From Korea With Love: Crash Landing on You
& the K-drama Wave

By Ananya Shah

Last year, as COVID began to spread at a frantic pace, overwhelming hospitals and wreaking havoc on the economy, I turned to Netflix for levity and not a little escapism. Since I lived with my parents, I was trying to stay home as much as possible, and did not step out at all except for a (double-masked) walk every evening. A show I hadn’t seen before bubbled across the “Trending Now” ticker; it was “heartfelt and romantic,” Netflix promised. It was the Korean show Crash Landing on You, most broadly centered on the relationship between a rich South Korean chaebol (Korean for “conglomerate”) heiress and a North Korean military officer. I was familiar with certain aspects of Korean entertainment--I knew people who were fans of the Korean boy band BTS and some of my friends swore by Korean skincare brands, but I had never watched a Korean show, or a K-drama, as they are affectionately called. Intrigued, and feeling relieved that I had something new to binge watch, I clicked play on the first episode and slipped into its rich and boisterous world. I watched the show with subtitles.

The show begins by introducing us to the Seoul-based Yoon Se-ri (played by Son Ye Jin), who runs a successful beauty and fashion company called Seri’s choice. Her father is the founder of a large Korean conglomerate and chooses her as his successor, passing over her two older half-brothers and their wives. In her own words, she is a “super luxurious swallow in the South.” In a plotline that makes no attempt at credulity, she goes paragliding and is pushed into the DMZ during a freak tornado, where she gets stuck in a tree. There, she encounters Captain Ri Jeong Hyeok (an absurdly dashing Hyun Bin), the captain of a military unit in the North Korean army. As he commands her to get down, she unbuckles herself, and falls--promptly into his arms. Suffice to say, at that point, I was utterly charmed and hooked. 

The story progresses when Yoon Se-ri, while trying to escape, stumbles into a North Korean village commanded by a corrupt officer. Unable to fully trust the interrogation forces, Ri Jeong Hyeok hides her in his house, eventually passing her off as his fiance. She eventually befriends the officers in his unit and the aunties in the village, led by the commander’s wife. It is the first time that Yoon Se-ri finds a community--people who respect her, people who she can trust and laugh with and with whom she can engage in banter. As she is accepted by the village, and with the threat of separation looming over their heads, Captain Ri and she find themselves falling in love. The writing of the show is intentional here: both Se-ri and Captain Ri are part of the elite in their respective societies, and it served to highlight that their positioning was similar in some ways—a kind of kinship and parallel across borders.

I found the village scenes to be the sweetest in the show, highlighting simple pleasures. One night, she and the officers eat roasted clams, drink soju, and play word games. For the snooty Yoon Se-ri, whose own family life is riddled with conflict, it is a new, joyous experience. Over time, she bonds with the aunties in the village over fashion and beauty, impressing them with her expertise. I really enjoyed seeing her loosen up with her simple frocks and make up in the North. She is intrigued to find that some of her products have made it North Korea and are being sold furtively. She develops a genuine friendship with the aunties--when Captain Ri’s real fiance shows up in a twist, the aunties console her and show up to her house with drinks, showing that the quintessential girl’s night is not so different across borders, including India and the USA. Even after she leaves for Seoul, she creates a new line of skincare products especially named for each aunty in the group.

Some people might find these episodes cloying or overly sentimental, but I found them moving. For instance, when Young-ae, the commander’s wife, finds herself alone and black-listed by the military due to her husband’s perceived misdemeanors, the other women, one by one, visit her secretly in the night and give her food and firewood. Such togetherness and humanity show how people try to stick together in the face of a harsh and rigid system. 

The show is not without is drama–intrigue, ambition, and political unrest make their way into the narrative. A subplot involves Captain Ri investigating his older brother’s murder in the army. Before his brother’s death, Captain Ri had been a student of music in Switzerland, where he had been a promising piano player, and the show is interspersed with quiet moments of music. Another subplot revolves around Captain Ri’s fiance, Seo Dan, and Gu Seung-jan, who is in hiding after having embezzled a large sum of money from Yoon Se-ri’s brother. 

I also got my parents hooked to the show, and my mother especially was taken with Captain Ri--his gentleness, sensitivity, principled nature, and of course, his looks and cooking skills. We raced through the episodes together, even watching two or three a night. My father enjoyed it for different reasons; his favorite character was Captain Ri’s second-in-command, Pyo Chi-soo, a snarky sergeant whose sarcasm and good-natured banter add color to the show. While Pyo Ch-soo and Se-ri initially do not get along, their friendship deepens as the show progresses, and the two respect each other. My father also liked the Korean finger heart,  and began using it with me. 

I personally enjoyed seeing how Yoon Se-ri built Seri’s Choice from scratch and confidently managed it without caving into the pressures created by her family. She is shown to be an adept business leader, so much so that her father hands over the reigns of his business to her. This does not sit well with her two entitled older brothers, even though they are not competent at their work. One of them goes to extreme lengths to get rid of her, even plotting to keep her in North Korea. While Yoon Se-ri is a bit of an outsider in her own family, I enjoyed seeing how her work ethic and business acumen made her self-assured and confident.

Her stint in the North with Captain Ri, his unit, and the aunties also softened her; after coming back, she was more understanding towards her employees. The depictions of warm-hearted and genuine friendship echo across other K-dramas, such as Boys over Flowers, Strong Girl Bong-Soon, It’s Okay to Not Be Okay, Guardian: The Great and Lonely God, Something in the Rain, Itaewon Class, among many others. Netflix India is streaming all these shows, among many others. 

There has been a larger trend of people in India watching Korean shows during the lockdown, and an ensuing increase in people learning Korean. For instance, there was a 256% increase between March and October 2020 in Indians learning Korean on the popular language-learning service Duolingo. It is clear that the romance, comedy, and drama of Korean shows resonate with Indian viewers, especially those such as the heartfelt Crash Landing on You. In today’s polarized world, even seemingly simple TV shows and fragments of pop culture can help create more interest in, understanding of, and empathy for other cultures and peoples.