Over sixty percent of all Netflix users watched Korean titles in the past year, demonstrating the increasing popularity of K-content worldwide. Netflix will offer a variety of Korean television series, films, and unscripted programs in 2023.
Survival has become a recurring theme in some of the most popular series, whether it’s battling monsters during the dark days of 1945 in Gyeongseong Creature, struggling to breathe in the dystopian future of sci-fi series Black Knight, or defending Joseon during Japanese colonial rule in action drama Song of the Bandits.
This year, highly anticipated programs Sweet Home, D.P., and The Glory will return to delight fans. Part 2 of the vengeance thriller The Glory will premiere in March; Part 1 was the most-watched non-English television program for the week of January 2, with 82.48 million viewing hours.
Netflix has released the trailer for the next season of ‘Kings of Jo’Burg’
Sweet Home, which established new standards for the creature genre in Korea, will return with an expanded setting and story, while D.P. will bring back the first season’s characters to continue pursuing deserters.
Other new series this year include romance (A Time Called You, Behind Your Touch (WT), Crash Course in Romance, Destined With You, Doona!, King the Land, Love to Hate You, See You In My 19th Life), social commentary and intrigue (Bloodhounds, Celebrity, Mask Girl), drama (Daily Dose of Sunshine, Queenmaker, The Good Bad Mother), and apocalyptic (The Good Bad Mother, The Good Place (Goodbye Earth).
This year, Netflix will add six Korean films to its library, beginning on January 20 with the sci-fi thriller JUNG-E, followed by Kill Boksoon, which shows a professional killer with conflicting parental feelings, and Believer 2, a crime action thriller centred around drug gangs. Other films examine vengeance (Ballerina), teacher-student competition (The Match), and hacking (Unlocked).
Those who want to live vicariously will have a dazzling array of reality shows to choose from, ranging from endurance (Physical:100, Siren: Survive the Island) to zombie survival (Zombieverse) to coming of age (Nineteen to Twenty) to mind games (The Devil’s Plan).
Additionally, two new documentaries are forthcoming. Yellow Door: Looking for Director Bong’s Unreleased Short Film (working title) recounts the search for Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-unreleased Ho’s first film, but the true-crime documentary True Crime: Yellow Door focuses on a different crime. In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal examines the self-proclaimed’messiahs’ in the modern history of Korea.
»Netflix is expanding its K-Content offerings in 2023 «