This year Baeksang Arts Awards have just one winner: Netflix
59th Baeksang Arts Awards were just announced, and it’s a sign of big changes in the entertainment industry
It’s minutes after all the television awards of the 59th Baeksang Arts Awards have been announced. And it is clear that there is just one winner: Netflix. These announcements come on the heels of Netflix’ investment of $2.5 billion in Korean content. Baeksang Arts Awards are the most prestigious awards in Korean entertainment, sort of Korean Oscars and Emmys together.
In short, Netflix original The Glory received three main awards: Best Drama, Best Actress (Song Hye-kyo), and Best Supporting Actress (Lim Ji-yeon), as well as 9 nominations total. Another Netflix original, Narco-Saints received an award for Best Supporting Actor for Jo Woo-jin. Most of the other awarded shows are distributed by Netflix internationally (although are not Netflix originals): Extraordinary Attorney Woo received Grand Prize for Park Eun-bin and Best Director (Yoo In-shik), and 10 nominations total; also Best Screenplay for My Liberation Notes (Park Hae-young), Technical Award for Little Women (art direction for Ryu Seong-hee), Best New Actress for Crash Course in Romance (Noh/Roh Yoon seo), and Best New Actor for Under the Queen’s Umbrella (Moon Sang-min), etc.
All this amazing lineup of award winning and nominated K-Dramas was released on Netflix in 2022 and early 2023. Literally the best Korean television of 2022 was present on Netflix internationally. On the one hand, it shows amazing tastes and intuition on part of Netflix execs who selected show creators and cast for Netflix original Korean dramas.
The Glory was one of the best shows on TV, not only in terms of Korean content. While it wasn’t perhaps as successful as Squid Game, the series was still one of the most popular streaming shows. It was well written, had great production value (what is often a weakness of K-Dramas), and was entertaining to watch. And the cast was terrific, offering us some of the best performances of the past year. While many English-language shows on Netflix were harshly criticized by both critics and audiences, the Korean content they delivered in the past year was mostly excellent. They promise more great content this year as well and judging from terrific Queenmaker they might keep that promise. Perhaps Netflix shows will be a strong contender for Baeksang awards next year too.
On the other hand, the Korean content which was purchased by Netflix for international distribution includes some of the best K-Dramas of 2022. Obviously, Extraordinary Attorney Woo is a jewel in the crown of the Korean content. Somewhat unexpectedly, Park Eun-bin, a titular Woo Young-woo, received the Grand Prize of Baeksang Arts Awards (instead of Best Actress award, to which she was nominated too, and which was given to Song Hye-kyo). In that way the organizers of Baeksang Awards solved the conundrum and were able to show their appreciation for two of the best performances of the year, awarding both Park Eun-bin and Song Hye-kyo. As a recipient of Baeksang Grand Prize Park Eun-bin emerges as perhaps the leading Korean actress right now. Indeed, her performance in Extraordinary Attorney Woo was mindbogglingly good, overshadowing many other excellent performances of the year. Thanks to Netflix, Extraordinary Attorney Woo show, gained popularity and received appreciation internationally, bringing a lot of fans to the K-Dramas.
We’re living in the interesting and amazing times: the “Western” culture, and particularly Hollywood and English-speaking content dominated culturally for several decades now. European cinema and TV, while attempted for some time to keep up with a flood of American content, gave up a log time ago. However, with a Korean wave (or maybe rather Korean tsunami) we have a new contender in town: K-Pop and K-Dramas gain more and more fans internationally each year and Korean artists slowly becoming as impactful as their American counterparts. Indian and Chinese content are not that far behind, extremely popular in their own countries, spreading their respective cultures outside as well. Suddenly, Asia is becoming as culturally relevant, as the U.S. and Europe were in the past.
Competition, obviously, is a good thing. Hollywood content became stale and uninteresting, big studios increasingly have troubles with attracting new viewers, and are less relevant than ever. Academy Awards have the lowest television ratings in their existence: and it’s not a surprise, many people don’t know the movies they’re awarding. However, every K-Drama lover knows most of the nominated K-Dramas in Baeksang Arts Awards. Additionally, Korean content is often less expensive, well written, and equally if not more entertaining than American television.
Clearly, Netflix already knows that: their investment in Korean content brings new audiences, resonates both in Asia and elsewhere, and is a perfect solution for the streaming era. When production costs in the U.S. are increasing, and making a streaming show can cost as much as a billion dollars (like Amazon’s Rings of Power), the less expensive Koran content is more attractive than ever. Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and Apple TV+ are slowly learning that too, increasing their libraries of Korean content. We’re already observing attempts to combine these two worlds together: Netflix’ new series XO, Kitty is taking place in South Korea, while Disney recently cast Park Seo-joon as Prince Yan of Aladna in The Marvels, and I am sure more cooperations between Korean and American studios are coming. All we can do is to get some popcorn, take a seat, and wait for the amazing content coming our way.
