At least one episode in the morning, one at noon and several in the evening, until 1 a.m. Francine, 66 years old, describes herself as “K-drama devourer”, these South Korean television series. At the very beginning of 2020, she subscribed to Netflix to accompany her days as a young retiree. Then the pandemic and its successive confinements arrived. “I watched series from all countries, like Scandinavian thrillers, for example. French series have never been my cup of tea. And then I came across a Korean series by chance…” Difficult to find her title with certainty because the Vendée now has it “watched hundreds and rewatched some three or four times”. Francine has subscribed to two other platforms, including Rakuten Viki (American streaming site specializing in Asian programs). “When I watch these series, it’s very simple, I forget everything… The daily worries, the problems at the town hall…”explains the retiree, who nevertheless has busy days as deputy mayor of a village of 2,500 inhabitants near Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie.
TV series from Japan, China and Korea were, for a time, consumed in Europe by fans of Asian pop culture, through insider channels. Today, thanks to the platforms’ increasingly extensive catalogs, Korean dramas are available to a wider audience and are, with K-pop music and cinema, one of the most vibrant manifestations of South Korean soft power.
It is difficult to obtain figures from the platforms on the number of French people who watch these series or information on the generations to which they belong. “If a lot of people my age are getting into it, it’s also because it takes time to watch episodes which often last an hour”, explains Francine, even if these series have the advantage of generally ending in one season. Overall, viewing of Korean romantic comedies (90% of which are done outside their country of origin) increased more than threefold between 2018 and 2022, Netflix said in World. The American company has also launched into the local production of its own series, like Squid Game (to date the biggest success of the platform). In May 2023, she announced invest 2.5 billion dollars in Korean programs for the next four years.
Get a change of scenery without leaving Essonne
Long before having conquered Europe, recalls Antoine Coppola, filmmaker and teacher-researcher at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, Korean dramas, initially intended for a female and young adult audience, broke through in the countries of East Asia, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, but also Japan. ” In 2002, Winter Sonata was a great success in Japan and the Koreans understood that there was a card to play. This series, for example, traced the model of the South Korean hero Prince Charming” which also cracks up foreign spectators.
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