In the 1990s South Korea was one of the “Four Asian Tigers,” economies whose rapid industrialisation and sustained economic growth served as a model for developing countries around the world.
Since then, South Korea has become a country that’s experiencing vast inequality between rich and poor and trapping its new generation of skilled workers in a cycle of debt that makes it difficult for the country’s middle class to sustain itself.
This darker side of the Korean economic miracle has provided the thematic impetus for a new generation of the country’s film and television creatives to explore in genre-bending and imaginative ways. The Korean film sector has enjoyed a string of recent successes and is leading the way as an example of how developing countries’ film-production sectors can achieve international popular success and critical acclaim.
From director Bong Joon-ho’s 2019 Oscar smash hit Parasite to last year’s runaway success of Hwang Dong-hyuk’s Squid Game on Netflix, Yeon Sang-ho’s Hellbound and the dystopian sci-fi series Silent Sea directed by Choi Hang-yong, the “k-wave” is sweeping the globe, moving Korean content from being solidly popular in the Southeast Asian market and a niche audience to a global success for its creators and stars.
Squid Game, which took its creator more than a decade to secure funding for, broke records for the streaming giant, becoming the most viewed show in 94 countries with 95% of its audience coming from outside South Korea. According to Don Kang, Netflix vice-president of content for Korea, viewer figures for Korean content have increased sixfold over the past two years.
Kang says that his division was “very, very pleasantly surprised by the level of success that Squid Game had [and not just by] the fact that it was so loved worldwide but that it really proves our hypothesis that great content can come from anywhere and be loved everywhere, so it’s just one of my proudest moments in my professional career.”
While Kang would love for this year to see another smash Korean crossover success on the level of Squid Game, the list of 25 titles that have been announced for release on Netflix this year is made up of programmes and films developed over the past two years. The slate of titles is in line with the division’s practice of setting out its plans, “very ambitiously on the basis that Korean content will work in Korea as well as globally. So there’s no immediate strategy change but it just gives me and everyone at Netflix enormous confidence in Korean content”, he says.
Kang believes that it’s also a distinct advantage for Korean content that the platform, “is not recommending Korean content like ‘oh here’s a special menu for Korean content’. What we’re doing is that we’re putting these titles up next to great Hollywood films and great films and series from Europe according to the taste of the audiences. We’re not doing it by some artificial categories that we make up”.
The strategy is certainly working so far, with many international fans of popular series such as Squid Game and Hellbound finding their way to the host of other Korean content available on Netflix and Korean audiences turning to the platform as their main source of content.
“By the end of last year we now have 5-million customers in Korea, which is an impressive number I think,” Kang says. “It’s a wholistic approach — you have great content, great marketing and great service but yes a strong slate that people are finding attractive and we hope to continue to provide that value to our customers and content plays a key role in that.”
Of the titles that he’s just announced for release this year, Kang is most enthusiastic about the next Korean Netflix original that lands on January 28, All of Us are Dead, “a zombie show that takes place in the confines of a high school. There are many zombie shows out there but this is a different type of zombie show and it has a unique tone to it.”
He’s also excited about the drama Juvenile Justice, which explores the flaws of the juvenile justice system in the country and deals with what “could be an uncomfortable issue but it’s something that society is ready to talk about and it’s so well made that I think it’s going to resonate very well with the mass audience in Korea.”
He’s also keen for the Korean take on the Netflix global breakout Spanish heist thriller series Money Heist titled Money Heist Korea: Joint Economic Area.
Kang acknowledges that Korean content and films in particular have enjoyed cult success around the world for more than two decades but he believes that, “although there was great Korean content that existed before Netflix, it was just not getting exposed outside Korea. So I think that’s where we really helped Korean content and there’s now a synergy between Netflix and the Korean creative community. We invest a lot of effort, time and financial investment into trying to bring the authentic Korean vision to cultures and countries outside Korea.”
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