How Netflix made us fall in love with Ok-dramas

[ad_1] What do you get when you take a bunch of ripped, shirtless male Ok-pop idols in boxing gloves and have them spar within the ring till they’re sweating? For Netflix: one other international hit.

The streamer’s Ok-drama Bloodhounds, now in its second season, is at present tearing up its international viewing charts. Season 2 attracted 7.4 million views final week, making it the most-watched non-English TV present worldwide on the service, and the third-most-popular present total.

Bloodhounds is not any exception for Netflix. Final week, three of the ten most-watched non-English-language reveals on the service had been Korean. The week earlier than that, it was 4 out of 10, and the week earlier than that, three. And Netflix’s three most-watched TV present seasons of all time, in any language? All Korean.

These three seasons are seasons 1–3 of Squid Sport. The life-or-death competitors drama broke viewers data when it first debuted in 2021, racking up 1.65 billion viewing hours in its first 4 weeks. “It was most likely the largest present within the historical past of tv,” as Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos claimed in 2022. Since its launch, whole Squid Sport viewing has surpassed 4.5 billion hours.

However right here’s the factor about Squid Sport: Regardless of its unequalled success, it has solely been accountable for a small share of the general viewing of Korean content material on Netflix, with viewers world wide wholeheartedly embracing the nation’s storytelling. From 2023 to 2025, Netflix subscribers have streamed greater than 51 billion hours of Korean motion pictures and TV reveals, in line with Netflix knowledge that I lately analyzed for a brand new particular Lowpass report.

From little pockets of curiosity to a worldwide phenomenon

Netflix’s success with Korean dramas didn’t come out of skinny air, as Sarandos himself acknowledged in 2021. “It’s not like we needed to go in and educate anybody in South Korea how you can make nice content material,” he advised Netflix buyers that 12 months. “It’s an unbelievable marketplace for that. And there’s at all times been curiosity world wide. The Ok-drama market has at all times had little pockets of success far and wide.”

That features the US, the place companies like DramaFever, Viki, and KDrama tried to convey Korean storytelling to Western audiences lengthy earlier than Squid Sport grew to become a breakout success for Netflix. DramaFever executives specifically rapidly realized that there have been untapped audiences for Korean content material in the US. “We [catered] predominantly to Midwestern middle-aged girls, in addition to Latin youngsters,” says DramaFever cofounder Hyun Park.

DramaFever and different area of interest companies specializing in Korean leisure additionally benefited from Hollywood’s blind spots: As the most important studios guess on ever-bigger franchises with large budgets and recognizable stars, Korean reveals and films had been largely ignored. That introduced down licensing prices, and made it doable for these companies to purchase the abroad rights to Korean TV reveals and films at a cut price.

Nevertheless, DramaFever in the end was too early. The service reportedly amassed simply above 400,000 paying subscribers — not sufficient for Warner Bros., which shuttered DramaFever in 2018, simply two years after buying it from Softbank.

One among DramaFever’s challenges was that it tried to construct an viewers for unfamiliar reveals from scratch. Netflix, alternatively, has a built-in viewers, an enormous dubbing operation, and suggestion algorithms that assist viewers worldwide uncover titles they could like — whether or not that’s an action-packed, dystopian present like Squid Sport, a heartwarming drama like Extraordinary Legal professional Woo, or a highschool zombie thriller like All of Us Are Lifeless.

What unites many of those reveals and movies, other than large budgets and modern productions, are the massive, emotionally charged storylines round friendship, love, and loss. On the identical time, Squid Sport takes on late-stage capitalism, a cop present like Stranger explores the impotence of the separation of state powers, and the thriller The Glory seeks accountability for bullying and emotional abuse — all issues that talk to a common need to proper wrongs.

Along with viewers and algorithms, Netflix additionally has deep pockets, and has been prepared to spend closely on issues that work, even when they go counter to conventional Hollywood concepts concerning the significance of Western stars and administrators. Netflix dedicated to investing $500 million into Korean content material in 2021. By 2023, Netflix pledged to spend one other $2.5 billion on Korean motion pictures and TV reveals. Additional investments might come as early as this 12 months.

Will all this success damage Ok-dramas?

Netflix’s Korea technique additionally benefitted from just a few different developments: The covid-19 pandemic not solely supercharged the transition to streaming, but in addition led Hollywood studios to halt the productions of many widespread reveals — and with it, viewers keen to search out one thing new.

All that coincided with a rising curiosity in Ok-beauty and Ok-pop, which contributed to a virtuous cycle: Many Korean pop stars moonlight as actors, and their music turns into fairly actually the inspiration for brand spanking new motion pictures and TV reveals. Working example: KPop Demon Hunters, which is now the most-streamed film of all time on Netflix. And sure, it’s made within the US, however its story is sure to get extra folks concerned about Korean leisure.

The Ok-drama streaming increase has not been with out downsides. Some critics concern that the worldwide success of Korean dramas will lead the nation’s movie business to water down its merchandise, and as an illustration hand over on exploring points round class disparities that a lot of right now’s Ok-dramas contact on. Right here’s how Georgetown College assistant professor Jinaeng Choi put it in an interview final month:

“When the highlight will get this vivid, the manufacturing logic can shift: greater budgets, tighter schedules, larger expectations, extra stakeholders. And when threat begins to look costly, tasks can drift towards what’s already confirmed — acquainted beats, acquainted casting, acquainted pacing. The priority you hear is whether or not you find yourself with a handful of dependable templates, whereas the weirder, sharper, much less algorithm-friendly tales have a more durable time getting made.”

There are additionally issues that the worldwide Ok-drama increase might shift the main focus of Korea’s leisure business towards worldwide audiences to make up for a struggling native market. South Korean field workplace gross sales fell 16 p.c via the primary 11 months of 2025. And whereas theaters have rebounded from the pandemic in lots of European markets, and reached 80 p.c of their 2019 totals within the US final 12 months, Korean ticket gross sales are nonetheless round half of what they had been earlier than the pandemic.

Park believes that one of many points plaguing the nation’s movie and TV business is its short-term considering that forestalls them from constructing lasting franchises. “Korean firms have been unhealthy at preserving IP and retaining IP,” he says. “We give our IP to whoever pays for it, do one season of our story, and transfer on to the subsequent one. I feel that has destroyed our market.” As an alternative of constructing long-term franchises, Korean studios have historically handled reveals as short-term tasks, and offered all rights to native broadcasters. Streamers like Netflix, which likes to amass international rights for its tasks, might make this development even worse, he worries.

However there’s a caveat. “My disclaimer is: Because of Netflix, Korean content material is right here,” Park says.

This goes each methods: Because of the success it has seen with Korean content material, Netflix additionally feels emboldened to take a position extra in different markets that haven’t historically been seen as promising searching grounds for international TV hits. The corporate is now producing originals in 50 nations and making important investments in markets like Japan and India.

Or, as Sarandos put it, talking concerning the success of Squid Sport in 2021: “It’s proving that nice storytelling from anyplace on the planet can entertain the world.”

For extra knowledge and insights on Netflix’s success with Korean dramas, try my free report: The Ok-Flix Phenomenon.

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