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| yna@yna.co.kr 2022-09-19 09:03:39
SEOUL, September 19 (Yonhap) -- The KBS weekend drama "Young Lady and Gentleman," which ended in March of this year, has recently been gaining popularity in Indonesia and the Sultanate of Oman.
According to KBS on September 18, the drama "Young Lady and Gentleman" has been added to Netflix Korea, China, Japan, North America, Hong Kong, Macao, and more countries since August 19.
In the fourth week of August (22~28), the drama was ranked eighth among non-English dramas for weekend streaming time, and it remained fourth on the first week (August 29~September 4) and the second week of September (5~11).
The drama recorded 21.48 million hours of streaming time in the second week of September, surpassing the streaming time of the "Narco-Saints" (20.60 million hours, ranked fifth), which was released on the Chuseok Holiday, with great expectation.
The drama "Young Lady and Gentleman" is also maintaining the top 10 on the online content service ranking site "Flex Patrol." On September 17, it also ranked sixth among all Netflix dramas. The drama is mostly gaining popularity in countries in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.
On September 17, the drama was ranked first in Indonesia, the Maldives, the Sultanate of Oman, and Qatar, second in Bahrain and the Arab Emirates, and third in Morocco, Nicaragua, Peru, the Philippines, and El Salvador.
The drama "Young Lady and Gentleman" depicts a love story of Lee Young-kook (played by Ji Hyun-Woo), raising his three children by himself after being separated from his wife by death, and home school teacher Park Dan-dan (played by Lee See-hee). The drama has a total of 52 episodes and recorded 38.2 % view rate.
Soap operas and weekend dramas in Korea, regarding family stories, record 20~30% view rate with less popularity as the audience is concentrated on middle-aged to elderly women.
Most importantly, the audience has strong recognition that the settings of a love story between a male character from a Chaebol family (prestigious family) and a poor female character, amnesia, and terminally ill character are old and do not follow the current trend of the generation.
The drama "Young Lady and Gentleman" couldn't break the cliche with its settings of romance between a couple with a 14-year age gap and the continuous reveal of their secret of birth.
However, the international audience had different opinions. The audiences in Latin American countries who are used to "telenovelas" (soap operas produced in Latin America) were familiar with the settings of the drama "Young Lady and Gentleman." The audiences in the Middle East and East Asia, with strong patriarchy, showed great enthusiasm towards the male character supporting the female character going through a hard time.
Jeong Deok-hyun, pop culture critic, said "family dramas have been recognized as old-fashioned in Korea, but they have been gaining popularity in other countries through online streaming platforms," and added, "Latin American audiences relate to the dramatic settings such as family revenge, and Asian audiences relate to traditional family settings."
Kim Seong-su, pop culture critic said "dramas in which the audience swears while watching are all around the world, and Latin America and the Middle East liked the point of the drama "Young Lady and Gentleman," and added "the obvious cliches of the drama Young Lady and Gentleman include all the contradictions of Korean society. However, the audience in Europe could not understand the scene where the mother abandons the child even though there was no societal protection.
He continued, "Cinderella stories gain popularity in countries where hierarchies are blocked and where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer," and added, "These soap operas and weekend dramas are already a category of K-drama, being called Hallyu in Asia.
(This article is translated from Korean to English by Dowon Kim.)
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