Is 2023 the year of the K-drama? Netflix seems to think so

Korean television shows, like Korean pop music and movies before it, have become major global hits in recent years. As a result, Netflix has said it's doubling down on its commitment to producing Korean content.

One of the crown jewels in their current Korean programming slate is The Glory. When part one of the K-drama aired last December, it was the biggest show both in Korea and around the world, including Canada. The highly-anticipated second part drops this Friday. 

Bina Lee is a Korean-Canadian pop culture writer based in Toronto. A lifelong K-drama watcher, she explains what makes the genre so addictive, and how the audience for K-dramas has exploded in recent years. 

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow the Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud podcast, on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Let me start by asking about The Glory. Can you just set up the premise of the show here?

Bina: So The Glory, to put it simply, is the ultimate revenge drama. Even if you just look at the trailer, you can tell it's very intense — very emotion-driven. It's basically about a girl who is brutally bullied all throughout high school because she was poor, didn't come from an established background. This is loosely based on a true story of an actual girl who experienced this kind of bullying. And then, this girl vows to spend the rest of her life trying to get revenge on this group of bullies.

Elamin: Just scrolling through Netflix when part one [of The Glory] came out, it was regularly sitting on top of what is the most streamed shows on Netflix. It was obviously such a big hit, both in Korea and internationally. What do you think made it such a big hit?

Bina: I think it's the fact that first of all, they released half the series in one night. So you're bingeing it, right? It's so hard to stop watching after one episode because there's all these intense cliffhangers and the episodes are short — they're like 50 minutes max, and it goes by so fast. You want to know what happens and you want to know if she's going to get revenge. It's so satisfying to see, and so you keep watching it, and then next thing you know, the season's done.  

Elamin: We should say, it's not that it's a violent show altogether, but it's also not not violent. Can we talk a little bit about the violence and the ways that the show uses violence?  

Bina: The first couple of episodes are a little bit squeamish, a little bit uncomfortable.  

Elamin: You're putting it really mildly, but I really appreciate it.

Bina: It's a little bit graphic, only because they're trying to set up the premise. It's a revenge story, and this girl went through a lot getting bullied, so they have to show the extent of how much she was bullied. And a lot of it is physical, and assault, and also sometimes maybe it can be emotionally triggering to some. But they really need to set that up because then it makes that whole revenge scheme and planning so much more satisfying.

Elamin: I guess you don't really want your protagonist to have implied bad things happen to them because it's a little bit hard to fully sympathize with them, whereas when you see it, you also feel the anger and the brokenness that they feel. But boy, oh boy, those first couple of episodes — you see a lot in there, and I think it's more than I was used to from my television, you know what I mean?

Bina: Yeah, it's not a very conventional story and it's not easy to sit with. But again, for the purpose of this girl getting revenge, it was necessary to set the pace and the storyline.

Elamin: It's a relief to be out of the realm of, "let's talk about the origin trauma point of the bullies." Like, no, sometimes some people are bad people and they deserve to get the thing that they're going to get, and this show kind of delivers you that satisfaction — or at least, is claiming to deliver you that kind of satisfaction, right?

Bina: Yeah, and you see them as adults and they haven't changed. They're still bullies, and they're still mean and they're still committing all these crimes. So you're like, "okay, go girl, do what you gotta do. I'm here for it," you know? 

Elamin: I thought I hadn't watched any K-dramas, and then I was told Squid Game is, in fact, a K-drama. I have a feeling I'm not the first person to say this to you.

Bina: Oh, no, for sure not. Squid Game is a whole different level, and it's fair that you didn't know that if you watched a K-drama or not because that's not your conventional  K-drama.  Usually when people think of K-dramas, they think romance, love story, happy ever after, lovey-dovey kind of stuff—

Elamin: Squid Game is not a romance.

Bina: No, Squid Game is the complete opposite of a romance, if there was one. So disturbing, so twisted, so that's why it totally makes sense that you were a little bit like, "oh, is that a K-drama?" Totally understandable.  

Elamin: Thank you, that feels really validating to me. Listen, the fact that Squid Game is on Netflix, that's where The Glory is. Earlier this year, Netflix had this big statement about how 2023 is going to be their biggest year when it comes to Korean content. How big of a deal is this to you that Netflix is angling to be the home of that kind of content?

Bina: Oh, it's huge. It's massive. I'm so happy to be part of this experience in terms of seeing K-dramas grow to this kind of level. In the past years, they would just announce titles here and there; they wouldn't necessarily say, "this is the lineup, this is what you can expect." It was more like, "oh, you know what? We're going to air this next week." As a K-drama watcher, I know what K-dramas are going to come out, but we don't necessarily know which streaming platform they're going to appear on. And so, it's a huge statement [from Netflix]. It's definitely something that I've never seen before, and I'm really excited to see it. I think Netflix is doing K-drama viewing justice. It's going to do well, I feel like.

Elamin: I guess we should contextualize all this by saying you've been watching K-dramas your whole life. How much would you say the popularity of K-dramas has grown during your time consuming them?

Bina: It has exploded. I could not have imagined in my entire life that anyone outside of my Korean community, my group of friends, would be watching Korean dramas. I see this on all social media platforms. I started my Instagram account on K-dramas about seven years ago, and I was the only one doing it. And now I'm seeing videos from South America, people in Europe and all over the world, are just getting onto this K-drama train and trend. … It's evolved, obviously exponentially.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.