almost flawless and I liked the strange relationship between her and Oji.

The supporting characters, including Minhee and Kitae, were plain horrible. I grew to like Minhee by the end, once she had actually stopped snapping all the time. I adored her friendship with Mr. Lee Wang Chul (He was my favorite character.) It was one of those moments in this series where I felt that genuine care and affection existed. All the remaining relationships portrayed where plain unhealthy or ambiguous.

I couldn't find a single student in the school who was likeable. At least, whoever had screentime anyway. Is it possible that the whole school was full of bullies and gossip mongers? Why were there no genuine friendships? In the end, it was the home-room teacher, the police woman and the dean who has to deal with all this mess.
The soundtrack was awesome. I loved the main theme "Speak for Yourself".

I do not know how much of the events depicted in this is possible in real life. But, an elder sister I knew did tell me about a thing like this in college where students solicited for money-- often leading to awkward and unpleasant encounters when they encounter their own kind.

I would suggest this to anyone looking for some thrill -- it was slightly dragging and slow upto episode 5, then managed to hold my interest during the last few episodes. Unfortunately, I had high hopes for this one, but I found it a tad bit predictable, considering that the characters kept digging holes the size of Mariana Trench every other episode. The ending was quite fitting, personally. A second season might ruin the effect of the first, which I felt, wrapped up quite nicely.

Leia Mais

Never finished a K-Drama faster.

I came upon this drama because it was lost somewhere in my Netflix recommendations so I added it to my list, and it kinda rusted there for a few months until I stumbled upon it again.

The first half of the first episode was kinda confusing and I couldn't really wrap around my head what the story was exactly, but the story still drew me in immediately. The story kept getting better and better as episodes went by and I honestly wanted more to watch.

The cast was perfect, the characters were perfect, I loved them all equally. The actors nailed the acting and the characters. The characters all had their own backstory and own place in the drama even if they didn't have as much screentime as the other. They brought out the most of every character.

I'm not a person to rewatch series, but for this one I just might someday.

Leia Mais

My dreams are expensive - Oh Ji Soo

This was an amazing drama, I binged it over 2 nights and at only 10 episodes which are not even 1 hour long it was easy to do. I recommend it if you like crime shows & Stranger Things (not that I've seen it). This is also by Netflix and like most Netflix crime shows it's not for kids despite being set in a high school. So it's great but it's not for the fainthearted. The first 2 episodes were (in my opinion) the most suspenseful because I was not expecting that but there were a few later scenes that were definitely not for kids either. As a benchmark for age limits I would compare it to the movie Parasite.

I started watching this because although the trailer looked interesting (I love school dramas) it also looked too dark and like it would have 0 romance. But someone online called it underrated and I saw a picture with the female other main character (ie. maybe not 0% romance) so I thought I'd give it a chance. I'm glad I did, I'm tossing up whether to put this at the top of my favourite crime dramas or not. The best parts were the characters and there was no wasted time. It was neither as intense and suspenseful as Memorist nor did it drag on a bit like Signal. It was a great crime drama with a lot of commentary. Crime kdramas always have their commentary but this one has that added spin because the main characters are just kids and how much can you punish a kid? How much does a kid deserve punishment compared to the definite punishment an adult should have? Are the crimes kids commit a factor of circumstance or are they bad kids?

This was a hard watch because I loved Oh Ji Soo and it's impossible not to sympathise with him and root for him but at the same time I'm not someone who can root for anyone who commits crimes, even petty theft. I sympathise too much with the victim. This was not a drama about something as small as petty theft.

I also really loved Bae Gyu ri and her entire set up and characterisation. In saying that I'm sure us as the audience aren't meant to be rooting for her completely, she has her flaws as well as her redeemable qualities. Which has it's own pros and cons. She's a realistically imperfect character. But regardless I love this transition into strong female leads the Kdrama world is having.

Kwak Ki Tae was a surprise, he's another character I usually wouldn't be into but I liked him more and more as the episodes went by. Nam Yoon Soo's dimples and cheeky grin were a big factor I'm sure. Surprisingly I also really liked the teacher character. He could've played a bigger role.

All the actors were on point. I'm surprised at how new and young they are. They are amazing. I didn't watch much of Itaewon Class so I don't remember Kim Dong Hee but I just finished A Piece of Your Mind and Park Joo Hyun is not like your typical Korean actress, her voice is so distinctive, I recognised her by her voice straight away. I'm looking forward to all their future works.

I'm contemplating if I would want a season 2 or not. I want more but I also think it was a good ending. The best combination between the commentary & wanting to root for the characters.

Quote:
You two only know how to hold it all in and bear it alone. - Jo Jin Woo

Leia Mais