1 Star (out of 4)

Watch Made in Korea on Netflix

The Netflix Original Tamil movie Made in Korea is data-driven filmmaking at its worst. This fish-out-of-water story is an assemblage of scenes lacking a soul.

Shenba (Priyanka Mohan) lives in a small village in Tamil Nadu so remote that she has to stand on the back of an elephant to get a cell signal. She grew up fascinated with tales of an Indian woman who traveled to South Korea and became a queen (based on the legend of Heo Hwang-ok). Despite her love for all things Korean, visiting the country of her dreams seems impossible.

Other people have their own dreams for Shenba. Her father wants her to take over the small family restaurant. Her secret boyfriend Mani (Rishikanth) wants to marry her, but only after he sorts out his financial problems. When Shenba’s family finds a groom for her, she and Mani flee to the city.

Miraculously, Mani secures a job for Shenba at a hotel in Seoul, promising to find work there himself. When Mani fails to board the plane to Korea with her, Shenba learns a horrible truth: Mani bought Shenba’s plane ticket with money her father dropped off for her, and he headed to Mumbai alone with the rest of the cash.

Freshly heartbroken in a city where she knows no one, Shenba discovers her hotel job was a scam. A handsome stranger named Heo Jun-jae (Si-hun Baek) takes pity on her and finds her a job as a caretaker for a sick, elderly woman, Yeon-ok (Park Hye-jin).

Up to this point, sophomore writer-director Ra Karthik is pretty thorough about establishing Shenba’s relationships with the people in her life — particularly those back home, and even her connection with Jun-jae makes sense. But from this point forward, every relationship is speed-run in order to check scenes off a Korean travelogue shot list (perhaps mandated by Netflix itself). Why things happen the way they do with the people they do makes no sense.

Shenba quickly discovers that Yeon-ok is faking her illness as a way to punish her son and daughter-in-law, with whom she lives. Yeon-ok threatens to accuse Shenba of stealing if she reveals her secret, but then immediately decides the young woman is her best friend. She drags Shenba to touristy spots around the city with Jun-jae in tow to document everything. ‘Cause, sure.

Then the woman open a restaurant together, and Shenba organizes a “K-pop” band out of the only other people she’s spoken to in Korea. I’ve never seen an idol group with a violinist, but okay.

There are all kinds of tropey K-drama moments, like the women hiring a part-timer to help with the restaurant, or the band shooting a K-pop-style music video. All we’re missing is a kimchi slap.

The whole thing feels hollow. Made in Korea was clearly designed by Netflix to fulfill two missions: capitalize on the popularity of Korean content in India and fill out the streamer’s thin South Indian Originals catalogue. The movie does so, but in a perfunctory way.

This movie isn’t born out of an Indian filmmaker’s own love for Korean pop culture. Ra Karthik said, “Personally, I had never watched a K-drama or listened to K-pop until I began working on Made In Korea.” It shows. If you’re familiar with K-dramas, there are a ton of ways to tell a fish-out-of-water story that leans into Korean TV-narrative styles, while showing character growth and exploring shared cultural traditions.

Made in Korea doesn’t do that. It hits a couple of K-culture tropes, shows some Instagram-worthy tourist spots, and calls it a day. Characters become friends, fight, and make up because the plot demands it, not because they have any reason to do so. It just feels empty.

Links

• Made in Korea at Wikipedia
• Made in Korea at IMDb
• “Heo Hwang-ok” at Wikipedia