At a campus talk titled “Writing K-Dramas: A Conversation with the Storytellers Behind the Screen” on Oct. 22, Korean action-crime drama screenwriter Sang-ho Oh confessed he does not like having his characters go through strife. In “Taxi Driver,” he wrote the main character, Don Lee, to always win a fight, never once being punched by a villain throughout the show. During the production of “The Manipulated” for Disney+, Sang-ho was disappointed when protagonist Tae-joong Park was choreographed to be beaten up without his approval.
“I just hate that my characters would get hit at all,” Sang-ho said.
The talk with Korean drama screenwriters Oh and Yoo-dam Shin, known for the romance “Marry My Husband,” was hosted in the Rosen Family Screening Room at the Ronald Tutor Campus Center. The conversation, which was moderated by Professor Hye Jin Lee, explored why K-dramas are gaining popularity worldwide. The speaker event is part of a larger initiative by the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Los Angeles and the Korea Creative Content Agency for Korea Month.
According to Netflix, 80% of their global users have consumed Korean content on its platform. Korean entertainment is the most-viewed non-English content on the site.
Both screenwriters took different paths into the Korean industry. Shin said she loved imagining different endings from an early age, while Oh said he began as a poetry and theatre major.
“The prizes for screenwriting competitions were around ten times higher than poetry, relieving my pressure of paying bills,” Oh said.
As K-drama expands globally, the two writers have also taken different approaches to appeal to international audiences. Oh said he would consider global audiences when developing his stories, as ambitious productions often require funding from international platforms such as Netflix and Disney. While these platforms seek stories that attract audiences beyond Korea, their investment has also given him greater creative freedom.
Shin, however, said she never expected “Marry My Husband” to become popular internationally. She attributed this unexpected welcome to universal longing for relationships.
“It seems that people are interested because they are all, globally, interested in romance,” Shin said.
Despite their different approaches, both writers have explored revenge as a central theme in their work. For Oh, revenge reflects his frustration with an unjust society.
“Truth be told, as a writer, you cannot help but include things you’re frustrated about in the world,” Oh said.
He described how lawful citizens increasingly struggle to receive fair treatment, inspiring him to create protagonists who fight back rather than passively endure injustice.
“The main villain of ‘Taxi Driver’ is an unjust world,” Oh said.
Rather than repeatedly making his protagonists suffer, Oh said he prefers to give them the power to punish villains, offering viewers a sense of justice and satisfaction that reality may not provide.
Oh continued this theme of thematic justice through his most recent show, “Fabricated City”, which is an adaptation of his earlier movie of the same name. The plot follows unemployed gamer Kwon Yoo, who is framed for a woman’s rape and murder and exacts vengeance on public attorney Min Cheon-sang, who digitally fabricated the evidence.
Oh said he realized that today’s youth had become more isolated since the original movie due to the COVID pandemic. In the reboot, Oh portrays Min Cheon-Sang as a villain who not only frames the protagonist, but also isolates Korean citizens from each other. Through “Fabricated City,” Oh once again attempts to give current audiences a sense of justice by portraying a world where isolation is conquerable.
Shin, meanwhile, describes revenge through smaller, everyday discontent. In “Marry My Husband,” the power of time travel allows the protagonist to anticipate bullying and betrayal to rewrite her future. Shin explained that daily conflicts can make revenge particularly satisfying.
“The best IP is something that anyone has thought about,” Shin said.
However, for Shin, maintaining audience interest requires dramatic relationships and compelling villains. She also emphasized that long-term TV shows can make a perfect romantic lead boring, as Korean audiences sometimes describe slow-moving storylines as “sweet potato” plots, referring to narratives that evoke the feeling of eating a dry sweet potato without water. Beyond revenge, Shin wanted the story to emphasize the personal growth of the actress.
“This is not simply avenging something you experience as a victim,” Shin said. “I wanted to make sure that one can become a better person.”
Shin and Oh closed the event by teasing their next projects. Shin is writing a romance set in a Singaporean international school, which explores the tension between the worldviews of a South Korean and North Korean student. Oh is working on a series called “Reforming Currency” in collaboration with the Seoul Broadcasting System, following a government official in cultural affairs who turns into a Yeomra-Daewang, the mythological king of the underworld in Korean culture.
As someone hoping to enter the Korean entertainment industry, Kayla McMurtry, an attendee and senior majoring in public relations and advertising, said the talk helped uncover more about the K-drama field. McMurtry also said she appreciated the talk being both in Korean and English, as she was able to strengthen her Korean language skills, further expanding what she learned from the talk.
Ellen To, an attendee and senior majoring in international relations, said she barely knew anything about the industry before attending the talk. She said she now knows the differences between the K-drama world and Hollywood.
“It has genuinely inspired me to learn more about Korean culture,” To said.
Edited by Justin Ha