K-Drama Goes Global
In the autumn of 2021, a Netflix shareholder letter described one show as having become the biggest in the company’s history: Squid Game. In four weeks from release, 142 million households watched it, and it reached number one in 94 countries. It was the first time in the history of television that a serial not made in English stood at the top of the world.
The show did not appear from nowhere, though. Its director Hwang Dong-hyuk had been keeping the idea warm for a long time. His answer when asked why it succeeded worldwide is the heaviest thing in this band — “When people asked me why 'Squid Game' was so popular, I often responded that perhaps it's because the world has become as harsh as the world depicted in the show.” That, he said, is why so many people could recognise themselves in it. And three years later he added: three years have passed since then, and he does not think the world has improved.
The foundation was long in the making. After the first wave of the 2000s (→ The First Hallyu Wave), cable channels began putting out work with an author’s stamp on it, and Netflix’s capital and distribution came in on top of that. What makes this band interesting is that none of it was made for export. Work made densely for a domestic audience carried, as it was, to the world. In an era when the wall of subtitles and dubbing had thinned, the strongest work was that written straight about its own country, in its own language.
Japanese streaming dramas (→ Japanese Drama on Streaming) came to choose worldwide simultaneous release because this band made the road first.