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Netflix to invest $2.5B in South Korea to make TV shows, movies
- WrtCdEvrydy 3y agoSomeone found a case of "Squid Game"...
- slillibri 3y agoThere are a lot more and better Korean shows on Netflix than Squid Game. Extraordinary Attorney Woo, Inspector Koo, We Are All Dead, My Name (I really loved My Name), The Kingdom...
- ValentineC 3y agoAlso, Hospital Playlist.
- BeetleB 3y agoStranger (first season only). Everyone I know who watched it - including die hard Korean drama fans - loved it. Agree that overall, Squid Game was an "average good" Korean show.
- qkucy 3y agoAbsolutely enjoyed Stranger. Then enjoyed Divorce Attorney Shin which has the same protagonist actor as a completely different role.
- davidkuennen 3y agoNot surprising. I'm from Germany and all my mother watches these days are Korean dramas on Netflix. She tells me that, in contrast to Western productions, they show more feelings and are less "cold" when interacting with each other.
- yamtaddle 3y agoMy wife watches these, especially the historical dramas (which are often some variety of portal fantasy). > She tells me that, in contrast to Western productions, they show more feelings and are less "cold" when interacting with each other. This reads as pretty extreme over-acting, to me. Think, the very most over-the-top acting from '40s and '50s US film musicals. But, how much your actors should be acting and how much they should be ACTING! is a matter of taste, I suppose.
- davidkuennen 3y agoIt certainly is a matter of taste and I agree on the over-acting part.
- stevenwoo 3y agoMy small sampling of Kdramas informs my opinion that most directors instruct villains to overact, with the worst offenders being Japanese favorable characters in historical periods of Japanese occupation of Korean peninsula ala Mr. Sunshine, Bridal Mask where when a character has a heel turn or heel-hero turn and changes acting style immediately.
- tooltalk 3y agosampling bias.
- npsomaratna 3y agoTHERE CAN NEVER BE ENOUGH BRIAN BLESSED!
- seanmcdirmid 3y agoThe historical dramas are typically called costume dramas. I’m kind of burned out on Chinese costume dramas, especially Empress of China after the CCP took out the cleavage. These days I prefer the Japanese indie rom coms when on a trans pacific flight with Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and American options available. They just feel less produced and more authentic than the Korean rom coms (but of course, they are produced to be like that).
- stronglikedan 3y agoThey've already produced a lot of high quality content for Netflix, IMHO, so they deserve it. That and German content make up the large majority of the foreign content that I actually look forward to. Good stuff.
- guardiangod 3y agoI have been watching trailers of new (seasons) of TV shows these past few days. Am I mad for thinking the acting for TV actors are uniformly very bad, even compare to 10 years ago? Or is it that the trailers only show exaggerated scenes?
- edgyquant 3y agoDepends on the show. These Korean shows I definitely agree, they over act and it makes it hard for me to watch them.
- sho_hn 3y agoThere are some Korean shows that don't do that and have more realistic/older characters, e.g. "My Mister" and "Liberation Notes". It's a bit of a niche but there's good work in that area too. Since virtually all Korean dramas are in mini-series format, the right way to do it is to basically wait until the year's awards season, see which dramas of the 200+ the industry produces annually made the cut, then pick the 2-3 you find interesting and watch those.
- imbnwa 3y agoMr Brain on AppleTV+
- criddell 3y agoI’ve been thinking the exact opposite. I recently finished Last of Us and Perry Mason (season 2) and am now in the middle of Beef and I think all three are great.
- HDThoreaun 3y agoYou watching succession? HBO consistently has great acting.
- htag 3y agoI think ~10 years ago was a local maximum of American TV quality, and we've been going downhill into a land of lots of shovelware.
- imbnwa 3y agoIt's been interesting to watch Korea's breakout in film and television since the 00s. My first steps into it then were Oldboy, Oasis, and Mother, all very rich films, and all very distinct from what Hollywood was occupied with, which for whatever reason I'd found unengaging.
- unpopularopp 3y ago[flagged]
- mupuff1234 3y agoNetflix is mostly trash in general, American or not.
- vnchr 3y ago[flagged]
- kelthuzad 3y agoThe moment I read the first sentence I immediately knew it was produced by ChatGPT.
- circuit10 3y agoThings ChatGPT likes to say: “I’m sorry, but as an AI language model created by OpenAI”… “I apologise for the previous confusion.” “While it’s important to X, it’s also important to Y” (in this one) “You are correct. I made an error in my previous response.” “Is there anything else I can assist you with?” Those are some I can think of from memory
- bobobob420 3y ago???? Ive never heard anyone say that. American culture is the goat because its the melting pot of all cultures.
- HDThoreaun 3y agoNetflix loves to pound out utterly formulaic series. They've mainstream documentaries by producing docudramas and convincing everyone they're real stories and their dramas always seem to have the worst actors.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pessimizer 3y agoVaguely related: Disney+ seems to have also gone in on SK reality with shows like "The Zone" and "Pink Lie," etc. I think it's tough to make it work outside of Korea because Westerners aren't used to the style where they're constantly writing commentary on the screen and playing sound effects (afaik originated from Japanese reality but copied by other cultures with block writing.) Most of the Westerners who can stand that sort of thing are already watching it. The Disney+ shows iirc minimize screen writing and sound effects or don't use them at all.
- sho_hn 3y ago> Most of the Westerners who can stand that sort of thing are already watching it. This is a matter of exposure and habituation. I remember 6-7 years ago when I used sticker packs in KakaoTalk and Line, Western friends were baffled by all the silliness. Now they're all the rage on Telegram & co. I remember when Western friends rejected Korean pop music as too artificial and commercial vs. the "more authentic" Western pop. Now Kpop concerts fill stadiums here. I remember when friends rejected "Asian movies" as "bizarre and unrelatable". Now they win Academy Awards. All those forms of entertainment proved a lot more portable than anticipated, over time. That said, sadly the golden era of entertaining Korean reality/variety shows (Running Man et all) is kind of over already, it died with the peak of broadcast TV. The Netflix crop of shows is already far more Westernized and MTV-style. There may not be much worth exporting there.
- pessimizer 3y agoI generally agree with your premises other than Asian movies (especially Japanese) have always been considered amazing and were a major part of supporting arthouse cinema from the 60s on, it's Korean movies that have caught on. Kung Fu Hustle was literally the highest grossing foreign film in the US in 2005. Korean movies caught on not because of some change in Western aesthetics, but because they got better; Park Chan-Wook led the way. I deeply disagree with your conclusion, however. Westerners have had plenty of opportunities to like (e.g.) Running Man since K-Dramas became popular. Plenty do. It's not a new exposure to something different. Any show with subtitles operates at a disadvantage; shows that have constant titles appearing and disappearing on the screen and also have subtitled speech are an extremely tough sell, especially since (e.g.) Running Man is dumb and it's target audience is going to be people looking for a laugh. edit: you could get people used to the stupid noises and canned laughter, but all that stuff is usually used to punctuate the appearance and disappearance of on-screen titles.
- hardwaregeek 3y agoOne thing I've noticed about my watching habits is that I won't put on a super intense, prestige TV show after work usually (maybe if it's Barry, damn, Barry is so good). Instead I'll watch something lighter or more repetitive like House MD or Schitt's Creek. Now k-dramas are not quite old school network television, but they're certainly more of a palatable affair than your average Showtime or HBO show. I wouldn't be surprised if Netflix realized that for every marquee top tier Emmy winning show, there's hundreds of people just turning on something to watch in the background that is familiar but slightly different. Really, this isn't a new discovery. Soaps have existed since before television. But it is interesting how instead of one long-lived show, it's now a multitude of similar but different shows.
- somedangedname 3y agoI dunno, I found season three of Barry to be pretty heavy going. It was still very good TV but it felt like a completely different vibe than the first two seasons.
- jimmyjazz14 3y agoI feel like there is a certain level of cynicism and/or irony in much of western media that is not as present in Asian shows (I think this is a big part of anime's popularity). Strangely while over acting and over dramatization is a mainstay of SK and Japanese shows they somehow they feel more authentic, I think that is because the writers voice feels less edited in many ways. Anyway I hope the growing popularity of foreign shows leads to western media taking time to reassess what people are looking for in shows.
- throwaway1777 3y agoIronically there’s probably more authenticity and realism in the western shows than the fantasy worlds of most kdramas and animes.
- sho_hn 3y agoI think what OP means to some extent is that the Korean media, while often showing "fantasy worlds", also rarely injects this with a pretense of authenticity as Western media nearly constantly does. It's easier to articulate in pop music, where a large chunk of popular pop songs is written, composed and demo-tape'd/vocal-guide'd by the same dozen or so of Scandinavan service companies, for both Western and Korean pop artists equally. But while the Western pop stars may act as if they're the auteurs of "their music" rather than being entertainers who were given a piece of music to sing as part of a carefully crafted product vision, in Korea, this is relatively above-board and neither talent nor consumers pretend otherwise. Don't get me wrong, the Korean pop music industry is terrible in many other ways (as is the pop industry in general), but there's something to be said for content not trying to fool you about what it is.
- prottog 3y ago> also rarely injects this with a pretense of authenticity as Western media nearly constantly does In other words, a show is just a show, instead of the way it is in modern Western media, which is being an instrument of social change first and only incidentally a show. The latter is exhausting.
- ookblah 3y agoI really wish they would invest more into the subtitles. Korean has a myriad of ways to convey something, each with a distinct meaning and often times the translation is just super lazy.
- lofaszvanitt 3y agoPoor SK...
- dandellion 3y agoWell, it was good while it lasted.
- password54321 3y agoThe elephant in the room here is the obsession western TV now has with being woke. It has become quite difficult to not have trendy political points shoved down your throat.
- Lolaccount 3y agoI'd suggest that's the elephant in your room ... Hope you have a good poop-scooper.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- epolanski 3y ago+1, it's unbearable, especially on Disney/Netflix content. But what do you expect? They are editing books from 100 years ago to "bend with the times". Books! As if having an informative introduction or contextualization to the book but leaving it alone would be a worse option.
- teachrdan 3y agoI'm confused. Is Netflix editing books from 100 years ago? Is Disney? It seems like you're conflating two completely unrelated phenomena: 1. Publishers getting tons of free publicity by announcing cosmetic changes to old books, and 2. Netflix investing $2.5 billion in South Korean programming. As for 1 above, the publisher of Roald Dahl's books have released the original AND edited versions of his books, thus creating new content for people to purchase and demand for consumers to rage-buy the old version. https://variety.com/2023/film/news/matilda-roald-dahl-rewritten-rerelease-1235534515/ https://variety.com/2023/film/news/matilda-roald-dahl-rewrit...
- epolanski 3y agoI'm not conflating different phenomena I'm talking about sensitivity readers and the recent wave of editing all books to be more pc.
- Ataraxy 3y agoThere's some really great story telling found in some K and C dramas that you just don't find in western media. Interesting and varied modern story telling in KDramas and fantastic historical story telling in CDramas. There's also quite a bit of it to consume from over the years on alternative platforms like Viki. Sadly most of the "best" can't be found on Netflix so most people just don't have any idea about it.
- Lolaccount 3y agoOh no ... does mean we're going to get loads more substandard Korean content when the content output was just fine? Man, the $ never sleeps ... just let the quality out instead of throwing a tonne of cash at it.
- asciimov 3y agoMy partner will be pleased, as she loves her K-Dramas. But I hope this isn't just repackaged shows from other platforms that we already pay for. I think American producers could learn something from the shows that come out of Asia. My partner really loves the lightheartedness of the shows. That they aren't overtly using sex and violence to sell their product, their stories are less sentimental and samey as what Hallmark makes. The few that I've watched are quite good, I enjoy that they aren't all following a strict formula, aren't trying to be a franchise and the shows don't run on forever.
- diziet 3y agoI most recently watched Extraordinary Attorney Woo and recommended it to many friends. The show was whole hearted and felt like a breath of fresh air. It evolved characters in a positive way and overall was positive and made me smile after most episodes. My girlfriend watches a few shows too, including Single's Inferno. Dating shows aren't my typical genre, but in the few episodes I saw the interactions were modeled to be overall more respectful and positive compared with the US produced shows. A few other folks commented on similar trends. Fictional works don't need to represent every negative aspect of the real world, they are fiction after all.
- asadm 3y agoI have watched a few recently and me and my partner love them. Not only are the shows modest but are light to watch. Compared to US shows, which are loud, over, dramatic, headache-inducing.
- conradfr 3y agoA bit like the difference between the UK and US versions of Kitchen Nightmares.
- abtinf 3y agoHighly recommend Mr. Sunshine on Netflix. IMHO, the best TV show I've ever seen. Full of characters pursuing romantic values ("romantic" here meaning values that earnest individuals should pursue) and understandable conflicts. And unbelievably beautiful to look at too.
- hbarka 3y agoLiberation Notes
- WildGreenLeave 3y agoCurrently watching it and I 100% agree! I also love The Glory, Little Woman, Vincenzo and Itaewon class too.
- carabiner 3y agoI like the detailed food scenes. In Crash Landing, they show the character making pour over coffee and noodles from scratch.
- kylehotchkiss 3y agoI hope they spend some on decent English dubbing. They’ve had some interesting shows but captions aren’t great for background watching and the current dubbing is like 16 year old reading their English essay in front of class
- Teslazar 3y agoFor anyone wondering what this South Korean TV show thing is all about and want to check it out I suggest starting with Alchemy of Souls (8.8/10 on IMDB).
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]