Ipsita Roy
(Cotton University. iroy3994@gmail.com)
There was a time when kdrama meant Ekta Kapoor's serials. But with time there was a shift from boring storylines to interesting clingy stories which stayed rent-free in someone's mind for a long time. The kdrama's gained popularity among the teenagers with the drama named 'Boys over flowers' which is mainly centred around a middle house girl who first has to be a prey in her school's most popular group of boys named 'F4' but with time she gets close with them and falls in love with the Shah Rukh Khan of kdrama Lee Min Ho.
Then some series mainly were fantasy centred but teenagers easily adapt them as something which can happen to them too. Dramas like "My love from another star", and "Legends of the Blue Sea" are dramas that are too cliché to be true, but after then too the cast took all the attention and teenagers cried their hearts out for such dramas.
Kdramas also showed that even the actress can save her actor from dangerous scenes. Dramas like "Strong Woman do bong soo", and "Weightlifting fairy Kim bok Joo" showed that even actresses can do things that actors are capable of and these shows took the heart of many kdrama watchers. There were also dramas like "Descendants of the Sun" where fans of the Song-Song couple were too excited to see the couple's marriage after the drama.
Then some OTT platforms seeing the rise of "The Halyu wave"(rising Korean popularity) started dubbing the famous Korean dramas in Hindi which made it easier for kdrama to get more Indian fans. Slowly and swiftly Netflix had a rise of viewers for kdrama. This viewers' list has a high number of Indian teenagers.
Then comes the era when kdramas even got the chance to get an Oscar, "Parasite" is the kind of remarkable experience that makes modern movies going such a joy. This drama is marvellously entertaining in terms of narrative but also has a lot underneath of how the rich uses the poor.
The year 2021 made remarkable praise for kdrama with the release of the Korean Netflix series "Squid game". A story of people who fail at life for various reasons, but suddenly receive a mysterious invitation to participate in a survival game to win more than 38 million US dollars. The game takes place on an isolated island and the participants are locked up until there is a final winner. The story will incorporate popular children's games from the 1970s and 1980s in Korea, such as the squid game, a literal translation of its Korean name, which is a type of tag where offence and defence use a squid-shaped board drawn in the dirt.
Korean dramas are also very popular for their high interest in zombie series which can both make you get scared and also can make you cry. There are several Korean zombies series which can make you engage with your phones for hours. Some famous zombie series is "Train to Busan(2016)", "Alive(2020)" and this year's high school series "All of us are dead".