'Gyeongseong Creature', 'Kill Boksoon' & Other Korean Shows Coming To Netflix This Year
We spoke to Don Kang, the VP of Content (Korea), to learn more about what Netflix has in store for us this year.
By Timothy Tuan — 20 Feb 2023, 05:36 PM
Netflix Korea recently invited us to the birthplace of K-pop and Hallyu, and boy, did we have the time of our lives
As part of their marketing efforts to promote the Korean titles being released this year, Netflix invited media members from countries across the Asia Pacific and Latin America to visit South Korea for a couple of days.
The team planned an impressive series of programmes and events for us, ensuring that each of us left Seoul brimming with excitement for what's to come on the entertainment app for the rest of the year.
We had a roundtable discussion with Don Kang, the VP of Content (Korea) at Netflix, who gave us a sneak peek of the K-titles debuting on Netflix, while also hinting at a few shows that needed to be on our must-watch list
Before we dive deeper into what went down during the session with Don Kang, here's a quick look at the Korean titles coming to Netflix this year:
"In 2023, one of our goals is to give our members at least one or two great Netflix original Korean shows throughout the year across all types and genres," said Don
From left to right: Moderator Amy, Head of Netflix APAC PR, and Don Kang, VP of Content (Korea)
Image via Netflix (Provided to SAYS)He said that the Netflix team is offering the best of what Korean cinema offers, producing dramas and films with visually stunning special effects.
A great example of this is the highly-anticipated Black Knight, which is slated to be released sometime this year.
"A very ambitious project, [Black Knight is] a story that takes place in a dystopian society in the near future. We're really using leading visual effects (VFX) technology to create immersive visualisation of the near future," he said.
Starring big names like Kim Woo-bin, Song Seung-heon, Kang You-seok, and Esom, Black Knight is set in a world where air pollution is so severe that people have to depend on respirator masks in order to survive.
Another K-drama that has been catching the eyes of many due to its intriguing plot and cast selection is Gyeongseong Creature, which will be released later this year
"We have shows like Gyeongseong Creature, which takes place in 1945 in Korea — which was a very turbulent but also somewhat very romantic and glamorous time — but it's a creature show, so there's a twist. We're working with some of the most talented crews to bring the creative vision to the screen," said Don.
Gyeongseong Creature, which stars Park Seo-jun, Han So-hee, Claudia Kim, Kim Hae-sook, Cho Han-cheul, and Wi Ha-jun, tells the story of two young people from two very different worlds struggling to survive as they face a monster born out of human greed.
Don is thrilled about what the show has to offer to the global audience.
"With Gyeongseong Creature, writer Kang Eun K, a very symbolic and renowned writer in the linear TV space, has so many stories and vision to tell.
"To bring their vision to the screen, we need to invest in the ecosystem like working with different partners and investing in different technologies because you often find that Korea has so much more to offer than traditional rom-com. There's so much creativity to be unfolded," he said.
To get a clear picture of how much effort was put into Gyeongseong Creature, we visited the drama's set — and it's safe to say that you're in for a crazy ride when it releases
Don't worry, we'll be sharing more information about not only Gyeongseong Creature, but also Black Knight (yep, you read that right!) on our Instagram and TikTok pages closer to the release date, so make sure to follow us!
Meanwhile, here's a photo we took at the exact spot where Park Seo-jun and Han So-hee filmed their scene:
Don also shared his excitement about an upcoming film called Kill Boksoon — slated to be released on Netflix on 31 March
Kill Boksoon is about the titular character (played by Jeon Do-yeon) living a double life as a mother of a teenage daughter and a professional killer at MK Ent, a top-tier killing agency. Caught between the mission of killing someone and the mission of raising someone, Boksoon refuses to complete an assigned task and is thrown into an inevitable fight.
"I'm especially excited about Kill Boksoon, which we're about to launch in March. It just has such a distinct cinematic grammar to it, just so smart and brilliant. It's from none other than our very talented director Byun Sung-hyun. I've always been a huge fan of him," said Don.
With that much excitement around the movie, Netflix gave us the opportunity to interview Byun, as well as sit in for a 13-minute special screening of the movie
Speaking about how the idea of Kill Boksoon came about, Byun said, "One of the focuses was that I didn't want it to be about revenge. In killer films, and especially if there's someone's daughter involved, you always see them getting kidnapped, and the grand finale [is a] fight against the bad guys to rescue her.
"We didn't want to do that. We wanted to put a twist to the cliché portrayal of contract killers," the director said.
Each clip that we watched during the special screening was intense and gripping — every action scene showcased the fight immaculately.
Byun said, "We didn't shoot it in a way where we could shoot a number of shortcuts and connect the different scenes together later; we used a lot of long takes. So for any scenes where the face was revealed during an action sequence even just a little bit, it meant that [Do-yeon] had to do them herself."
