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Crash Landing on You and North Korea: Representation and Reception in the Age of K-Drama
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
Abstract
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Crash Landing on You (Sarang-ui bulsichak), a 16-episode drama on South Korean cable channel tvN in 2019-20 that was also released on Netflix, has drawn broad attention for its storyline featuring a South Korean heiress stranded in North Korea who falls in love with an elite military officer. Though the show invokes many formulae of South Korean dramas, it also offers a detailed portrait of North Korea, and, as such, is a crucial text for evaluating ongoing change in South Korean popular representations of its neighbour. Indeed, given the concerted use of North Korean backdrops in Crash Landing on You and the size and global extent of its audiences, the show is likely the most noteworthy South Korean popular culture representation of North Korea yet produced. In this article, we first consider the drama and its depictions of North Korea and then discuss groupings of Korean and international responses to the show. In doing so, we extend our work on the confluence of South Korean pop culture representations of North Korea with developments in information and communication technologies and the surrounding media environment. We also add to a growing body of scholarship that situates South Korean dramas within broader social and political contexts.
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