Squid Game's massive popularity in South Korea is evident. Netflix's most-watched series to date is a dark drama that explores subjects like capitalism and class inequality. But it's just the tip of the "hallyu" (Korean pop culture) iceberg, and there's more to this phenomenon than meets the eye.

South Korea has been gradually boosting its soft power through increasing exports of its pop culture, such as K-dramas, K-pop, and K-beauty, for at least three decades. In South Korea, pop culture is big business, and the government is investing heavily in cultural productions, with the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) receiving $440 million in 2021 to fund and oversee shows, games for mobile and virtual reality platforms, fashion, animation, and other endeavors.

Moon Chae-won plays Cha Ji-won, a homicide detective blissfully married to Baek Hee-sung (portrayed by hallyu star Lee Joon-gi). Ji-won begins to think that her perfect husband may not be who he seems to be while investigating a string of strange deaths. As his wife probes more into his background, Hee-sung watches his lies collapse.

While this Korean drama keeps viewers wondering, a dash of humorous relief and romance helps to break the strain. With well-timed discoveries and a haunting original tune, the plot is meticulously structured, and the show is fast-paced and thrilling.

Park Dong-hoon (Lee Sun-gyun) is forced to realize that his life isn't perfect in My Mister. He is a middle-aged engineer who lives with his mother and two unemployed brothers and works at a company where his boss is a college junior. Dong-hoon tries everything he can to support his beleaguered family, despite the fact that his own life is falling apart.

Lee Ji-an (IU) is a young woman who is badly in debt and being hounded by a loan shark while caring for her elderly grandmother and working as a temp at the same company as Dong-hoon.

During the transition from authoritarianism to democracy in South Korea in the 1980s, a group of five students running an illegal pro-democracy radio station stumble onto a big scandal, which leads to the death of one student in 1992. Another pupil is confined to a wheelchair, while another is imprisoned.

Even though the narrative of this series, about a guy named Jang Bong-hwan who finds himself trapped in the body of a queen from the late Joseon era, about 1850 (the Joseon dynasty began in 1392 and ended in 1897), is ridiculous, it is the ninth highest-rated drama in Korean cable television history.

The Crowned Clown depicts the story of a king who, fearing assassination, orders his lookalike, a clown named Ha Sun (Yeo Jin-goo), to take his place on the throne during the mid-Joseon era in the early 17th century, when upheavals and royal power struggles reached a crescendo.

Sim Deok-chool (Park In-hwan), a seventy-year-old retired post office employee, has always wanted to learn ballet. But life intervened, and he set aside his dream — until now. Despite his family's lack of support, he enrolls in ballet courses, where he meets Lee Chae-rok, a 23-year-old dancer (Song Kang).

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