South Korean Wave Hits With Big Impact as Entertainment Business Booms

variety.com:

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefThe third decade of the millennium looks quite different for the Korean entertainment scene compared with just a few years earlier.In March 2020, “Parasite,” a Korean-made film noir made history by winning three Oscars, including best picture.

The following year, Korean veteran Youn Yuh-jung took the Oscar for best supporting actress in “Minari,” while in 2022 “Squid Game” leading man Lee Jung-jae looks poised for Emmy accolades.K-pop has broken out to become a phenomenon that tops charts, fills global stadiums and airwaves, and the social media warriors of group BTS, who call themselves “ARMY” would even claim to have had a small influence at the last U.S.

presidential election. In TV and streaming, Disney and Apple are now major investors in Korean programming. They proudly tout their K-cred at the same time they find themselves in a race to catch up with global, regional and even Chinese operators such as Netflix, Viu and Tencent’s WeTV, respectively, to lock in and leverage some of the world’s most exportable IP.“To see this as new is to reveal your own cultural bias,” says Jeong Taesung, a former CEO of Korean film behemoth CJ Entertainment and who is now running his own startup in Southeast Asia. “Korea has been making inventive, high-quality films and TV productions for more than 20 years now, as everybody in Asia has known for years.

K-pop idol groups were conceived more than two decades ago. And BTS has been around for the best part of a decade.”That is a macro view that Asian film, TV and music audiences would largely understand.