Shenba, the main character in Netflix movie “Made in Korea,” is lost in thought at Cheonggye Stream in Seoul, where she begins to plan a new life. The film, which follows a young foreigner rebuilding her life in the Korean capital, topped weekly viewership charts last month in India as well as Morocco and Venezuela after its release. Captured from Netflix
“Made in Korea,” the Indian comedy-drama film which topped Netflix’s global non-English chart for two weeks, is set against the backdrop of Seoul.
One of its central episodes unfolds at Cheonggye Stream, where Shenba, played by Priyanka Mohan, encounters an elderly Korean woman and unburdens herself of the worries weighing on her mind. She was swindled by her boyfriend and had been working as a caregaver since moving to Korea.
The encounter eventually leads to the two opening a restaurant together. The young foreigner begins to piece her life back together, in Seoul, far from home.
For Korean audiences watching the film, one obvious question follows: Why in Cheonggye Stream though?
Shenba, the protagonist of Netflix film “Made in Korea,” speaks to an elderly woman she met at Cheonggye Stream in Seoul and talks about her plans for a new life. Captured from Netflix
“Cheonggyecheon is a place of restoration. Waterways that once vanished have returned. It reflects what our main character is going through — overcoming past wounds and beginning to piece her life back together,” director Ra Karthik told the Hankookilbo in a written interview.
“Cheonggyecheon is where that history becomes intertwined with Shenba’s story.”
Still, it is unfamiliar for Koreans to see a foreign director finding inspiration in an urban space in Seoul and use it to shape the protagonist’s arc. Barely a decade ago, Seoul was little more than a backdrop in foreign movies, for instance, when it was featured in an “Avengers” movie.
Since then, however, the city has undergone a dramatic turnaround, asserting its presence in global content. “Made in Korea,” a film entirely finance abroad, reflects that change in how Seoul is portrayed.
BTS performs a comeback performance at Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul on March 21 to mark the release of its fifth album, “ARIRANG.” The nighttime view of Gwanghwamun was livestreamed worldwide that day via Netflix. Joint Press Corps.
Evolution of Hallyu
The Korean wave, or hallyu, further energized by the global Netflix livestream of BTS’ comeback show in Gwanghwamun, is entering a new phase. More overseas productions are beginning to build content around Korea’s unique atmosphere, weaving its spatial identity directly into storytelling.
Over the past three months, a series of new works from the United States, Brazil and India have been released, each using Seoul as a key element in the story.
“XO, Kitty,” an American Netflix drama whose third season premiered on April 2, follows Kitty as she moves to Korea to attend high school, while Netflix’s Brazilian dating reality show “My Korean Boyfriend” features Brazilian women traveling to Korea to meet the Korean men they have connected with online.
All of these works place Seoul at the heart of their storytelling. This marks a vivid contrast with an earlier era, when Korean romance films and dramas looked abroad for emotional symbolism — turning to Paris, as in “Lovers in Paris,” to conjure romance, or to Los Angeles, as in “Deep Blue Night,” to evoke the American dream. Today, hallyu contents are marked by foreigners coming to Seoul to grow, take chances and find love.
Kitty, the female lead in Netflix’s US drama series “XO, Kitty,” shares a kiss with her boyfriend during a date in Bukchon, Seoul. Having come to Korea alone from the United States, Kitty attends a high school in Seoul. Courtesy of Netflix
The change is intertwined with the evolution of hallyu itself. Hallyu 1.0 began as a phenomenon driven by a small number of star entertainers. On the back of that fervor, hallyu 2.0 emerged through works that explored Korea’s painful modern history, from colonial rule to division, while offering a sense of comfort and recognition to immigrant audiences worldwide, as exemplified by “Minari” and “Pachinko.”
Now, a new scene is taking shape in the era of hallyu 3.0: Overseas producers are drawing attention to the distinct spatial character of contemporary Korea and building content around the experiences of foreigners within those spaces, before sending it out to global audiences.
Seoul over New York, Tyoko
Three factors help explain this hallyu shift. First, the global success of Korean content led by “Squid Game” fueled growing curiosity about what Korea really looks like and what everyday life there is like. For producers and directors, there is another draw: Seoul has emerged as an ideal setting for global content, offering a fresh alternative to overused cities like New York while remaining more familiar to viewers than Tokyo.
The director of “Made in Korea” said he had witnessed the growing influence of Korean culture in India over the past decade.
“In my hometown of Chennai, there are more than 20 Korean restaurants, and my wife makes kimchi at home,” he said. “That sense of emotional familiarity made me think that placing the main character’s growth arc in Seoul would resonate with viewers more sincerely than setting it in New York or Tokyo.”
Grace Kao, a sociology professor at Yale University, said she came to Korea last month to attend BTS’ comeback concert in Gwanghwamun.
“New York feels overly familiar, and while Tokyo still comes across to Western audiences as exotic, it does not generate the same degree of cultural empathy or emotional resonance that Seoul increasingly does.”
She said that with the overall global popularity of animated film “KPop Demon Hunters,” K-pop and K-dramas, Korea is now everywhere, with Seoul’s dynamic urban image prompting creators around the world to craft new stories centered in the capital and use it as a content hub.
Actor Song Kang-ho at a golf course in Korea for Season 2 of Netflix’s US drama “Beef,” released on Thursday. Unlike Season 1, the second season unfolds in Korea. Courtesy of Netflix
Seoul’s growing visibility in overseas content is no mirage. According to Seoul city government data, 28 overseas productions were filmed in the city last year, including Season 2 of Netflix’s “Beef,” marking a 64.7 percent increase from 17 productions a decade earlier.
‘The US is no longer the go-to place’
Some observers see a third factor behind hallyu’s evolution in the changing global political landscape: The United States, which long held cultural hegemony in popular culture, is losing favorability around the world, while Korea is emerging as a major beneficiary.
A screenshot of The Guardian article published on April 2 under the headline “The US is no longer the go-to place’: How Korean culture is taking Latin America by storm.” Captured from The Guardian website
An April 2 article from The Guardian looked at how and why Latin America has grown to embrace Korean culture. The Guardian quoted Brazil’s health minister, Alexandre Padilha, as saying that the U.S. was no longer the country people pictured in their aspirations. The piece argued that Latin America’s rising interest in East Asian culture contrasts with growing weariness toward the U.S. following repeated diplomatic and political frictions under the Trump administration, and may even represent a kind of cultural blowback.
Associate Professor Oh You-jeong, an Asian studies scholar at the University of Texas at Austin and author of “Pop City: Korean Modern Popular Music and Colonial Seoul,” said in an interview with Hankookilbo that the trend suggests global content production is no longer confined to a small number of traditional overseas cities, but is expanding through new cultural and geographic interests.
“The changing pattern shows Seoul is taking shape as a ‘narrative platform’ at the crossroads of global capital and culture,” she said.
Foreign visitors pose for a commemorative photo on Mount Gwanak in Seoul. Courtesy of the Seoul Hiking Tourism Center
Hiking becomes latest trend
Seoul’s growing presence in global content is expanding the boundaries of hallyu. Among the newest additions are the mountains within and around the capital, which have become increasingly popular with foreign tourists. According to the Korea National Park Service, 2.05 million foreign visitors went to national parks, such as Mount Gwanak and Mount Bukhan, last year.
Of that total, 1.13 million — more than half — were tourists who visited the mountains while traveling in Korea. By comparison, BTS attracted about 2.06 million concertgoers during its 2018-2019 world tour, showing that Seoul’s mountains are doing considerable work drawing overseas visitors in much the same way K-pop stars have.
Mount Gwanak hiking guide posted by Norwegian mountain runner Paweł Prokocki / Captured from Prokocki’s blog
What makes Seoul’s mountains attractive is their accessibility and the rare chance for hikers to find some sort of breathing room in the middle of the city. Paweł Prokocki, a Norwegian mountain runner, is among the foreigners who traveled to Korea not for a K-pop concert, but to experience the mountains within the city.
Prokocki spent a month in Korea going on “hiking tours” around Mount Dobong and Mount Gwanak, an experience that later led him to post a Seoul hiking guide online.
Asked why he chose Korea as a hiking destination over places such as Switzerland, he said was intrigued by the mountain ridges visible in Seoul’s skyline photos while browsing the internet.
“I decided to go to Korea to see them for myself. Before traveling to Seoul, I expected the city to be chaotic and fast-moving,” he said.
“But as I climbed the mountains, I began to feel a sense of tranquility.”
This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.
