For those of us who grew up in the nineties and the early noughties, world cinema was Hollywood’s overly ‘arty’ cousin with subtitles. Then, when UTV World Movies launched a few years later in India, people couldn’t shut up about directors like François Truffaut and Vittorio De Sica. Back then, I’d wonder: Eurocentric cinema is fine, but what do people in Japan or China watch on TV? What shows define the popular end of the spectrum in the rest of Asia?
The streaming era ended that speculation. Over the last few years, major streaming networks like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video have been investing heavily in content from Asia, and smaller players like Dish TV and MX Player are now following suit. Indian audiences have been reciprocating, going beyond the predictable languages (like French and Italian).
The poster of Crash Landing On You
The lockdown has accelerated this trend. With more time on hand, people are bingeing on South Korean, Turkish, Chinese and Thai dramas. Netflix’s 2017 Spanish original series, La Casa de Papel ( Money Heist in English), is the streaming service’s most-watched international series in a non-English language, while Korean one-season dramas such as Healer and Itaewon Class , Turkish soaps Aşk-ı Memnu and Kuzey Güney , and Chinese shows The Untamed and Ashes of Love are popular examples of international offerings.
According to UK-based online market research and data analytics firm YouGov’s 2019 report 55% of Indians now watch foreign language content. ‘YouTube is the biggest platform for foreign content consumption’, it says. In fact, when Thai series Still 2Gether premiered on August 14, India ranked no 9 on producer GMMTV’s worldwide viewership list.
All things K
Hallyu (the Korean wave) isn’t new. For over a decade it has dominated playlists and vanity counters (K-pop, K-beauty — you name it, we’ve had it). In a 2019 interview with The Hindu , film editor Appu N Bhattathiri ( Ottamuri Velicham , Drishyam ) highlighted how the International Film Festival of Kerala helped popularise Korean content. “K-dramas explore narratives that deal with the youth; I don’t think Indian television targets the youth like they do. Besides, access to Netflix, Amazon and so on has... created the urge to explore,” he says.
- Ease of access and attention to period details, in dramas such as Resurrection: Ertuğrul, are driving the popularity of Turkish programming in India. According to Manimugdha Sharma, author of Allahu Akbar: Understanding the Great Mughal in Today’s India, these shows, although technically fiction, display an impressive degree of historical accuracy. “It also has a Muslim hero that’s not stereotypically depicted. I think for Indian audiences such a hero hasn’t been seen since Sanjay Khan played Tipu Sultan in the early ’90s.”
- But Sharma concedes that the length may prove to be daunting for some. On Netflix, Ertuğrul has been curtailed to 45 minutes per episode (down from 120 minutes), which has meant a total of 450-odd episodes!
- Delhi-based journalist Madhuvanthi Srinivasan — who has been watching Turkish TV shows since her university days — recommends The Protector and Atiye. “Thanks to Netflix, you can now watch a very different side of the country,” says the writer, who went on to learn the language, history and politics of the region.
- Over in Mumbai, Shroff knows her Turkish programming thanks to her mother, who has been hooked to them for a few months now. “Going forward, I am open to watching shows in other languages such as Chinese or Japanese,” she says.
Of late, social media, and forums on Reddit and Quora, are driving more people to K-drama. Mumbai-based influencer Scherezade ‘Sherry’ Shroff chanced upon this genre during lockdown, when she couldn’t find anything new and exciting to watch. “Normally I’m not someone who likes to watch shows with subtitles as you have to really focus. But after Crash Landing on You , I was sucked in,” she says. That the “whole world online is into K-drama” surprised her even more. When she shared her opinion on the show on social media — a ‘taboo’ romance between a South Korean fashion heiress and a North Korean secret police captain, starring popular actors Hyun Bin and Son Ye-jin — she received an overwhelming barrage of requests for recommendations. “I don’t think anybody does romance like they [Koreans] do. It may not always be realistic, but when you are watching a romantic show you want that bit of escape,” says Shroff, who recommends It’s Okay to Not Be Okay (no 3 on Netflix a few weeks ago), Descendants of the Sun and Guardian , and is now streaming Something in the Rain .
(left to right) Scherezade ‘Sherry’ Shroff, Vishnuvardhan Kulasekaran and Chinmayi Srepaada
Digital players
While Amazon Prime, a leading player in the category, opted not to comment on this viewing trend, Dish TV, which launched their streaming service/app Watcho last April, says they have noticed and acted on the rising popularity of Korean dramas in India. “Earlier this month, we added a new feature called ‘Korean Drama Active’ on Dish TV and d2h platforms. Users can now watch their favourite shows dubbed in Hindi,” says Sukhpreet Singh, Corporate Head, Marketing. For now, Dish TV has added 300+ hours of K-dramas on their platforms and, if the results are encouraging, they will add more.
Down South, Chennai is a surprising market too. A couple of years ago, journalist-author Krupa Ge, in a newspaper article, noted how popular these shows were among young girls in Tamil Nadu. ‘...They are turning to K-dramas, watching them on streaming sites, exchanging downloaded versions… and making memes about them too,’ she wrote, adding how the launch of Viu streaming, with a focus on Tamil and Korean content, ‘points to the fact that some have already begun to see a business model here’.
- - It’s Okay to Not Be Okay (South Korea): With each episode depicted as a chapter from a fairytale book, it explores sensitive topics such as mental illness and trauma — wrapped in a complex love story beautifully portrayed by actors Kim Soo Hyun and Seo Ye Ji.
- - The Untamed (China): Based on the popular Xianxia novel Mo Dao Zu Shi, the epic fantasy has a queer romance (couched as bromance, thanks to Chinese censorship laws), martial arts, clan rivalry and a demonic flute.
- - Kingdom (South Korea): “One of the best series produced in Asia, it is visually stunning and wonderfully executed, keeping in mind the aesthetics of the period it is set in,” says Aashish Singh, Director - Original Film, Netflix India.
- - Girl From Nowhere (Thailand): A mystery thriller, it follows a transfer student at a new school as she exposes the atrocities on campus, from bullying to faculty misconduct.
Meanwhile, last November, Netflix signed a multi-year content production and distribution agreement with Korean media entertainment company, CJ ENM, and its subsidiary, Studio Dragon — to produce original content and stream existing shows. “This is an exciting time for not only Korean content, but content in any language to be successful anywhere. The language barrier is lowering and more audiences are discovering great stories made by the world,” a Netflix spokesperson told Mint recently, sharing that the platform was doubling down on its investment in such content.
Of culture and connections
But why are Korean — and more recently, Chinese, Thai and Japanese — shows so popular? “A show like Kingdom [Korean] has fantastical elements, like zombies. But the underlying emotional space occupied by Korean, or Japanese and Chinese characters for that matter, is something that resonates with Indians. We are all extremely emotional people!” says filmmaker Vishnuvardhan Kulasekaran, known for Kollywood films like Arrambam and Billa. He particularly enjoys Chinese content. “In the recent past, I’ve enjoyed shows like The Untamed , a fantasy drama [about two magic-wielders battling demonic forces, which made lead actors Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo popular worldwide].” Other favourites include the German speculative fiction series Dark and Israeli action thriller Fauda , which he finds addictive. “All of them have very different settings, but it’s the emotions and the characters that resonate with you,” he says.
A still from Untamed
The characterisation is typically strong (the increased runtime, with 80-90-minute episodes, helps). New Delhi-based journalist Somya Lakhani points out how like with the 2004 film Veer-Zaara , about an Indo-Pak romance, shows like Crash Landing On You have well-rounded characters that defy ‘villainous’ stereotypes. “Even though it is South Korean, not every South Korean character is a hero and not every North Korean character is a villain,” she says, recommending dramas like Mr Sunshine and the historical Reply 1988 on Netflix. These shows are also popular because of the underlying cultural similarities. “Grown-up kids still live with their parents, they [Asians] have the concept of arranged marriages, they don’t wear shoes in the house; there are so many overlaps,” says Shroff.
Subtitles for the win
Interestingly, Asian content is finding more unusual fans: an older generation. Chennai-based food writer Geeta Doctor blames her “new obsession with Turkish soaps on The Janissary Tree ” and wrote in The Hindu last month that “every evening I levitate on Turkish serials... and, depending on my mood, land in Istanbul or Cappadocia, the Anatolian region of central Turkey.”
In Mumbai, Poorvi Bose got her parents into K-drama during the lockdown because “there was nothing to watch on TV and the news was really depressing”. “I started them off with Itaewon Class and my dad was totally into it. Now we watch these shows together,” says the 27-year-old, who recently wrote about her ‘K family’ for an online news portal. “The shows are tightly knit, with most having just one season [of 16-20 episodes], which makes for great binge-watching. They also explore various genres — action, drama, historical, fantasy — and themes like mental health. The fact that they don’t end with a cliffhanger makes them appealing too,” says Bose, who is now checking out storylines of Chinese and Japanese dramas.
The poster of Itaewon Class
Seven months ago at the Golden Globes, Korean director Bong Joon-ho (of Parasite fame) famously said, “Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films”. Well, the lockdown and Indian viewers with an appetite for more have proved him right. So break out those chopsticks and packet of ramen, and check in with grandma in Coimbatore or the uncle in Bareilly who are bingeing on ‘ phoren Asian’ shows.
— With inputs from Surya Praphulla Kumar and Nidhi Adlakha
