My Data from Another Star
별에서 온 데이터 // 来自星星的数据
By Christina Lin
“Once you overcome the 1-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” -- Bong Joon Ho, director of Parasite.
In February 2020, the South Korean blockbuster Parasite made history as the first non-English-language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. This landmark achievement recognizes not only a singular spectacular film, but the success of an entire entertainment industry and growing Western appreciation of foreign languages and cultures. The rise of Asian cinema has been at least a decade in the making.
dra·ma /ˈdrämə/ (noun) - a serial TV show, usually with a single cohesive story arc and all episodes led by single director and screenwriter. Typically aired on a daily or weekly basis over the course of a predetermined number of episodes. Frequently used in conjunction with their country of origin, such as k-drama, c-drama.
While the silver screen is more critically evaluated, it shares many characteristics and in some ways even trails the trends set by TV shows. Asian TV shows, commonly referred to as dramas, have overcome barriers such as language and accessibility to become increasingly popular in the English-speaking community. Once difficult to find, they are now available with translations via online streaming services such as Netflix and YouTube shortly after they are aired on TV domestically.
MyDramaList (MDL) is an English-language website dedicated to Asian-language shows. As its user base has grown alongside drama viewership, it provides a glimpse into the tastes of an international community.
Subtitles and streaming
MDL ranks its dramas based on a combination of ratings, popularity, and recency. The Top 500 represent the shows that people are watching and enjoying now.
In the last ten years, there is an upward trend in quality and quantity of dramas. Note that the Top 500 favors recent dramas while older dramas need many ratings to rank higher, so while it appears that the quantity of viewers drops after 2018, this can in fact be attributed to MDL’s ranking algorithm and to recent dramas having less time to acquire ratings. The top dramas as ranked by MDL can be considered the current favorite dramas among their users.
In the last three years, there has been a shift towards online streaming. In addition to making existing shows widely available, streaming platforms have begun to produce original Asian dramas. For example, Netflix optioned its first original Korean drama in 2017. Since then, they have partnered with the South Korean cable TV network, tvN, to produce and distribute many Top 500 dramas in the last three years. While tvN has trended upward thanks to its collaboration with streaming networks, other traditional TV networks such as SBS have had fewer hits in the recent years.
