THE K-WAVE

by Nóra Terján

THE VERY FIRST SUBTITLED FILM TO WIN THE ACADEMY AWARD FOR BEST PICTURE. THE FIRST EVER VIDEO TO GET OVER ONE BILLION VIEWS ON YOUTUBE. THE BIGGEST NETFLIX HIT. WHAT DO THEY ALL HAVE IN COMMON? THEY ARE ALL PART OF THE HALLYU, OR CULTURAL WAVE THAT STARTED IN SOUTH KOREA AND SEEMS TO BE SLOWLY CONQUERING THE WORLD.

Korean American journalist Euny Hong first used the term ‘hallyu’ in her book The Birth of Korean Cool to describe the cultural wave that was emerging in the country. The roaring success of South Korea’s film industry – Hallyuwood – lies in the meeting of Hollywood and Asian film traditions. The rise of Hallyuwood did not begin in recent years. The first really big international success was Park Chan-wook’s film Oldboy, a visceral revenge story that quickly became a cult film in Europe and the United States.

In 2019, Bong Joon-ho won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and from then on there was no stopping him, winning four Oscars. In addition, Parasite was also the first non-English-language film to win the American Film Academy’s top prize, the golden statue for Best Picture.

Perhaps the biggest Netflix sensation of 2021 was Squid Game, which topped the streaming giant’s worldwide ratings for a long time.

According to Motion Pictures’ annual summary, South Korea’s film revenue in 2018 was USD 1.6 billion, the fourth largest in markets outside the United States.

Korea’s international successes also followed in other walks of cultural life: the 2002 football World Cup, the 2018 Winter Olympics, and the explosion of South Korean pop music, or K-pop, which has reached astonishing heights, led by the hit Gangnam Style.