[HanCinema's News] "Queen of Tears" Outshines Netflix Originals Worldwide

Recently released Netflix figures show that "Queen of Tears" had 85.6 million hours viewed in its eighth week of availabilty on the streaming platform. This now brings the dark romance up to 373.2 million hours viewed overall. As the figures only cover April 22nd to April 28th, "Queen of Tears" is likely to broach the 400 million hours viewed mark next week, as the drama only actually ended on the final day of that survey, April 28th.

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The broad international appeal of "Queen of Tears" has seen it written in international publications and widely, highly rated on TV databases from IMDb in the United States to Filmarks in Japan to Douban in China- despite "Queen of Tears" not even having any legal distributor in the Chinese market. On many metrics, "Queen of Tears" is even more successful than "Crash Landing on You" which jumpstarted the popular of South Korean romances on the international market, especially via Netflix.

The sheer popularity of "Queen of Tears" has been such that Netflix Korea's exclusive April offerings have been quite forgotten in comparison. "Parasyte: The Grey" is based on the Japanese comic of the same title has earned 99.1 viewed hours since its premiere on March 5th. "Goodbye Earth" is also based on a Japanese novel, and in the three days since its premiere on April 26th, earned 17.7 million viewed hours.

While neither Netflix Original has had an awful performance, the extent to which "Queen of Tears" has overshadowed them demonstrates how the main strength of South Korean media remains its often highly specific genre stories. "Queen of Tears" is a dark romance, in general but the premise is somewhat arcane, functioning as a sort of afterword to a soap opera style corporate love story. The arcane title makes the drama sound more like a melodrama than a romantic comedy.

"Queen of Tears" proved a hit with viewer despite this muddled marketing. Netflix Korea's strategy of adapting Japanese science fiction, while not necessarily bad, underscores how this isn't a particular strong point for the region. However, Netflix Korea is next coming out with "The 8 Show" on May 17th. This adaptation of a South Korean webtoon about a capitalist metaphor adjacent game show has "Squid Game" vibes, despite the original webtoon predating "Squid Game" by years.

Written by William Schwartz