Latin America. Parasite arrived in 2019 and swept the Oscars. Two years later, El juego del calamar (2021) appeared, which has become the most watched series in the history of Netflix and one of the "phenomena that have structured the audiovisual culture in this 2021", said Elena Neira, collaborating professor of the Studies of Information and Communication Sciences of the Open University of Catalonia (UOC).
But it does not end there: the Korean industry has come to stay and gain a foothold in the West with Netflix, which is pushing it. "It's being the global catalyst for the format. I had been building a strategy around content from South Korea for quite some time," says Neira. The interest of the video-on-demand platform in Korean fiction is clear: in 2021 it allocated more than 500 million dollars to productions. Surprising, considering that from 2016 to 2020 it had invested 700 million dollars in total.
Korean fiction, also known as K-drama, is triumphing, but why? For Neira, the lockdown and the pandemic helped, and the quality and surprise of these fictions as well. "During the lockdown, the number of hours spent on home entertainment increased substantially, and the very weariness of the content that the audience was used to prompted them to try new things," he explained. Part of the success of The Squid Game lies, according to the expert, "in that it has been seen by those who were not, in principle, its target audience, seduced by the conversation it had generated, and who have been attracted because the appeal of the series from South Korea transcends the genres themselves and even the audiovisual preferences that one has at the beginning".
The K-dramas benefited very clearly from this interest in something new, but, in addition, they worked because there is a lot of cinematic quality and many media behind. "Regardless of the genre it addresses (romance, comedy, science fiction, horror, drama ...), it is a type of production to which many resources are allocated. The result is very well shot series, with good post-production and an impeccable visual invoice. They also have good plots, dotted with unexpected twists and emotional roller coasters, which allows them to establish a very intense connection with the public, "says the expert. The format, which is almost always single season, finishes rounding off the product. "The story is resolved in a few episodes, giving the viewer a climax and the chance to move on to the next story," he added.
But, for Netflix, getting to this industry hasn't been easy. "In 2016 it entered the South Korean market and met with resistance from the country's main telecommunications operators, which refused to accept collaboration agreements with the platform or rights sales," explains Neira. Somehow, local agents wanted to preserve a very lucrative industry from the streaming giant's tentacles. "So Netflix got content from smaller agents, acquisitions that taught them what it took to know it was a very thriving market. And something even more important: that it was not as niche a product as it might seem a priori, "says the expert.
Will the South Korean industry adapt to the tastes of the West?
"Some changes have already begun to manifest themselves, such as the possibility of stretching the story to a second season," explains Neira, who adds that, in terms of genres, horror and science fiction will be the great beneficiaries. "If the hook for mass consumption in the West was shock and surprise, these two are the genres that can best serve these purposes. Of dramas, comedies and romances, in the West it seems that we are already well served," he concludes.
Analysis published by the Open University of Catalonia, UOC.
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