Extracurricular (Netflix South Korea) S01: B+

This Korean teen drama was released at the end of April but I just discovered on Netflix. Grading and reviewing this series has been the toughest one so far.

Production wise it looks modest, but profesional. They do use the help of some graphics when the characters are exchanging text over the cellphone. But not in a comedic way, like in other series from Korea, that add a little bit of animation to make it more funny.

The script is well done with a story that develops fast, with a nice pase that always has you paying attention, if you distract yourself from it, you might loose important information about the story. In other words, it never gets boring.

The performances are really good. Specially Dong-Hee Kim who plays Oh Jisso, our title character. We really see and understand his suffering, his pain, and we see him come out of that shy shell in which he hides, to the very intelligent person that he is, and being forced to open up, by Gyuri (played by Park Joo-Hyun) she is determined to get to know Jisso and forces her way into his life.

Now with a good production, an interesting story and good performances thats enough to be around the B or even A grades. But here is the catch. The story escalates very quickly.

Jisso is a straight A student, he lives alone and his dream is to graduate high school and to get into college, so that he can live a normal life, like everybody else's. He lives as an orphan, he has a complicated relationship with his father who is basically not in the picture. In order to be able to study and save enough money for college, Jisso works hard offering security and logistic services for a prostitution ring, that includes minors.

Told you that things escalate quickly. Now Jisso is the hero of the story, our main character, or well anti-hero. Although you get his frustration, his needs, and at times you can even justify his actions and downplay the whole prostitution ring, saying things like, well the girls look for the job. He offers them a bodyguard that would take care of them when a client is being difficult. He doesn't make them do anything they don't want to do. The list can go on.

But in every series things don't go according to plan and complications come to Jisso making him take questionable choices that little by little make you question the series. Am I really watching an underage prostitution ring? Am I really rooting for the pimp? Am I really blaming the victim? Am I really ok for a high school student to operate a prostitution ring as a mean to get money for his studies?

And the most important question of them all. Am I really going to give a good grade and a good review to this type of series?

Well the least they could do was putting a warning card at the beginning and end of every episode, reminding you that this is a fictional story, that is not based on real life events. That if you need help seek for the advice of a counselor or adult. This is the way the production or Netflix try and save face with the events that develop in the series.

I would say, this is definitely a rated R series. For people with an open mind. In terms of entertainment, well the series do gets you hooked. It is interesting and some of the twist and turns from the story are not that predictable. If you are a mature person, with an open mind, that likes to watch series from all over the world. Well Extracurricular is a series that I'm sure you would like. If not, I don't think this Korean drama is for you. But in all honesty, yes is a good series. I don't back up most of the decisions of our anti-hero but then again, name dramas were you back up 100% the story and actions of their characters.

This was definitely not 13 Reasons Why.