Misc. Media Korean Media Invasion

[A Maybe Baker]

I didn't grab a tag for this because it fits all of them. But I've noticed we've been seeing a crazy growth in the amount of Korean Media that's now available worldwide, and it's quite frankly extremely refreshing to see. Not just because it's another culture, and showing that other places (outside of the "western world") can make good media, but also because it's not the same thing being remade over and over again.

I think Netflix had a great strategy to be the pretty much exclusive provider of a lot of Korean movies and shows. And I also find myself watching another k-drama more often than American produced ones (although there was also an American one that took place in Korea that I recently watched thanks to my wife...the show based on the "To all the boys" books).

What are some good ones, movies and shows, you've watched recently?

• Kingdom
  
  • There's also a "prequel" 90 minute episode that was released after season 2 as a kind of separate thing
  • Hopefully season 3 will get made, was shut down for a while with the pandemic
• Physical 100
  
  • It's stupid but amazing
• Black Knight
• Somebody

In terms of movies...if you've seen some of Bong Joon-ho's stuff (Parasite or Snowpiercer for example) and haven't seen his first international success, I'd highly recommend checking out Host. It came out in 2006, and I actually remember watching while I was in college (so probably around 2007 or 2008) and thought it was great. Watched it again recently with my wife, and while the CGI is a bit dated, it was still a great movie.


Give me more recommendations please.

 

[Boots]

The Host was excellent. I haven't seen it in years so not sure about the CGI. Another older Korean film I thoroughly enjoyed was Take Care of My Cat. I credit the IFC channel and college film classes for getting me into foreign films. My cat is even named after a Japanese animation experimental short film.

I got into kdramas in 2008, when my rabbit ear little tube TV caught KBS playing subtitled Boys Over Flowers. One of my favorite kdramas is Coffee Prince. I haven't watched many in recent years, but I noticed several Netflix produced kdramas, and am 3 episodes into Extraordinary Attorney Woo.

 

[A Maybe Baker]

I haven't stated Extraordinary Attorney Woo yet actually, but I've been meaning to.

I think Netflix helped produce Okja as well, that's a real good one to check out.

 

[finlandguy]

I've noticed a huge upsurge in manhwas (Korean mangas). There's a great number of quality ones out there with excellent art and great interesting story and character growth. I for one have started to migrate reading more of them than mangas as they have very large single panels compared to your more normalized page turned into 1-9 different shaped rectangles (and other shapes as mangakas started to become more creative with layouts).

 

[A Maybe Baker]

I've noticed a huge upsurge in manhwas (Korean mangas). There's a great number of quality ones out there with excellent art and great interesting story and character growth. I for one have started to migrate reading more of them than mangas as they have very large single panels compared to your more normalized page turned into 1-9 different shaped rectangles (and other shapes as mangakas started to become more creative with layouts).

I didn't know about this!

It does make sense though. I do know that a Korean animation studio was behind a lot of the Avatar show, so there are clearly very talented visual artists and studios around.


Also I did just start a new series called the Silent Sea. Two episodes in and I'm enjoying it so far. It stars Bae Doona, who apparently is a good sign for the show being quality. It also has the guy who was the recruiter in Squid Game in a main role in it.