Extreme Job (Blu-ray release 2019-9-4) is a Korean comedy that achieved a huge box office success. A team of five cops start a fried chicken restaurant for an undercover operation to investigate a drug trafficking organization. They act comically stupid, but the chicken restaurant becomes a huge success due to their secret sauce. It also defies the Korean standard of inserting tear-jerking scenes into everything – this alone is commendable.
As the director said he is inspired by 80’s-90’s Hong Kong comedy movies, such as those from Stephen Chow. Part of the reason for the huge success of this movie can be attributed to recreating the essence of the Hong Kong comedies while giving it a refined treatment and integrating Korean culture. This movie even ends with a Hong Kong music. The thing is, even Hong Kong cannot produce the successful Hong Kong comedies for the last two decades, and Stephen Chow himself also fails to make movies that reach the critical success he had before.