Following the unimaginable success of Hwang Dong-hyuk’s Squid Game, the streaming giant Netflix has decided to begin investing heavily in the production of Korean content and release more Korean shows in 2022 to increase their global audience reach.
According to Don Kang, the vice-president of Netflix Korea content creation, the streamer will be investing immensely in the production of Korean content. In 2021, Netflix had promised to invest a staggering 550 billion Korean won ($463 million) in Korean content, which reaped terrific results.
The streaming giant recently won the Korea Image Stepping Stone Bridge on January 12th, 2022, for helping to bridge the gap between Korean content and the world and introducing Korean content to a broader global audience.
Talking about how their “rivals are aggressively investing in the Korean market” as well, Kang revealed some of the streamer’s ambitious goals for this year.
Following the immense success of Squid Game, Hellbound, My Name, Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha and more, the streamer will release the adaptation of the Korean webtoon All of Us Are Dead on January 28th, 2022. It will be a zombie apocalypse film set within the boundaries of a high school, the trailer of which has already generated quite the buzz.
According to Kang, “On top of that, we will showcase some movies – in which we took part in the production – as well as more entertainment shows that go beyond existing genres and formats.”
Hwang Dong-hyuk, too, received the Korea Image Stepping Stone Award for his massive contribution to the upliftment in the reception of Korean content with his dystopian survival thriller series Squid Game. The director has been showered with hordes of praise ever since the series hit the streamer last year and has expressed his gratitude for the warm reception.
Talking about how his “personal and Korean creation has won the hearts of people worldwide”, Hwang spoke about how he wanted to create “a personal story that fits Korean sentiments, as well as that of people outside Korea.”
After his brutal creation, he aims to make “something futuristic” that will be “a social drama centring on the things that will happen in the next 20 to 30 years.”
Squid Game recently made history at the 2022 Golden Globes after O Yeong-su, a veteran Korean actor who played Player 001 in Squid Game, became the first-ever Korean actor to bag the much-coveted Golden Globe for the Best Supporting Actor.
Starring Lee Jung-jae, Park Hae-soo, Jung Ho-Yeon and Wi Ha Jun among others, the series has been renewed for a second and a possible third season.
