One of the recent crazes has been Rosé and Bruno Mars’ song Apt. It topped the Billboard Global 200 Chart for several weeks, and also entered the top ten of the US Billboard Hot 100 as well as the UK singles chart in what is yet a further sign of the globalisation of the K-pop industry. 

The song, which brings together Korean and Western culture has put the spotlight on the drinking game “Apartment” that it is inspired by.  YouTube videos have popped up with fans of the song playing the game that sees the leader calling out a number and then the players begin removing their hands one by one starting from the bottom. Once someone says that number, they have to drink up. 

The song has once again highlighted Korea’s already famous drinking culture that’s evident in the films – the green bottles of Soju and Korea’s Makgeolli (Rice wine) are synonymous with the work of Hong Sangsoo, while a film like My Sassy Girl (2001) would be very different if it wasn’t for Korea’s famous liquor. 

In light of the success of Apt., this week we will examine Korean content that incorporate traditional Korean culture and games. This will begin with Im Kwon-taek’s Sopyonje (1992) before it then moves on to Jeongnyeon: The Star is Born (2024), The King and the Clown (2005), Memories of the Sword (2015), The Shaman Sorceress (2018), Cicada (2020) and Squid Game (2021).

Sopyonje  – Pansori

In the latter half of Im Kwon-taek’s career that spans more than a hundred films he has turned to traditional Korean culture. This is evident in the 1990s and 2000s with films such as Sopyonje, Chihwaseon (2002), Chunhyang (2000) and Beyond the Years (2007).

Sopyonje is one of the most significant of these titles becoming the biggest hit ever at the time selling over one million tickets in Seoul. Told in flashbacks that is characteristic of the work of Im Kwon-taek, it’s based on the novel by Lee Chung-joon about a Pansori master (Kim Myung-gon) who travels around the country with his two adopted children, Song-hwa (Oh Jung-hae) and son Dong-ho (Kim Kyu-chul). It’s told over a period of 30 years (between the 1940s and 1970s).

Sopyonje as an art form usually consists of a vocalist and drummer and is a traditional form of storytelling. In the film, we see how it was having to compete against the more popular Western culture that was changing the country. It was released at a time when the country was entering a new democratic era as it saw a shift from the past to the new.

Jeongnyeon: The Star is Born – Yeoseong gukgeuk

One of the dramas to have resonated in the fall of this year was the tvN series Jeongnyeon: The Star is Born starring Kim Tae-ri. Based on a Naver webtoon of the same name, Kim plays a young woman who enters a Yeoseong gukgeuk troupe. Rooted in Pansori, gukgeuk is a traditional Korean theatrical form that brings together singing, dancing along with acting. Yeoseong that translates as female refers to how gukgeuk is exclusively performed by women.

With average viewing ratings of 17.1 percent in the Seoul Metropolitan area, and a nationwide average of 16.5 percent, the tvN drama evidently struck a chord and reignited interest in gukgeuk with veteran gukgeuk performers being rediscovered, according to the Korea JoonAng Daily. The Korea Heritage Agency also staged the gukgeuk performance, Princess Seonwha, at the Folk Pungryu theater located in Gangnam, Seoul in December where tickets were sold out within minutes. 

The series didn’t just perform well in Korea, it also topped the TV chart on Disney Plus in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan.