Extreme Job

A group of young narcotics detectives led by squad chief Go are dispatched to apprehend a minor drug trafficker, but are unable to catch him before a foot chase breaks out. The group is made up of detectives Jang, Ma, Young-Ho, and Jae-Hoon under Squad Chief Go. They chase the trafficker into traffic, where he is hit by a bus, causing a large car pileup. For the inability to capture the target and causing massive property damage, the team is reprimanded by their superintendent, who blames their reckless behavior on Go's not being promoted to Captain.

After leaving the station for dinner with the organized crime squad, Squad Chief Choi lets Go know that the crime boss Moo-Bae is coming back to South Korea, and his underling Hong is building a gang in preparation. Choi proposes that the two squads cooperate to bring them down, letting narcotics take credit for the capture of Hong, while they get Moo-Bae. Seeing the chance to save their jobs, they accept.

They carry out an undercover surveillance of an international drug gang. Their stakeout location is a chicken restaurant. Things seem to work, but Go is informed that the restaurant will soon go out of business. Go and his colleagues decide to purchase the restaurant, still planning to use it for their undercover operation.

However, a rib marinade they have to improvise for a sticky chicken recipe becomes an instant hit, and their chicken restaurant becomes famous for its food.^[8][9][10]

By the second day since the release of the film, it topped the box office by selling 720,000 tickets.^[16]

On January 25, 2019, just three days after release, Extreme Job surpassed 1 million viewers. It set a record of exceeding 1 million views in the shortest period of time for a January comedy film in Korea. It has also tied with the 2016 film Luck Key as the fastest comedy film to reach 1 million views.^[17]

Soon after, on January 26, 2019, the film reached a total of 2 million moviegoers and broke the record for the fastest comedy film to hit the 2 million mark in just four days. The previous record holders Miracle in Cell No. 7 and Miss Granny took six days to achieve that.^[18]

The film continued becoming a box office hit as it reached the 3.1 million mark in five days at a faster rate than previous films that reached 10 million moviegoers such as Veteran and The Thieves which took six days to achieve the 3 million milestones.^[19] The film also broke the January daily ticket sales record previously held by Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds with 916,652 admissions on January 1, 2018.^[20]

Topping the local box office for nine straight days since its January 23 release, the film surpassed 5 million admissions on February 1, way beyond its 2.3 million tickets break-even point.^[2]

Two weeks after its initial release on February 6, the film finally reached a grand domestic total of 10 million admissions, making it the 23rd film to pass the 10 million mark. It also becomes the second comedy film in six years to reach 10 million moviegoers after Miracle in Cell No. 7.^[21][22]

On February 10, just in 19 days, Extreme Job became the highest-grossing Korean comedy film of all time by reaching 12,835,396 moviegoers setting a new record. The previous record was held by Miracle in Cell No. 7 which drew a total of 12,811,206 moviegoers during its run.^[23]

According to statistics released by the Korean Film Council on February 18, Extreme Job has set a new record for the second-most-watched film in Korea of all time, coming in at 14,536,378. It is now second place behind The Admiral: Roaring Currents which still reigns on top with 17.61 million moviegoers in total. It has also become the highest-grossing film of all time in South Korea (unadjusted).^[24][25]

It was projected to gross around $100–120 million by the end of its theatrical run.^[26]

Extreme Job and Chinese film Lobster Cop (龍蝦刑警, released in June 2018) were developed in the same project called the 'Korean-Chinese story co-development project' that was a cooperation between Chinese and Korean companies, with the same script localized differently in their respective countries.^[45]

In April 2019, it was reported that a Hollywood remake was being worked on, starring Kevin Hart.^[46]