K-dramas. the new South Korean wave that’s taking the world by storm

Hallyu is an increasingly popular term (translated as “Korean Wave”) to describe the growing worldwide success of the South Korean pop culture and entertainment industry, including music, movies, and soap operas. South Korean culture has really grown over the past few years. Although the country has had great filmmakers like Kim Ki-duk for centuries, it is A parasiteby director Bong Joon Ho, who created mass appeal with his films.

Focusing on wealth and social inequality, Parasite marked an era by becoming the first non-English-language feature film to win the 2020 Oscar for Best Picture. Bong Joon Ho, who also won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2019, promises: a new feat with his next effort, titled Mickey 17 – The Story of a Simple Man Who Will Save the World, he announced while describing his film, which is slated for release on January 29, 2025. Other people followed him. brilliant filmmakers like Kim Ji-woon (Shooting in Seoul) and director Celine Song, whose debut film Past Lives, nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay at the 2024 Academy Awards, elegantly reimagines the man’s path. and a woman bound since childhood.

Aesthetic and poetic view

Through a wide range of films, the South Korean “new wave” offers a look that is simultaneously aesthetic (Walk upby Hong Sang Su, in theaters), poetic (Burningby Lee Chang-dong) or engaged as Hopeless, directed by Kim Chang Hoon (in theaters). As one of the local stars, actress Yoon Bo-ram, says. “Before the universalist themes of Korean society” explain the success of these films abroad. With this in mind, much anticipated A concrete utopiaUm Tae-hwa is a bitter satire of his country’s recent real estate bubble and is part of this trend of films focusing on social atavism. The main role is played by Lee Byung Hun, who was also seen in the series Squid Game.

A scathing critique of capitalism, Squid Game, starring actress Ho-Yeon, was the most-watched series in Netflix history, with 1.65 billion hours watched in its first twenty-eight days. A true social phenomenon, it will be the subject of a second season, expected at the beginning of the next school year. In the same vein of addictive K-drama, the platform will introduce the series The 8 Show:May 17: Based on the South Korean reality show Money Game, the plot follows eight financially challenged people trapped in a building for a hundred days as they try to earn money by participating in a survival competition.

The nonsense of society

K-dramas are on the rise, with Netflix spending to top $2.5 billion in 2023. What makes these series successful is their Korean identity first and foremost, mixing often acid violence with a desire to highlight the absurdity of society. Written by local authors, these works are anchored in a vision of fiction specific to their country. So, beneath the playful exterior, the series An atypical family deals with the modern scourge of smartphone addiction that has escalated in South Korea. Pyramid Game (at Paramount+) depicts the lives of students involved in bullying “games” at their school that become increasingly toxic and dangerous.