The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 18 | Issue 12 | Number 5 | Article ID 5408 | Jun 05, 2020

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Crash Landing on You and North Korea: Representation andReception in the Age of K-Drama

Stephen Epstein, Christopher K. Green

Abstract

Crash Landing on You (Sarang-ui bulsichak), a16-episode drama on South Korean cablechannel tvN in 2019-20 that was also releasedon Netflix, has drawn broad attention for itsstoryline featuring a South Korean heiressstranded in North Korea who falls in love withan elite military officer. Though the showinvokes many formulae of South Koreandramas, it also offers a detailed portrait ofNorth Korea, and, as such, is a crucial text forevaluating ongoing change in South Koreanpopular representations of its neighbour.Indeed, given the concerted use of NorthKorean backdrops in Crash Landing on You andthe size and global extent of its audiences, theshow is likely the most noteworthy SouthKorean popular culture representation of NorthKorea yet produced. In this article, we firstconsider the drama and its depictions of NorthKorea and then discuss groupings of Koreanand international responses to the show. Indoing so, we extend our work on the confluenceof South Korean pop culture representations ofNorth Korea with developments in informationand communication technologies and the

surrounding media environment. We also addto a growing body of scholarship that situatesSouth Korean dramas within broader social andpolitical contexts.

Keywords: Crash Landing on You; K-drama;Hallyu; South Korean popular culture; NorthKorean defectors; talbukja; Hyun Bin; Son Ye-jin

Crash Landing on You (Sarang-ui bulsichak), a16-episode drama on South Korean cablechannel tvN featuring top stars Hyun Bin andSon Ye-jin, has drawn broad attention for itsunusual storyline: a South Korean chaebolheiress, stranded in North Korea after aparagliding mishap, falls in love with a KoreanPeople’s Army officer from an elite Pyongyangfamily. The first episode aired on 14 December2019, and the show wrapped up on 16February 2020. Over the course of its tvNbroadcast, viewership rose week by week andthe show’s finale achieved almost a 22%audience share in South Korea, the secondhighest ever for a cable drama to that date.1

Equally notably, the near immediate subtitledNetflix release of each episode in multiplejurisdictions proved a clear success withoverseas viewers. Interest grew further as thedrama attracted new audiences amidstpandemic lockdowns around the world, witharticles about the show then appearing in suchprominent outlets as The Washington Post (Kimand Denyer 2020), Al-Jazeera (Kasulis 2020),The Guardian (Walker 2020) and NBC News

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(Suliman and Kim 2020).

Although Crash Landing on You invokes manyformulae of South Korean dramas in its tale ofa star-crossed love, it blazed new ground withindividuated Northern characters and diverseNorth Korean settings that conveyed authenticdetails of daily life above the 38th parallel.Attempts to create verisimilitude in depictingthe North (albeit amidst the less-than-realisticconventions of romantic comedy) thus make theshow a crucial text for evaluating ongoingc h a n g e i n S o u t h K o r e a n p o p u l a rrepresentations of its neighbour. The dramaprovides some of the strongest evidence to datethat media developments of the last decade areaf fect ing the South Korean publ ic ’sunderstandings of North Korea and that therise of variety and reality shows featuringresettled North Koreans living in the South,together with self-broadcast from thiscommunity of talbukja (lit. “those who have leftthe north”)2 via platforms like Afreeca.tv andYouTube, are encouraging ever more realisticand detailed pictures of the country’s peopleand its social and economic structures. Indeed,given the concerted use of North Koreanbackdrops in Crash Landing on You and thesize and global extent of its audiences, theshow can readily be considered the single mostnoteworthy South Korean popular culturerepresentation of life within North Korea everproduced.

Perhaps naturally, however, in handling such apolarising subject as North Korea, CrashLanding on You (henceforth Crash Landing, inpreference to CLOY, its usual but unfortunateacronym) has also provoked divergentresponses among its various audiences. As wediscuss below, although a broad swath of theSouth Korean populace is seemingly content toview North Korea in nuanced hues, othersreject depictions of its neighbour that deviatefrom black-and-white portraits. Moreover,reactions to the show from not only native-bornSouth Korean viewers but also talbukja and

those outside Korea point to the ever-expanding realms of reception and dialogue inwhich South Korean dramas find themselvesembedded. Crash Landing therefore is playing(or at least has the potential to play) animportant role in the non-linear process oftransforming North Korea in both the domesticand global imagination from a rogue state ruledby crazed despots to yet another country withits own particular histories, strengths andweaknesses.

Accordingly, we first briefly consider the showitself, focusing on aspects of how a dramaproduced amidst the sociocultural andgeopolitical frameworks of the 2018-2019period portrays North Korea and a NorthKorean protagonist, as well as the attitude theshow evinces towards North Korean societymore generally. We then discuss distinctgroupings of responses to the show: mediaarticles and statements from conservativeSouth Koreans; talbukja commentary onYouTube; and international reactions from thepress and fans engaging in online fora. In doingso, we extend our work on the confluence ofSouth Korean pop culture representations ofNorth Korea with developments in informationand communication technologies and thesurrounding media environment (Epstein andGreen 2013; Epstein and Green 2019), and addto a growing body of scholarship that situatesSouth Korean dramas within broader social andpolitical contexts (e.g. Elfving-Hwang 2017;Flamm 2018; Yi 2018).

Mixing Pop and Politics

Television rom-com dramas may not seem anobvious site of international relations, butconsumption of popular culture has come toplay a key role in shaping interactions betweencountries in East Asia in recent years astransnational media flows surge, includingbetween North and South Korea (Kim 2019). Aswidely reported, Hallyu, the spread of South

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Korean popular culture, is acting as a pullfactor in encouraging migration from the North(Lee 2019). Meanwhile, South Korea’s popularnarratives about North Korea, far from unified,embody the country’s many aspirations,desires, and fears concerning its neighbour andimpinge upon domestic mass sentiment. Theimages found in broadly consumed culturaltexts such as Crash Landing therefore refractand generate ongoing changes in inter-Koreanrelations, even if their effects are elusive,unpredictable and occasionally contradictory.

In also breaking ground with its portrayals ofNorth Korea at an international level, CrashLanding deserves notice for its role in a savvy,globally aware cultural industry thatincreasingly takes as much heed of audiencesbeyond its borders as it does of domesticviewers. In this sense Crash Landing goesbeyond a South Korean drama addressing alocally relevant theme, and functions verymuch as a “K-drama,” that is, a Hallyu productintended to generate revenue overseas whileenhancing the prestige of the South Koreannation, but one that does so through theunusual and compelling medium of featuring alocal take on North Korea. Over the last decadevarious South Korean dramas such as Iris(2009), Athena: God of War (2010), Spy MyongWol (2011) and The King 2 Hearts (2012) havefeatured North Korean characters, but nonehave had similar reach or treated the countryitself in anything like the same detail as CrashLanding. And although the show’s use of NorthKorea as a backdrop in Crash Landing can alsobe situated within South Korean drama’semployment of “exotic” locales to engageviewer interest,3 the North’s special status vis-à-vis the South endows Crash Landing’ssettings with unusually resonant meanings. Aswe argue below, however, as South Korea’scultural industries contribute more and more tothe nation’s drive for soft power, they alsointeract, and skirmish at times, with thefractious and contested domestic politics ofSouth Korea and the unstable, high-stakes

geopolitical environment in which the Koreanpeninsula is embedded.

Crash Landing was planned, shot andeventually broadcast during an especiallynoteworthy period in inter-Korean relations,one particular to the volatile climate of theMoon Jae-in administration’s diplomatic dancewith Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. Moonhad assumed the presidency in mid-2017amidst sharply heightened US-DPRK tensions,which even provoked fears that war mightbreak out. By year’s end, however, North Koreawas telegraphing a move to dialogue, with theUS as the ultimate target. Seizing theopportunity offered by Pyongyang’s willingnessto use engagement with Seoul to shift gearswith Washington, the South held secretive talkswi th the North that November . ThePyeongchang Winter Olympics of February2018 provided a stage for the publ icperformance of inter-Korean friendship, andthe presence of combined teams in a handful ofsports, as well as a cheering squad of NorthKorean women, and visits of groups ofNorthern musicians to South Korea helped leadto a thawing of the frosty diplomatic climate. InApril, Moon and Kim held a summit at the trucevillage of Panmunjeom that riveted the world,and at a second surprise meeting there thefollowing month, Moon appeared to help Kimrescue his endangered June summit withTrump. Reinvigorated inter-Korean relationscontinued through the summer, and grandplans for heightened co-operation madefrequent headlines. Kim and Moon met againfor a third summit in Pyongyang at the end ofSeptember.

Many observers, perhaps naively, felt thatMoon’s commitment to reviving a version of theSunshine Policy of his liberal predecessors KimDae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun was bearing fruit,and development of Crash Landing appears tohave begun in earnest in 2018 amidst anatmosphere of highly favourable public opinionabout the government’s approach towards the

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North (Kim, Kang and Ko 2019; Shin and Moon2 0 1 9 : 3 9 ; B B C 2 0 2 0 ) . T h e a l m o s tunprecedented South Korean optimism aboutrelat ions with i ts neighbour (and anadministration keen to foster that optimism)played a role in encouraging a drama withNorth Korean settings and an attitude ofsympathy towards many of its Northerncharacters. Unfortunately, this propitiousclimate did not last, and in 2019 South Korea’srelationship with North Korea experienced amajor downturn; the more usual state oftension had returned before the show receivedan opportunity to crash land on anyone’sscreen.4 The show’s representations and itsvariegated receptions need to be understood,then, in the context of these cycles of anxietyfollowed by relief and raised hopes forimproved relations that are subsequentlydashed.

North Korea in a K-Drama Lens

Although Crash Landing is striking for itsstrenuous efforts to populate North Korea withclearly distinguished, genuine-seeming andeven compelling characters, it inevitably doesso not merely from a Southern perspective, butfrom one situated within a mass entertainmentindustry. The evocative opening sequence thatprovides viewers’ initial encounter with thedrama’s world repays analysis for its divisionsof North and South that invoke contrasts ofsocialism and capitalism, simplicity andsophistication, militarism and consumption.

The first frames present two hands reachingacross to the centre of the screen to pull backcurtains that reveal, in parallel, views outside awindow: a humble cluster of village homes onone side, and a row of sleek high-rises on theother. The camera cuts to a traditional Koreandwelling, and then swiftly rises above its roof,transferring the setting to a panorama of Seoulwith bridges, the Han River and densely

grouped high-rise apartments. The following 20seconds rely largely on a split-screen techniqueto introduce us to the respective Southern andNorthern protagonists, Yun Se-ri and Ri Jeong-hyeok, presenting stark distinctions betweenthem that touch on such primary areas ofcultural expression as food, clothing, shelter,and transportation.5

Nevertheless, although aspects of their nurturespeak to difference, the juxtapositions also hinta t the two as matched in d i l igence ,determination, attentiveness to grooming, andpossessing a solitary nature that will soon bringthem together in a deep bond. Indeed, whenthe pair first relate their full names to eachother, a deep irony presents itself: she is aHaeju Yun, a clan originally from the northernseaside town of Haeju, and he is a Jeonju Ri bylineage, with roots in the southern agriculturalcity Jeonju. The exchange conveys bothinterchangeability and the arbitrariness of fate.Likewise, perhaps the most striking segment ofthe opening occurs as the two, in their usualattire, walk in their respective home turfstoward the centre of the screen, now split intothree, pass each other in an undeterminedforeign location (Zurich, to be precise), andthen re-emerge, with Se-ri in North Koreatransformed by simpler clothing into a localresident, and Jeong-hyeok now in the South, adapper local. The ease of the transformationnot only foreshadows the ability of each toadapt in the other’s country but also highlightsdestiny’s mysterious workings.

Like many Korean dramas, Crash Landingtakes knowing pleasure in its own fable-likequalities and campier aspects. As we soon learnupon the unfolding of the narrative, Se-ri is achaebol heiress who has independently built aburgeoning fashion empire. Shortly before sheis set to take over stewardship of the familyconglomerate (much against the wishes of herhalf-brothers and their wives), she goesparagliding but is caught in a whirlwind, à laDorothy in The Wizard of Oz and blown to a

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land beyond—the North Korean side of theDemilitarised Zone. The drama pays whimsicalhomage to this cinematic link by depicting abicycle and livestock (as well as a distinctivelyNorth Korean tractor) swept up with Se-ri inthe CGI sequence of the storm. After Se-ricrash lands, she falls from the tree in which sheand her paragliding gear have becomeentangled into the arms of Jeong-hyeok, andtheir first encounter, which blends playfulhumour and a sense of tension, suggesting thechemistry between them. Jeong-hyeok protectsrather than reports her, and over time theirrelationship blossoms into love despite theextraordinary obstacles the pair faces that helpconstitute the drama’s plot.

Jeong-hyeok, as we discover, is the son of thehead of the General Political Department of theKorean People’s Army (chongjeongchigukjang),an extremely powerful position in the NorthKorean hierarchy.6 He is also a gifted pianistand had studied in Basel, Switzerland (aresonant location, given that Kim Jong Unhimself studied in the capital, Bern) and hadonce looked forward to a bright career inmusic. It rapidly becomes clear, however, thatRi’s family is embroiled in the potentially lethalcompetition of elite North Korean politics.Upon the assassination of his older brother,Jeong-hyeok abandons his musical ambitions,returning to North Korea to take up a militaryposition similar to the one his deceased siblingheld.

The idealised portrayal of Jeong-hyeok mergeshigh social status in the North with typicallydesirable traits of masculinity in recent SouthKorean dramas, which grow evident overseveral episodes: unusually fine looks, attentionto appearance, compassion, intelligence,reserved demeanour but emotional sensitivity,and devotion to one true love. This depictiondraws on and recapitulates a striking fad thatemerged in several films of the early 2010s inw h i c h N o r t h K o r e a n s p i e s b e c a m e

sympathetically portrayed as “handsome,daring, patriotic and multilingual elite fighterswho dodge bullets while remaining loyal totheir women and families” (Jung 2013). Morefully over the last decade, the South Koreanpopular imagination has seen a noteworthymove from the longstanding trope of namnambungnyeo (“Southern Man, Northern Woman”),which focuses on imagining matches between agood-looking man from South Korea and anattractive Northern female counterpart, to atendency to treat North Korean menthemselves as compelling, in a trend we mightinstead term bungnam minam (“Northern Man,Handsome Man”). The trend, however, drawson a paradox: North Korean fictional malesbecome appealing not only because they aredepicted as maintaining a dashing idealmasculinity, but because they are actualised byperformance and embodiment from favouredSouthern celebrities. To be sure, much of thebuzz that accompanied Crash Landing arosefrom the casting of Hyun Bin, who had starredin not only My Lovely Sam-soon, Secret Gardenand Memories of the Alhambra, three of SouthKorea’s most successful dramas, but also2017’s Confidential Assignment (Gongjo) as theNorth Korean head of an investigative team.

The approach to North Korea in Crash Landingengages a heteronormative female gaze inawakening romantic longings towards Jeong-hyeok. The high status of both Se-ri and Jeong-hyeok within their societies make them equalsof a sort, but alliance of viewers with theperspective of a South Korean self involves ashift from common past representations of amasculine Southern protagonist taking the leadwith a feminine Other towards its converse.This shift responds to both changing genderroles in South Korean society and recognitionof domestic and global consumption patternsfor drama: recent texts suggest that educated,professional young women (like Se-ri) areseeking (and increasingly finding) moreempowering and gratifying narrativeidentif ications. 7 In this sense, Crash

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Landing also fits comfortably with recentrepresentations of talbukja males visible in aspectrum of cable television entertainmentshows and educational broadcasts in whichthey are treated as having an appealingmasculinity that recalls more traditionalKorean qualities, but eschews authoritarianbehaviour (Epstein and Green 2019).8

As a device to gain viewer attention, then, theportrayal of Jeong-hyeok specifically, and NorthKoreans and North Korea more generally inCrash Landing, tries to accomplish a variety oftasks simultaneously, which do not alwaysneatly come together: the show strives for aromanticised and vaguely exotic hero as anobject of fantasy, but then seeks to render thecountry as a concrete and realistic backdropand humanise its populace, al l whilstaccentuating North Korea’s idiosyncraticaspects for dramatic effect. In its first half,Crash Landing takes Se-ri as a lone female andplaces her, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz,with a set of lovable, if less commanding, malecompanions in the form of Ri’s platoon ofsoldiers, who attempt to return her home andprotect her against powerful evil forces in aforeign land. In doing so, the show offers apotent set of quasi-mythical elements.

Simultaneously, however, Se-ri’s shock atsuddenly becoming a stranger in a strange landat the end of Episode 1 elicits frightening andviscerally powerful features that point topolitical realities: the absence of electricity inthe dark village that Se-ri finds herself in marksit as backward, as does a man leading an oxwho passes her with a blank, arguably fearful,expression. The calisthenics that the villagersengage in shortly thereafter may strike some asa welcome collective gathering; others, whoidentify with Se-ri as an onlooker here, mayfind them regimented and unnerving. Likewise,the children who set off for school in lockstepwhile singing a pro-regime song, evoke apalpable atmosphere of totalitarianism. Se-ri isnot in Kansas—or Gangnam—anymore.

“It’s Grim Up North”?

But Crash Landing seeks to be relatively even-handed in its portrayals, and, as such, Se-ri’sinitial shock at the society in which she hascrash landed soon yields to curiosity. A scenefrom Episode 2 typifies how the show attemptsto bring North Korea to life for its urbanSouthern audiences and make the countrycompel l ing (a tact ic that a lso led tocontroversy, as we discuss below).

Together with Se-ri, nominally cosmopolitanbut ignorant of Korean traditions, viewers seemeat kept in a salt crock so that it won’t spoiland are then led to a dug-out kimchi cellar,with which Se-ri is unfamiliar. She does noteven recognise the term for it, gimchium. WhenCorporal Kim Ju-meok of Ri’s troop unitexpresses surprise that she doesn’t know it, Se-ri exclaims that of course she does not(moreuji!); a subtitled gloss makes clear theexpectation that South Korea’s domesticaudience will be similarly unaware. Se-ri reactswith delight as Ju-meok explains that the cellarnot only prevents the food from going bad, butallows it to ferment in especially tasty fashion.She perceives the traditional method as“organic” and “hip,” and her use of the twoEnglish words leaves her interlocutor lookingpuzzled. North Korean underdevelopment hereis refashioned into trendiness in an era of slowfood and entreaties to return to sustainabilityand simplicity.

Likewise, as Ri roasts meat over a charcoalbriquette, Geum Eun-dong, the sweetlyinnocent youngest member of his corps,marvels because he has never seen a briquettebefore, having only used fallen twigs and weedsfor fuel in his village. Ri offers a bit ofcompassionate modernising discourse,promising that Eun-dong’s village will soonhave briquettes as well, not unlike SouthKorean films of the late 1960s such as School

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Excursion (Suhak yeohaeng), in which urbanresidents encourage belief in the spread ofdevelopment nationally.9 Se-ri, sophisticate thatshe is, can scarcely believe what she hears; hersmirk, as she muses how advanced a gasburner would seem, provokes an exasperatedsigh from Ri. However, the tables are soonturned, and it is Se-ri’s turn to marvel when shediscovers the deliciousness of “clam bulgogi,”which Jeong-hyeok and his men cook by placingthe shellfish on the ground and setting itaflame with petrol.

Se-ri comes to admire much that she finds inthe North as she appears to engage with amore authentic version of herself. Conversely,though, much is made of the North’s fondnessfor South Korean popular culture, andencounters with its presence titillate and flatterthe domestic South Korean audience, who areencouraged to see their own desirability inNorthern eyes. While overplayed, CrashLanding does reflect media consumption inNorth Korea, with one study suggesting that upto 88% of defectors accessed “forbiddenforeign media” prior to departure (Lee 2019:96-7).10 The presence even serves as a plotdevice: in the first episode Ju-meok misses Se-risneaking past his guard post because he isengrossed in watching the Southern dramaStairway to Heaven. He later bonds with her,eager for information on plotlines. Uponinitially bidding farewell from North Korea, Se-ri offers him as a gift a choice between thetelevision in the room (which, comically, in factbelongs to Ri) and a lunch date with Choi Ji-woo, star of Stairway to Heaven, whenunification occurs or he finally arrives in Seoul.His preference for the seemingly unlikely latterforeshadows Choi’s cameo appearance inEpisode 13, which playfully reconstitutes theiconic scene that Corporal Kim had beenwatching. Similarly, in Episode 7, Se-ri exploitsNorthern fascination with Southern popularculture to ingratiate herself with a young fan ofK-pop boy band BTS, who designates herself“the biggest A,R,M,Y. in North Korea.” Her

humorous citation of the name of the group’sinternational fan club dubiously suggestsknowledge of internet and fandom culture, aswell as the incongruity of the term in the highlymilitarised state.

Crash Landing sets before the audience a wideswath of contemporary North Korea, portrayingmen and women, husbands and wives, parentsand children, as well as rivalries andfriendships of multiple hues, structures ofpower and social mores. The drama shows aspectrum of Northern values, evoking, forexample, a deep sense of filiality, as Eun-dongwells up with tears while reading a letter fromhis mother, or we witness Jeong-hyeok interactwith his infrequently seen parents. A finaldinner before Ri is discharged from the army totry to revive his music career becomes anopportunity to celebrate North Korea’smaintenance of jeong, a key emotion in SouthKorean discourse, which highlights a sense ofaffection regarded as marking Korea’straditional ethnic identity. Same-sex solidaritycomes to the fore as the village women circlethe wagons around Se-ri when they feel she hasbeen wronged by Jeong-hyeok in Episode 6. AsSe-ri is urged to pull a rival’s hair in a fight, shemuses to herself in an amusing aside that “wereally are the same minjok (ethnos), after all.”

North Korea’s curiosities, as seen through aSouthern lens, provide opportunities fordisplays of local foibles but also glimpses intothe North’s mushrooming entrepreneurialenergy: a night-time household inspection(sukbak geomyeol) humorously turns up asmuggled South Korean rice cooker in onehome, and an adulterer, hiding under hislover’s bed, in another. The errant husbandpleads loneliness as a result of his wife’slengthy absences as a tradeswoman, whichpoints to North Korea’s own changing genderdynamics as women take a much larger role inmarket sector economic activities, but the self-criticism session that he faces reminds viewersof coercive social controls still in place.

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Local colour appears further with small-townmarketplace vendors and hair salons, and thedepartment stores and eating establishments ofPyeongyang. A bargaining taxi driver, adamantthat the desired destination of Seo Dan, towhom Jeong-hyeok is betrothed, is too far, thejourney too rough and the possibility of areturn fare nil, refuses to take her until heroffered price reaches a point that makes himsuccumb. The contrast of the two in the car asthe driver sings along with gusto to a regimesong and Seo Dan tunes him out with classicalmusic on headphones suggests social divides inthe country.11 Seo Dan’s mother herselfbecomes a comic figure for her nouveau richetrappings as a member of North Korea’smerchant class seeking to be cosmopolitan butfailing, a mother as concerned for her family’sstatus as her daughter’s happiness. Her lack ofsophist icat ion, even as a member ofPyongyang’s elite, resonates with a SouthKorean tendency to consider Northerners asbumpkins (chonseureopda).

Other particulars represent the hardships ofdaily life, from a lack of supplies in hospitals tothe poverty that forces people into lawlessness.We encounter petty thieves of various stripes:marketplace pickpockets, beggar children whopilfer clothes from rural washing lines andwindshield wiper thieves at Pyongyang’sinternational airport. Greater complexity arisesin portraying good people trapped within aninhumane system: among the drama’s mostcompelling characters is “the Rat,” a wiretapoperator who straddles the murky dividebetween the North Korean regime and itspeople. The Rat is haunted by grief when hehas no choice but to pass on crucial informationthat facilitates the assassination of Ri Jeong-hyeok’s brother, one of the few people who hasbeen kind to him.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, as a drama, CrashLanding also foists upon the audiencecharacters who appear almost unremittinglyevil and become ready targets of hatred, such

as Jo Cheol-gang, linked to North Korea’sdetested intelligence services, who sets out todestroy Ri’s family for personal gain. However,the show insists that evil is not confined tonorth of the 38th parallel: Se-ri’s siblings andsisters-in-law, all of sharp-elbowed chaebolstock, mirror their Northern counterparts inruthless competitiveness, insatiable greed andwillingness to abuse power. Alliances ofcommon humanity (and inhumanity) arepresented that cut across the North/Southdivide in defiance of a simplistic anti-communist or anti-capitalist frame.

Glamorising North Korea?

Although the detailed and diverse portrait ofNorth Korea has driven much of the interest inCrash Landing, i t has also promptedcontroversy. Early news of the drama and itsgeneral concept stirred anticipation, given astrong cast that again brought together HyunBin and Son Ye-jin, co-stars in the 2018 filmHyeopsang (The Negotiation), and a productionteam that included Park Ji-eun. However, bythe time of the show’s release, the changedtenor of inter-Korean relations made mediadiscussion more ambivalent. Director Yi Jeong-h y o h a d u r g e d a u d i e n c e s(https://www.bbc.com/korean/international-51171771) in a pre-broadcast press conference toaccept North Korea as a backdrop to theprotagonists’ romance and a situationalelement for fun, but his request largely fell ondeaf ears, and reviewers (An 2019; Yi 2019)were explicit: although the drama receivedpositive responses (hopyeong), it alsooccasioned discomfort (bulpyeon).

Media coverage took particular note of Episode2, broadcast on December 15, as problematic indepicting North Korean society (Oh 2019).Some commentators argued (Gang 2019; Yi2019) that although viewers might wish to treatthe show as escapist drama, the timing of itsrelease amidst uncertainty over whether Kim

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Jong Un would follow through on rhetoric aboutdelivering a “Christmas present” (feared toportend a destabilising missile test, but in facta policy change articulated in a party plenumspeech) willy-nilly forced consciousness ofrea l i ty upon the publ ic . Under suchcircumstances, it was suggested that having aNorthern elite soldier as protagonist, no matterhow chivalrous, kind and handsome, becameuncomfortable for many, and the prevailingatmosphere made it difficult to accept theexhortation to simply watch a drama as adrama. Indeed, Mun Ji-yeon, in an article forS p o r t s C h o s u n(https://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2020/02/03/2020020302975.html), a tabloidassociated with the conservative Chosun Ilbo,published as Crash Landing was approachingits finale, claims, with no obvious evidencebeyond her own convictions, that the dramaonly shook off controversy and achieved asnowballing viewership by inserting increasingreminders of the regime’s brutality.

Negative attention for Crash Landing reachedits zenith when the show became embroiled inSouth Korea’s combative domestic politics.Three weeks into the broadcast, the minorChristian Liberal Party (gidokjayudang,henceforth CLP) issued a statement criticisingtvN for its “glamorisation” (mihwa) of the rebelNorth Korean authorities (Dong 2020). The CLPeven asserted that the show violated SouthKorea’s anti-communist security law.12 In astrictly legal sense, the CLP was correct: the1948 National Security Act makes praise(chanyang) or propaganda (seonjeon) for NorthKorea a crime under any circumstances,13 andthe drama’s portrayal of certain elements ofdaily life in North Korea, especially traditionalones, could be regarded as favourable. Butmany other television programmes, fromdramas and variety shows to educationalbroadcasts, have painted ordinary NorthKoreans and aspects of North Korea in aneutral or even positive light, and, as noted, theoverall portrait that emerges in Crash Landing

does not glamorise the North.

Thus, the drama’s possible violation of SouthKorea’s anti-communist statute hardly explainsthe CLP statement. Though the CLP notes theshow’s popularity with dismay, the primarytarget of the statement is clearly the Moonadministration itself, which it improbablyaccuses of sedition. “Nobody calls North Koreathe main enemy now,” it laments, pointedlyreferring to the debate over the validity ofdesignating North Korea as South Korea’s mainenemy (jujeok) that resurfaces whenever theMinistry of National Defence publishes a whitepaper. The statement ends by accusing theMoon administration and only secondarily tvNof wrongdoing. The CLP was thereforedeploying Crash Landing as a weapon in thebattle over incumbent President Moon Jae-in’sleadership, especially his administration’sNorth Korea policy. Its vociferous denunciationin 2020, amidst resumption of antagonisticinter-Korean relations, to a drama thatresponds to a high point of engagement isunsurprising. The more noteworthy aspect ofthe furore is the way the CLP statementunderscores the rising salience of, andcontestation over, representations of NorthKorea and North Koreans not only in SouthKorean politics and society generally, but inSouth Korean popular culture.

Talbukja Responses

W e h a v e d i s c u s s e d e l s e w h e r e t h edisproportionate role of North Korean defectorsin the South Korean imagination, and how thetalbukja community has taken advantage ofdevelopments in media technology to engageeffectively in self-broadcast (Epstein & Green2019). Several of its members have nowuploaded to YouTube assessments of CrashLanding, some attracting hundreds ofthousands of views. As Yun In-gyeong (2020)notes in an article for the BBC, a YouTubesearch for Crash Landing on You in the eyes of

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North Korean defectors (“talbungmin-i bonsarang-ui bulsichak”) yields dozens of videos.Even those that have drawn less attentionremain of interest given the role that talbukjaplay in framing North Korea for those outsidethe DPRK.

The most viewed such clip, with almost 600,000views by the show’s completion in mid-February, comes from Kang Nara. Kang rose toprominence as a guest on the reality showNamnam bungnyeo (Ormiston 2018; Kim andYoon 2019) and now regularly appears onYontongTV, a YouTube channel run by YonhapNews’ Unification Media Institute. Her minorcelebrity and behind-the-scenes knowledge ofthe show as a consultant caused hercommentary to also be picked up by Koreaboo(2020), a key website for English-speakingKorean pop culture fans. Kang has thus becomean interpreter of the show at a larger globallevel.14 She laughingly refers to herself as anative speaker (woneomin) of “North Korean”both in her review and another video assessingSouth Korean actors’ linguistic performancesas North Koreans,15 a term that has a slightlysardonic quality given the rhetoric of a singleethnic nation divided. She praises Hyun Bin’sPyongyang accent, while criticising that of SeoJi-hye, the actress who plays Seo Dan. She alsonotes with approval the drama’s use of termsfor “comrade” (dongmu; dongji) and thenostalgia they evoke within her. She commendstoo its vivid depiction of North Koreanmarketplaces (jangmadang) with only minorcriticisms, such as the absence of Kim familybadges on some characters’ lapels.

Other talbukja commentators with clips thathad been viewed over 200,000 times by thetime the show ended include Yu Hyeon-ju, amainstay of the Channel-A show Now on MyWay to Meet You; BJ Ipyeong, perhaps the mostpopular male talbukja self-broadcaster; and LeeHan-song, whose personal YouTube channelhas well over 100,000 subscribers. In acting as

gatekeepers and verifying or rejecting theauthenticity of the drama for non-North Koreanviewers, these talbukja reviewers share severalcharacteristics. Most praise the drama’sconcerted attempts to convey North Koreanlife, citing positively the sets, characterisations,and attention to linguistic detail. Yu offers aspirited defense of the show’s representationsof North Korea, and chides those who insist onblack and white portrayals. Like Kang, shepraises the show’s ability to awaken nostalgiain her . The del ight she expresses atencountering long-unheard North Koreandrinking terms (e.g. jjung naeja and jjiuja,equivalents of “cheers”) make apparent howthe show tugs at defectors’ heart strings.

Talbukja reviewers do, however, criticiseunlikely elements of the plot. Not one thinksthat Ri, given his elite background, would everbe deployed near the inter-Korean border. Leealso notes the implausibility of any NorthKorean sheltering a South Korean given thedanger that doing so would bring, and finds therelative health and attractiveness of the NorthKorean soldiers unrealistic, while Ipyeongregards Hyun Bin’s fashion as too Southern,especially when he appears in a cardigan, anitem of clothing that he never saw in the North.Yet even amidst these critiques lies awarenessthat television dramas aim at entertainmentand are hardly an ideal vehicle for complex andearnest messages about North Korea. Alltherefore accept the occasional lack of realismand the influence of other factors for directorialchoices, as when Lee comments on the beefthat the soldiers barbecue after Se-ri requestsmeat : “Pork wou ld have been morerealistic…but the beef does look delicious!”

Some talbukja, however, viewing the showdifferently, argue that North Korean life shouldnot be taken so lightly. Ordinary non-eliteNorth Koreans suffer greatly, and in thecontext of Korean ethnic nationalism, such

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sufferings become the sufferings of the entirenation. For these viewers, Crash Landing, innot depicting North Korea as unremittinglygrim, is, by definition, inappropriate. Ofparticular note in this category is a clipuploaded to YouTube by Kang Chol-hwan, theco-author of The Aquariums of Pyongyang, apopular account of his imprisonment in a NorthKorean labour camp. Kang now heads an NGOhastening to bring down the Kim regime in partby smuggling external media into North Koreaon USB sticks. As Kang speaks, subtitles withthe NGO’s bank account detai ls seeksupporters and donations as they proclaim amission: “Using the power of outsideinformation to bring down Kim Jong Un’sdictatorial regime.”

Kang rebukes the production team of CrashLanding on the grounds that treating NorthKorea lightly is never acceptable. In commoncause with the religious conservatives of theCLP, Kang feels that the show idealises lifethere. He does, however, note with ironic self-awareness his pleasure at the representation ofNorth Korean males as attractive, especiallythrough the portrayal of Hyun Bin, which hementions no fewer than three times in the briefclip. Nonetheless, for Kang, Crash Landing hassacrificed principle for commercial success andconveys a false impression of the country. Heargues that despite the popularity of SouthKorean dramas in North Korea the show wouldnot resonate with viewers there, because itdoes not speak meaningfully to their situation,and compares it unfavourably with the 2014blockbuster film Ode to My Father (Gukjeshijang). Kang asserts that both defectors andNorth Koreans find the latter appealingbecause of historical passages that show SouthKoreans living in conditions that in somesenses resemble North Korea today.

Kang’s denunciation of Crash Landinghighlights the diversity of opinion among thegrowing community of talbukja, confounding

presumptions of homogeneity and showingtheir varied concerns about perceptions of theNorth. Some talbukja are content to regard thetext from a distance and do not expect faithfulreproduction of reality, while those mostconcerned with North Korea’s human rightsabuses treat the country with utmostseriousness. The ratings for Crash Landing,meanwhile, suggest that most viewers,domestically and globally, accept the show’spremise within the suspension of disbelief thatromantic comedy requires and enjoy theunusual setting as something to be savouredand observed closely.

International Responses

What noteworthy features have arisen in howoverseas viewers react to Crash Landing, giventhe issues raised for domestic audiences? Theembedding of South Korean popular culture ininterwoven webs of contested reception hasbeen a striking feature of the world’smovement to ever more interconnected mediap r o d u c t i o n , c o n s u m p t i o n a n d p o pcosmopolitanism (Lee 2018). By the end of the1990s, dramas had become a key component inthe growing popularity of South Korea’scultural products around East Asia, and by the2000s were being licensed internationally andachieving surprising successes, from, e.g., thephenomenon of Winter Sonata in Japan to thepopularity of historical dramas Dae Jang Geumand Jumong in Iran, both of which garneredlocal viewer ratings of over 85% (Kang 2016).

These developments have continued apace, andwith the rise of streaming services like Hulu,Viki and now especially Netflix, which hassigned contracts with Korean companies for theproduction of original series (Lee 2020),Korean dramas have well and truly entered theglobal cultural mainstream. As YouTube userDeemalovesdrama notes in a review of CrashLanding, the arrival of Netflix as a platform hashad an enormous impact upon her watching

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experience; the vastly improved image qualitybrings further life to the enjoyment of onlineaudiences.

The presence of Korean dramas on Netflix hasgiven the genre a further push amidst thecoronavirus crisis as housebound viewersacross the globe looked online for new content,and Crash Landing has been by far its mostnoteworthy beneficiary. Although viewershipdata from Netflix has been difficult to obtain(Katz 2019), in February 2020 the show heldthe top spot on Netflix in the Philippines, and inMay 2020 in Japan (MBN 2020); one sourcecites it as the 3rd most watched show on Netflixin March 2020 in the US (Ockoala 2020). As analternate metric for the relative success of itsoverseas audience and the level of engagement,as of June 1, 2020, Crash Landing on You hadsome 11,600 viewer ratings on Google, fivetimes as many as its nearest competitor amongKorean dramas, World of the Married (availableon Viu through much of Asia, but not onNetflix) with 2250 reviews, and in contrast toroughly 1800 for Kingdom, 1000 forDescendants of the Sun and 400 for Sky Castle,other notably popular Korean dramasinternationally.

To be sure, the intriguing subject matter ofCrash Landing and the glimpses it offered intoNorth Korea early on played a key role inattracting viewers in typical Hallyu targetmarkets around Asia such as the Sinophonelocales of Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong andthe PRC Mainland itself, and Southeast Asiannations like the Philippines, Indonesia,Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand. Mediaarticles, especially as the show moved towardsits finale attested to its broad regional success.Much commentary on the show evaluated itpositively, and the combination of favourablereview and reporting on a phenomenon to betaken note of undoubtedly fuelled furtheraudience growth. Journalists from around theregion regularly pointed to interest in the

depiction of North Korea, with a nod to theemotive qualities that the show engaged, as forexample a Straits Times’ piece that quoted aSingaporean fan on how the show awakenedawareness “of the sadness and longing thatKoreans who have family or friends on theother side of the DMZ…must be feeling” (Kiewand Low 2020). Such media reviews oftenconvey a local flavour in their invocation ofshared, transnational consumption that linksviewers to the region’s popular culturesuperpower, as in the following comment fromonline Philippines news website Rappler:“Everyone from your best friend, to yourneighbor, to your tita, to your doctor, and evento your doctor’s secretary is obsessed withSouth Korea's latest television hit, CrashLanding On You.” (Adan 2020).

Many viewers took notice of Crash Landing as acultural phenomenon, which generated furtherinterest. Currently, Crash Landing still carriesa striking 5.0 rating among its Google reviews,and several commenters make a directdeclaration of the show’s popularity in theircountry. In part, such statements mark theauthor’s own engagement with the show, butthey also indicate a desire to situate their ownnation within a global community that is linkedto the Korean Peninsula. Several, whetherhyperbolically or not, rate Crash Landing as thebest (and at times first) Korean drama they hadever watched, such as the top Google review,which has been liked over 500 times, from userVarsha ranu kh, whose LinkedIn profileindicates 30-something woman working indigital media in Mumbai: “Best best best show!I have got so many of my Indian friendsaddicted to this show! It's flawless! Whatchemistry!! It's like u r in a dream! Imaginehaving Hyun bin character in real!” Theeffervescent approval testifies to the drama’sspread in a major country in which a significantpart of the population now accesses Koreanproductions through English subtitles.

Certainly, although international viewers were

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fascinated with the window into life in NorthKorea, because they live outside the directconsequences and impacts of the KoreanPeninsula’s political realities, as the abovecomment indicates, their reactions to the showoften differ. In particular, long-time followers ofKorean dramas as a subcultural genre oftenfocus on the stars involved, the chemistrybetween the leads, and textual aspects of theshow itself and how they relate to conventionsof K-dramas. Popular fan fora on the show,such as that of Soompi, one of the largest andlongest-running internet websites devoted toKorean popular culture, now run to severalhundred pages. A great deal occurs in blogformat, and the 17,600-word review (almosttwice as long as this article) by kfangurl onthefangirlverdict.com, among the more popularKorean drama blogs, serves as a marker ofengagement and fandom. The language typifiesK-drama fan discourse, with multiple usagesthat signal and accentuate in-group identityamong fellow fans:

One thing that Show does really well,is poke fun at drama tropes as awhole, and bring the funny doingthat, while serving up drama tropes inits own story, and bringing the feelswith those. For new drama viewers,this is quite a special two-wayindoctrination. Like, first, let me showyou what’s so cliched about dramatropes, and oh, by the way, this is whyyou’ll love ’em so much: Feeelzzz. Ha.

Many non-Korean fans of South Korean dramaunderstand that the action on screen may notreflect Korean culture accurately, but ratherpresents a fantasy version of it, much asfictional productions from their own countriesdo. As a result, many seek interpreters withi n s i d e r k n o w l e d g e t o a i d i n t h e i rinterpretations of what they are watching(Schulze 2013). In this regard, diasporaKoreans and English-speaking Koreans becomevaluable sources in internet fora and via user-

generated video review, but a level ofcomplication is added with Crash Landing, asviewers are set at an additional remove fromthe South Korea that they are more familiarwith. The YouTube channel Duckhu TV, forexample, presents two young South Koreanwomen who speak enthusiastically about theshow. They serve as intermediaries in havingthe English skills to be able to address a globalaudience directly but recognise that their ownknowledge has limitations. Although one states“I don’t know if international viewers were ableto catch this but some of the actors’ NorthKorean accent sounded so legit,” the pairimmediately call themselves back andrecognise that, in this case, their sense oflegitimacy is not the same as that of a talbukja.

In a Twitter thread, Subin Kim, the author of aBBC World Service article on the show, hadasked if his followers had questions for hisupcoming interview with a member of theshow’s writing team, a North Korean defectorwhom Kim described as “the one who broughtsuch compelling details on the life and socio-political structure of North Korea.”16 His tweetreceived over 13,000 likes and almost 3000retweets and hundreds of comments, manyexpressing curiosity about the show’sauthenticity and the extent to which variousdetails reflected the defector’s own experience.Amidst their specific queries, many paused tocomment on the quality of the drama and theirenjoyment, again often declaring nationalorigin. Comments arrived not only in Englishbut in Spanish and Indonesian, and from fellowjournalists and academics. Kim, evidentlyoverwhelmed at the response, himselfcommented in an interaction with a followerfrom the Philippines: “What an era we're livingin in which we can talk about an ongoing TVshow three thousand kilometers away!” And,indeed, there is something exciting about thecreation of new global cross-culturalcommunities via technological platforms thatremain relatively new and the role of South

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Korea as a nation that has moved from theperiphery to the centre of popular cultureproduction. At the same time, Crash Landingalso demonstrates that the North Koreanexperience has been co-opted and transformedinto a bankable commodity that functions as anelement of Hallyu and the expansion of SouthKorean soft power.

Conclusion

Like the metropolitan Seoul housing market,Hallyu continues to defy predictions ofdeclining value, and has gone from strength tostrength in recent years. From the historicOscar awards for Parasite to the successes ofK-pop groups like Blackpink and BTS , whoseARMY fan club recently made news with itsmillion-dollar contribution to the Black LivesMatter movement (Kwon et al. 2020), SouthKorean popular culture continues its spreadand influence. Dramas have long played acrucial role in fostering Hallyu, and their globalreach expands with each passing year. Thesuccess and spread of Crash Landing drawsupon developments in which high-qualitystreaming services like Netflix take up SouthKorean content and encourage viewer-determined binge watching of subtitledversions (Ju 2019), as became even moreapparent with the coronavirus crisis. Theresulting eager international audience speaksto changing patterns in media consumption anda level of awareness of Korean culturalproducts that is growing unabated and nowmakes them a central component of the globalentertainment industry.17

But a K-drama set in North Korea is not able toexist solely as part of a cosmopolitan culturalmainstream. Crash Landing reflects a set ofcomplex political phenomena. It entersinternational circulation as both an instrumentof soft power and as a contested text thatresponds to social change, geopolitics, andcultural consumption, as wel l as the

predilections of multiple discrete audiences.The show’s representations and their domesticreception reflect the fortuitous and yet alsonecessarily difficult timing of the show’screation and release: sketched out by itsproducers amidst unprecedented excitementover inter-Korean relations, the ultimatelyshort-lived nature of this optimism means thatthe product at times appears incongruous.

Regardless, and in spite of determined, albeitfringe, opposition at home, Crash Landing canbe perhaps considered the fullest, most varied,and even most sensitive portrayal of NorthKorea yet seen in South Korean popularculture. Many viewers will readily perceive agulf in the portrayal of North Korea in CrashLanding with that of Hollywood films such asThe Interview, which persist in one-dimensional, demeaning and Orientalisingrepresentations. Crash Landing recognises thatNorth Koreans may generally be poor and lifemay be harsh, but strives to avoid stale tropessuch as empty boulevards, goose-steppingsoldiers and military parades with mocknuclear warheads. The show notes thepresence of shortages from consumer productsto hospital supplies, that blackouts are aregular occurrence and that food is simple fare.But it also acknowledges that few are trulyhungry, though they exist, too, as a pair ofbeggar siblings in the marketplace attest. Weencounter Pyongyang residents, and not justthe highest elite, in department stores, coffeeshops and beer halls rather than on the streetswaving flags hysterically for passing membersof the Kim family. While geopolit icalmanoeuvring beyond the show’s control mayhave diluted the impact of its pedagogicalinclinations, Crash Landing succeeds onmultiple levels as an entertaining, well-madedrama with a subtly educational mission, eveni f i t u l t imate ly revea l s more aboutcontemporary South Korean understandings ofNorth Korea than North Korean life itself.18

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Yi, Jeong-hyeon. (2019).흥행과 불편함은 별개?‘ 사 랑 의 불 시 착(https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20191224126800005) [The difference between performanceand discomfort? Crash Landing on You.].Yonhap News, 25 December.

Yi, We Jung. (2018). Melodramatic Tactics forSurvival in the Neoliberal Era: Excess andJustice in The Heirs and My Love from the Star.Journal of Korean Studies 23.1: 153-173.

Yoon, Sunny. (2019). South Korean MediaReception and Youth Culture in North Korea. InSouth Korean Popular Culture and NorthKorea, ed. by Youna Kim. London and NewYork: Routledge, pp. 120–131.

Yun, In-gyeong. (2020). 사랑의 불시착: 드라마에등장한 북한 모습은 실제와 얼마나 비슷할까(https://www.bbc.com/korean/international-51171771) [Crash Landing on You: How Close toReality is the Show’s Portrayal of NorthKorea?] BBC Korea, 20 January.

Associate Professor Stephen Epstein directs the Asian Languages and Cultures Programmeat Victoria University of Wellington. His research and publications focus on contemporaryKorean society and popular culture and he has translated several works of Korean andIndonesian fiction. Recent books include The Korean Wave: A Sourcebook, co-edited with YunMi Hwang (Academy of Korean Studies Press, 2016) and his translation of IntanParamaditha’s novel The Wandering: A Red Shoes Adventure (Harvill Secker, 2020). His co-edited volume with Rumi Sakamoto, Popular Culture and the Transformation of Japan-KoreaRelations (Routledge) will appear in July 2020. He has also co-produced two documentarieson the Korean underground music scene with Timothy Tangherlini (Our Nation: a KoreanPunk Rock Community, 2001; Us and Them: Korean Indie Rock in a K-pop World, 2014) andserved as the 2013-14 president of the New Zealand Asian Studies Society.

Associate Professor Stephen J. Epstein is the Director of the Asian Studies Programme at theVictoria University of Wellington and the current president of the New Zealand Asian StudiesSociety. He has published widely on contemporary Korean society, popular media andliterature and has translated numerous works of Korean and Indonesian fiction. Recent full-length publications include Complicated Currents: Media Flows, Soft Power and East Asia, avolume co-edited with Alison Tokita and Daniel Black, which appeared on Monash UniversityPublications in 2010, and novel translations The Long Road by Kim In-suk (MerwinAsia, 2010)and Telegram by Putu Wijaya (Lontar Foundation, 2011). - See more at:http://japanfocus.org/-Christopher-Green/4007#sthash.ojfIcGn

Christopher Green is a lecturer in Korean Studies at Leiden University. He has publishedwidely on North and South Korean culture, economy, ideology, media and politics. Recentpublications include the co-edited Change and Continuity in North Korean Politics (Routledge,2017) and co-authored ‘Who should be admitted: a conjoint analysis of South Korean attitudes

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toward immigrants(https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1468796820916609?journalCode=etna),’upcoming in Ethnicities. His next co-edited volume, Decoding the Sino-North KoreanBorderlands is forthcoming on Amsterdam University Press. Christopher has also served asSenior Advisor for the Korean Peninsula at International Crisis Group, and Manager ofInternational Affairs for the Daily NK, which reports news about North Korea obtained via anetwork of trained citizen journalists inside the country.

Notes1 In May 2020, Crash Landing on You was surpassed by JTBC’s World of the Married, andcurrently has the third highest audience share rating.2 For a more detailed discussion of this term, see Epstein and Green (2013).3 For example, Quebec City in Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (Dokkaebi, 2016),Granada in Memories of the Alhambra (Alhambeura gungjeon-ui chueok, 2018-19), Havana inEncounter (Namja chingu, 2018-19) and even the imaginary war-torn country Uruk inDescendants of the Sun, as discussed by Flamm (2018). 4 Even so, in early 2020, after Crash Landing had completed its run, Park Ji-eun, the show’shighly regarded scriptwriter, author of some of South Korea’s most successful dramas (MyLove from the Stars; My Husband Got a Family), was designated Person of the Year by theUnification Ministry in South Korea for her contribution to “unification education” (Sulimanand Kim 2020). 5 We first encounter the two preparing themselves for the day ahead with Jeong-hyeokshaving, and Se-ri carefully applying make-up. Upon departing their homes, Jeong-hyeok, inNorthern military uniform, drives a jeep, whereas Se-ri is chauffeured in the back seat of asedan going through files: a successful businesswoman. At their desks, Jeong-hyeok sitsamong a stack of documents, the North Korean flag prominently displayed at his side, andportraits of ruling dynasty figures behind him. In contrast, Se-ri sits at a desktop computer,its large monitor embossed with a designer emblem, in bright, airy surroundings. Shots thenshow each alone at the table: Jeong-hyeok consumes traditional local fare in plain white bowlswith a spoon, while Se-ri wields a fork and knife as she eats a variety of aestheticallypresented Western-style dishes. Jeong-hyeok drinks from a simple cup, perhaps holding wateror barley tea, as Se-ri accompanies her meal with a glass of red wine. Jeong-hyeok, departingwork, strides past a propaganda poster and buildings that imply a low level of development,while Se-ri, sporting expensively tailored business attire, passes high-end clothing andaccessories shops.6 The position of chongjeongchigukjang has in recent years been filled by such prominentfigures as Hwang Pyong So and Choe Ryong Hae. After the term appeared in Crash Landing,it trended in South Korean search engines. (See, e.g., Joongang Ilbo, December 18, 2019.)Such a pedigree for Ri undermines the realism of Crash Landing’s depictions of North Korea.Thae Yong-ho, the former deputy head of the DPR Korean embassy in London, and now aprominent talbukja elected to public office in South Korea’s April 2020 legislative elections,noted in a newspaper column that the son of the chongjeongchigukjang would certainly notserve near the DMZ (Thae 2020). As a bachelor, Ri would also not receive standalone housing,

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much less the relatively comfortable lodgings that he occupies in Crash Landing.7 An article in Vogue Japan (Jibu 2020) notes that a key reason for Crash Landing’s successthere is that Jeong-hyeok functions as a post-#MeToo era hero, complementing Se-ri as anindependent and successful careerwoman.8 One might contrast the immaculately groomed but despicable second brother or Se-ri’sgood-hearted but meek, subservient and disheveled underlings.9 For School Excursion, see here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gASqHr8g208).10 It is impossible to ascertain accurate viewing numbers for the North Korean population as awhole (as opposed to those who defect), but according to Kretchun and Kim (2012), a“substantial, consistently measurable portion of the population has direct access to outsidemedia.” Five years later, Kretchun et al. (2017) found a “continued broadening and deepeningof media access in North Korea during the Kim Jong Un era.” At least some North Koreansare likely to seek out Crash Landing despite risks in doing so. 11 The driver sings “Daehongdan Potato” (Daehongdan gamja), whose lyrics tout the virtues ofpotatoes as an alternative to rice for a population suffering from food shortages.12 Article Three of the Republic of Korea’s constitution stakes a claim to the territory of theentire Korean peninsula. Accordingly, the North Korean regime is officially regarded as arebel occupier.13 For the wording of the National Security Law, see here (http://www.law.go.kr/국가보안법)and in English (https://elaw.klri.re.kr/eng_service/lawView.do?hseq=26692&lang=ENG).14 Kang notes that she served as a consultant for Crash Landing, and her name appears in theshow’s credits. Several other prominent defectors, including Kang Mi Jin of specialist mediaDaily NK, are also listed as consultants.15 Source here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2W2BKAzoXM).16 Source here(https://apjjf.org/admin/site_manage/details/%20https:/twitter.com/subinbkim/status/1227403079303168000?s=21).17 In this regard, it is worth reflecting how such developments affect our work as researchers:not long ago we’d have either needed to wait for a DVD release or use streaming sites ofdubious quality and/or legality. Now, the challenges with a 16-episode drama are finding thetime to watch it in its entirety and, as we work from home amidst family and the radicalchanges that have been induced by the pandemic, opportunities and space to write. 18 We would like to express our appreciation to Patrick Flamm, Roald Maliangkay, SokeelPark, Rumi Sakamoto, Jacco Zwetsloot and especially Marion Schulze for reading earlierdrafts of this essay and offering useful feedback that has helped improve it substantially.