While this year, our attention was diverted towards a fairly different subject at a famous awards ceremony, in 2019, it was the movieParasitemaking headlines. The film was the first non-English language film to win the Best Picture category at the Academy Awards ceremony, alongside awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay. By the end of the year, there were few people who hadn’t watchedParasiteand fewer who weren’t blown away by it.
Over the following years, the popularity ofParasitedidn’t turn out to be an anomaly. Instead, it stood out as a landmark on the timeline ofsurging popularity in South Korean media, becoming one of many highly-rated films to come out of the country in the 2010s. It was next to impossible not to have become acquainted with the actors, plot, parodies, or references of the worldwide hitSquid Gamein the past couple of years, let alone the endless step-by-step(-by-step) Korean skincare boom which continues to keep a tight grasp on its demographic to this day. WhereJapanese culture and media had held our gazein the decade gone by, Korea now stands victorious and shows no signs of letting go any time soon.
From Netflix Originals to feature-length films and exciting new K-dramas, here is what to expect from movies and TV coming out of Korea, with a few examples to watch out for.
Money Heist - Korea: Joint Economic Area
Without giving too much away, this upcoming Netflix series is pretty much exactly how it sounds:Money Heistis getting a Korean makeover. With a star-studded cast includingSquid Game’s Park Hae Soo, Jeon Jong-soo, and Yoo Ji-tae, award-winning director Kim Hong-sun takes the wheel for the remake of one of Netflix’s most popular series. In a message published by Netflix India earlier this year, actor Park Hae Soo made an announcement that amassed just over 300,000 views on YouTube, saying, “It is an honor to participate in such a wonderful series, and above all to make Berlin an amazing character.” Let’s hope it’s worth the hype!
The Sound of Magic
For those looking for some drama and magic mixed in with their romance this year, Netflix is looking to releaseThe Sound of Magicin May. The show follows Yoon A-yi (Choi Sung-eun), who is given the ability to speed up time during a period of difficulty in her life. The series sets itself up to give us a new spin on the wishing-your-life-away trope, with some romance dashed in there for good measure.
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For anyone who wants to burst into the summer on a sad note, seeOur Blues. The series follows a family kept afloat by a father who stays behind to work as they move abroad. The series attempts to move away from the well-known one male, one female narrative, looking instead to show the story from the perspective of multiple people.Our Bluesboasts an all-star cast and aims for an empathetic approach towards a difficult but not too uncommon situation for many immigrating families.
My Liberation Notes
Have you ever wished for some change to the mundanity of your hometown life and then immediately missed the way things were the moment something changed?My Liberation Notespictures the experience of four main characters: three siblings (played by Kim Ji Won, Lee Min Ki, and Lee El) who feel growing claustrophobia in their hometown before an outsider (Son Seuk Gu) who comes in to turn everything upside-down. Theseries has premiered on Netflix– catch it while it’s still hot!
Hi.5 (High Five)
Written and directed by Kang Hyeong-cheol, this film follows a group of people who are given superpowers, including the ability to see electromagnetic waves, and super-strength, after receiving organ transplants from a man with psychic powers. They must then defend themselves against a series of ensuing problems, including a group of people out to steal their powers. Starring Yoo Ah-in, Ahn Jae-hong, and Lee Jae-in, the film started production in 2021 and aims for release this year.
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Concrete Utopia
Based on the 2015 webtoon comicYukwaehan Yiwootby Kim Soong-Nyoong, this movie imagines the aftermath of a devastating earthquake in Seoul as a group of survivors attempts to start their lives again in an apartment complex that had remained standing throughout the disaster. Starring actors Lee Byung-Hun, Park Seo-Joon, and Park Bo-Young, the film appears to shine a light on the connection and dispersion caused by large-scale disasters.
Emergency Declaration
Emergency Declarationis one of the most highly anticipated films this year. Having premiered at Cannes Film Festival in July last year, its theatrical release in January 2022 was delayed for covid-19 reasons. The film, directed by Han Jae-Rim, also stars Lee Byung-Hun and Song Kang-Ho (Parasite) and plays out the true-story scenario in which a plane requests an emergency landing on its way to Hawaii. “[…] it has some fantasy elements, but above all, it talks about a pandemic that we’ve all experienced, and so it can be quite sad,” actor Lee Byung-hun described in a red-carpet interview atCannes Film Festival.Emergency Declarationcompleted in late 2020, so let’s hope it makes it to screens soon!
Mother Dearest
If you’re looking for a tearjerker this year,Mother Dearestis likely to tick some boxes for you. The first film by director Yeon Wang-mo is a documentary following the relationship between a son and his mother, who reunite as she nears the end of her life. The two protagonists are followed as they struggle to identify a new relationship with each other past that they had had in the son’s childhood. The movie poster captioned, “I’m over forty, but to my mother, I’m still a three-year-old.”Mother Deareststrikes a reflection of the common struggle to break out of a parent-child relationship in a family, with the underlying threat of death adding a painful sense of urgency to the problem.
Whilerumours remain in anticipation for Joon-ho’s next movie,there’s certainly plenty more to see from South Korea. What you can expect from Korean TV and cinema this year is largely fitted between the brackets of resilience through hardship. Earthquakes, the death of a family member, and the desire to skip the dragging details of a difficult reality are all themes reflective of the pain and collective struggle of the past few years, recovering, if not still fighting, through the aftermath of a devastating pandemic.
