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Extracurricular korean drama review
Completed
Extracurricular
1 people found this review helpful
by hxvi
Jun 17, 2020
10 of 10 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 9.0
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 10.0
Music 9.0
Rewatch Value 6.5
This review may contain spoilers
From the trailer I assumed it would be a typical drama about genius main protagonist who develops an amazing app and together with his friends he is trying to make money from it. It was so much more different from my expectations. The first episode left in shocked and I have binged watched the whole series in about 2 days. This drama follows four high school students and their struggles. Our main protagonist who seems to be a goody-shoe from the beginning turns out to have a complex personality. Despite receiving a large amount of hate due to his acting in Itaewon class when his character turned to be a "villain" Kim Donghee has shown us, that he is a very capable of playing a villain.
Throughout the drama I have loved and hated every character. From the beginning I truly rooted for Oh Jisoo despite the fact that he was actually a "pimp". Through his background I could see where he was coming from and why he chose to be involved in such unethical business. However as I continued watching, I found it more difficult to understand his choices and couldn't of his actions.
Bae Gyuri's struggles come from her parents who hold high expectations therefore they pressure her into being an ideal daughter. Her stress and unwillingness to live is invisible to her parents. She joined hands with Oh Jisoo thinking that she could escape for her life. In my opinion those two are very toxic for each other, but at the same time they both rely on each other to make it through another day.
The remaining two characters who were a couple - Seo Minhee and Kwak Kitae I found the most annoying and least relatable. With Seo Minhee I found her at certain point a pitiful character. Despite being surrounded by her friends and having a boyfriend, she is very lonely. No one actually cares about her. This is why she was so attached to Mr. Lee, because in her mind he was the only one who actually cared about her. However I found it very ridiculous that she sold herself to buy her boyfriend expensive gifts. Her boyfriend was even bigger trash for playing dumb even though he knew about it. I felt very frustrated to see her and her boyfriend being angry at Oh Jisoo after finding out that he was the "pimp". The business was all consensual and it wasn't like he forced her to do anything, so why getting angry. The boyfriend knew about it but he chose to stay silent and enjoy the expensive gifts from his girlfriend. Obviously in the end Jisoo's behavior when Minhee found out was unnecessary and at that point I didn't root for anyone anymore.

The drama is very dark and not suitable for those who are looking for lighthearted school drama with romance. It shows the dark side of the students and their shady businesses. This drama makes it very hard for you to root for a certain character because each character has flaws. A lot of people are expecting a season 2 for Extracurricular, but honestly I don't want it. I am content with such open ending and I don't think it is necessary to have another season. However if there is a second season I will definitely watch it.

ps: I'm deducting one point from the ost because it doesn't have an official release. I love the opening song and I wish the production team would release it.
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