Cross-border love story smashes South Korea TV ratings

<div class=”artSplitter mol-img-group”> <div> <div class=”image-wrap”> </div> <noscript> </noscript> </div> <p class=”imageCaption”>A tvN handout from the drama korea terbaru 2021 series “Crash Landing on You” starring actress Son Ye-jin and actor Hyun Bin</p> </div> <p>South Korea’s biggest current television hit is a surreally unlikely tale of a billionaire heiress who accidentally paraglides into the North and falls in love with a chivalrous army officer serving Kim Jong Un.</p> <p>”Crash Landing on You” is unashamedly fantastical in its plotlines, but has drawn praise for its portrayal of everyday life in the North, even down to accents and words.</p> <p>The division of the peninsula is a regular theme in K-drama and K-movies, but it is unusual for so much of a show to be set in the North — in both Pyongyang and the countryside — and defectors have complimented its accuracy.</p> <p>Portraits of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung and his son and successor Kim Jong Il — father of the current leader — appear on the walls of every home, with propaganda slogans in the streets of the set.</p> <p>The crew included a writer and an actress from the North: “I felt like I was actually back in a North Korean village,” said Kim A-ra, who played a villager.</p> <p>The 16-part series reaches its climax on cable network tvN this weekend.</p> <p>”It changed the stereotypes on North Korea and candidly showed that it too is a place where people live,” said Yun Suk-jin, a professor at Chungnam National University.</p> <div class=”artSplitter mol-img-group”> <div> <div class=”image-wrap”> </div> <noscript> </noscript> </div> <p class=”imageCaption”>South Korea’s biggest current television hit is a fantastical tale of a billionaire heiress who accidentally paraglides into the North and falls in love with a chivalrous army officer</p> </div> <p>It is also a manifestation of how tensions have eased on the peninsula, where fears of war in 2017 were replaced by a rapid diplomatic thaw and a series of summits, although the process is now stalled.</p> <p>”The series wouldn’t even have been planned and produced under heightened tensions,” Yun added.

“Even if it was, it would not have been well received.”</p> <p>- On your bike -</p> <p>The story opens with the beautiful heiress to a South Korean business empire being swept up by a tornado while paragliding, and crashing on the wrong side of the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone.</p> <p>She meets a handsome North Korean soldier — the son of a top military general — and the two fall in love as he hides and protects her.</p> <p>It is a vanishingly implausible scenario in a one-party state where intruders are jailed and disloyalty heavily punished.</p> <p>Even more surreally, after she returns South the hero and several comrades slip across the DMZ and into Seoul undetected to save her from a villain.</p> <div class=”artSplitter mol-img-group”> <div> <div class=”image-wrap”> </div> <noscript> </noscript> </div> <p class=”imageCaption”>”Crash Landing on You” is unashamedly fantastical in its plotlines, but has drawn praise for its portrayal of everyday life in the North, even down to accents and words</p> </div> <p>But viewers have been fascinated by the villagers’ humble lifestyles — the neighbours remain technically at war, with any contact between their citizens banned.</p> <p>In one scene, a woman places a plastic bag over her bath to keep the water warm for longer.

In another, a resident pedals vigorously on a bicycle-powered generator after a blackout to keep the television on.</p> <p>South Korean fans found it humorous, but defector Han Song-ee was reminded of frequent power cuts in her homeland.</p> <p>”Every home has a pedal power generator in North Korea,” Han said in a YouTube video.
“I cried watching the scene.”</p> <p>- ‘Pure fantasy’ -</p> <p>The series portrays North Koreans as being well-disposed towards the South. On a visit to a jangmadang — an informal but increasingly widespread and tolerated black market in the North — a vendor tells the heiress her company’s cosmetics are among her most sought-after items.</p> <p>One North Korean soldier is a fervent fan of Southern dramas and secretly watches the forbidden clips even when on duty, while a Northern teenager uses the latest Southern slang.</p> <p>Thae Yong Ho, a former senior North Korean diplomat who defected to the South in 2016, said: “One thing for sure is that if this TV series is smuggled into North Korea, it will be hugely popular.”</p> <p>Some critics have accused “Crash Landing on You” of peddling propaganda for the North, with a small right-wing group seeking a criminal investigation.</p> <p>The Christian Liberty Party accused the producers of glorifying North Korean soldiers, who in real life were an enemy that “point their guns and knives at us”.</p> <p>But the series has the crucial ingredients for commercial success of big-budget production values and a star-studded cast, led by Hyun Bin playing the officer and Son Ye-jin the heiress.</p> <p>Most fans appeared not to be thinking “too deeply” about the Koreas’ division, said professor Yun.</p> <p>Kim Eun-ji, a 33-year-old office worker who has freed up her weekend to catch the finale, said: “It’s pure fantasy.”</p></div>

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