Extracurricular || Favorite Character
I had always loved the Mystery genre series and dramas and realized that I hadn’t seen much of that in K-dramas. So I asked around for some suggestions and one particular series which caught my attention was Extracurricular. The main reason why I found it interesting was the storyline and the male lead. I had watched Kim Dong-Hee in Itaewon Class before and had liked him there, so I started this drama with high expectations. This blog is going to give a comprehensive analysis of his character Oh Ji-Soo, both positives and negatives.
Oh Ji-Soo was a model student who always aspired to get the highest grade in school and hence was the teacher’s favorite. He thought studying hard would be enough for him to enter into the top 3 universities. By nature, he was meek and coward and had no friends. Ji-Soo belonged to a messed up family; a mother who left him, a father who was a gambler, so he preferred to live alone and provide for himself.
Oh Ji-Soo never had any friends, but always longed for one, so when Gyuri started taking a genuine interest in his life, he felt genuinely happy. He even considered Mr. Lee as a friend and a well-wisher and hence treated him as his equal in the business.
He worked as an insurance agent for the High-School students (who worked as part-time sex workers) and provided them protection from violent customers. Although it seemed to be an odd job, he did it with utmost honesty, even going to the extent of protecting the workers himself, when needed.
He was an innocent dreamer, who was ready to fight for his future even after going through a lot of difficulties. His dream was to live a decent life, have an ordinary job, and be considered as a part of society. Since his parents were unable to help him, he took charge of his own life and started working towards it.
Ji-Soo was a very strong-headed person and did not get diverted from his goal even when things got tough. He lived a very planned lifestyle and knew how to prioritize things according to his needs.
He was into the business for the sole purpose of earning money, but never did he force anyone to continue when they felt uncomfortable. He respected everyone’s choice and never questioned them.
Oh Ji-Soo realized the risks and dangers in continuing the business and gave up on it, while he still had time. He didn’t let the greed for money overpower his goals and decided to give his dreams another chance.
Ji-Soo was a gullible person, and every time people took advantage of that, be it his father, Gyuri (initial episodes), or the Banana Karaoke gang members. His emotions always got the better of him, and the perfect example of this was the last episode.
Doing a profitable business for more than a year made him a little overconfident. He gradually became careless in keeping his business a secret and almost ended up getting blackmailed by Gyuri and the gangsters.
For me, the most emotional scene of the series was when Min-Hee figured out that Ji-Soo had a direct connection with the Security service and confronted him. The poor boy tried to justify his actions by saying, “I had no bad intentions. I only wanted to go to school, go to college, and live an ordinary life like you guys.” but that was not reason enough.
Again, when Ji-Soo started crying and begging in front of her, I could not stop feeling bad for him, and for me, that whole scene was his best performance. His tears made my heart heavy, and I wanted to jump inside the screen, pat on his back, and reassure him that everything is going to be okay. But in the next scene, his sudden character transition made me spellbound and I was at a loss of words.
This show hit me badly, and I felt many strong emotions while watching each episode. Each of it had me glued to the screen, I got scared, sad, and angry, and even jumped out of my bed in shock during the last episode. Also, the show had only 10 episodes, so it was easy to complete in one go. Kim Dong-Hee has immense potential and has done complete justice to the role, be it the silent nerd who tolerates the bullies or the not-so model student who curses like anything. I will be having high expectations from him now on.
