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AudienceofOne
The Korean highschool Breaking Bad you didn’t think was possible and never knew you needed
When Extracurricular starts, it's hard to work out what you're watching. A highschool kdrama? A gritty American teen soap? Some weird amalgam of both?
Weirdly, it works in the same way that Parasite worked. And it's the success of Parasite combined with the distribution power of Netflix that probably sparked the production of a show that is basically Breaking Bad but with highschool student pimps set in Korea. These are words I never thought I'd write.
Anyway, everything about this production is good. The acting, the music, the cinematography. The script is fast-paced and disturbing and violent and full of expletives and if you're like me you won't be able to stop watching. Show is pure crack. And as an indictment of the destructiveness of capitalism, it's brutal in the same way that Parasite was brutal. And brutal in a way that few Korean dramas have had the courage to be until now.
Kim Dong-hee is mesmerising as the quiet, repressed straight-A student, Oh Ji-soo, who runs an online security service for prostitutes from his phone to pay for his tuition. Park Joo-hyun proves that her recent role in A Piece of Your Mind barely scraped the surface of her talent. Her Bae Gyu-ri is a complex but nonetheless entitled bored rich kid itching for some self-destructive behaviour to make herself feel alive. She discovers Ji-soo's secret and the world unravels from there.
Extracurricular never allows the viewer a moment for complacency but it does tease optimism frequently. Despite the borderline-sociopathic nature of our two leads, the actors give them both a perfect air of lost adolescence that makes us want to see them succeed. One is impoverished, neglected, and isolated. The other wealthy, over-parented, and popular. And yet they are somehow the same. And that sameness comes probably from the way that society has failed them.
Extracurricular is an addictive drama born from a marriage between a culture that brought us Makjang and a dramatic heritage that includes Breaking Bad. It's a narrative child that works somehow, even when it shouldn't.
With a lot of swearing, violence, adult themes and references to things like sex trafficking of minors, it won't be for everybody. But for this viewer it worked. Can't wait for the inevitable Season 2.
Weirdly, it works in the same way that Parasite worked. And it's the success of Parasite combined with the distribution power of Netflix that probably sparked the production of a show that is basically Breaking Bad but with highschool student pimps set in Korea. These are words I never thought I'd write.
Anyway, everything about this production is good. The acting, the music, the cinematography. The script is fast-paced and disturbing and violent and full of expletives and if you're like me you won't be able to stop watching. Show is pure crack. And as an indictment of the destructiveness of capitalism, it's brutal in the same way that Parasite was brutal. And brutal in a way that few Korean dramas have had the courage to be until now.
Kim Dong-hee is mesmerising as the quiet, repressed straight-A student, Oh Ji-soo, who runs an online security service for prostitutes from his phone to pay for his tuition. Park Joo-hyun proves that her recent role in A Piece of Your Mind barely scraped the surface of her talent. Her Bae Gyu-ri is a complex but nonetheless entitled bored rich kid itching for some self-destructive behaviour to make herself feel alive. She discovers Ji-soo's secret and the world unravels from there.
Extracurricular never allows the viewer a moment for complacency but it does tease optimism frequently. Despite the borderline-sociopathic nature of our two leads, the actors give them both a perfect air of lost adolescence that makes us want to see them succeed. One is impoverished, neglected, and isolated. The other wealthy, over-parented, and popular. And yet they are somehow the same. And that sameness comes probably from the way that society has failed them.
Extracurricular is an addictive drama born from a marriage between a culture that brought us Makjang and a dramatic heritage that includes Breaking Bad. It's a narrative child that works somehow, even when it shouldn't.
With a lot of swearing, violence, adult themes and references to things like sex trafficking of minors, it won't be for everybody. But for this viewer it worked. Can't wait for the inevitable Season 2.
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