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A few days ago, the political drama A Taxi Driver rolled into the record books as it became the 15th Korean film to reach the 10 million viewer threshold, a measure not only of commercial success, but in a country of 50 million, the true sign of a pop culture phenomenon. These 15 films vary greatly in terms of genre, story and themes, but they do share one thing in common: they’re all original properties.

Korea’s citizens are voracious cinephiles and the country boasts an annual rate of 4.4 annual tickets sales per citizen, one of the highest figures in the world. What’s more, not only do Koreans watch a lot of movies, they tend to favor local films. In fact, the 10 million viewer club has admitted just four foreign members - incidentally, only one of those (Avengers: Age of Ultron) is a sequel. Yet, with Korea’s first simultaneously filmed two-part blockbuster on the way and frequent news items hinting at follow-ups to recent hits, is the sequel business taking a turn in the Korean market? 

Film series do exist in Korea and have for a long time, but while film industries in the West have become increasingly reliant on extending or updating existing properties, Korean filmmakers have for the most part steered clear of film series. However, while Korea’s top grossing films may not be numbered or updates on past versions, many of them tap into a similar sense of familiarity, either as tales navigating important moments of Korean history or as variations on genres that have found success elsewhere first.

Looking back over the past few decades of Korean cinema, plenty of sequels can be found, though they tend to be limited to horrors, comedies, detective or gangster films. Im Kwon-taek’s The General’s Son (1990-92) gangster trilogy set records in the early 90s, as did KANG Woo-suk’s Two Cops series (1993-98). Whispering Corridors kicked off a successful five-part horror series in 1998 (though the only thing each installment shares is their location - a girl’s high school). 

In the early millennium, sequels hit their heyday in Korean cinema, when a number of gangster-comedy franchises erupted onto the scene. These included the popular Marrying the Mafia (5 films, 2002-2012), My Wife Is a Gangster (3 films, 2001-06), Mapado (2 films, 2005-07), Hi, Dharma (2 films, 2001-04) and My Boss, My Hero series (3 film, 2003-09). Beyond those, and the Public Enemy (2002-08) thrillers, another cop trilogy from KANG Woo-suk, sequels have been a rarity in contemporary Korean cinema.

The most successful Korean sequel of all time, My Boss, My Teacher (2006), comes in at number 48 on the chart. In the next 11 years the industry has gone from strength to strength commercially, but all on the strength of original properties. These days, besides Warner Bros’s unique relationship with Christopher Nolan, Hollywood shies away from handing big budgets to filmmakers. Here however, as the industry has gotten more ambitious and sophisticated, studios have remained confident in the abilities of their filmmakers to draw out large crowds for projects that would be deemed ‘untested’ in Tinseltown.

Instead of comic book tentpoles, Korean companies invest in war films, such as Korean War hits TaeGukGi: Brotherhood Of War (2004) and Operation Chromite, or period battle films such as War of the Arrows (2011) and 2014’s Roaring Currents, the highest grossing Korean film of all time. A little closer to the present, a trend of films that has been particularly successful in recent years are stories detailing dark moments in history that many viewers can still remember, including The Attorney (2013), Ode to My Father (2014) and the still in theaters A Taxi Driver.

What we also see near the top of the all time chart is a surprising amount of diversity, as viewers embrace things that haven’t been done before in Korean cinema, such as when the zombie film (TRAIN TO BUSAN, 2016) and disaster film (Haeundae, 2009) were tackled with big-budgets for the first time. Local audiences pride Korea’s ability to craft new stories and there isn’t the same clamor for sequels here which might account for the lackluster reception that many sequels have been met with. 

Some production companies do try to expand on their hit films but their sequels haven’t always been able to generate the same level of interest, such as Take Off (2009)’s follow-up Run Off (710,000 viewers), 2010’s Attack The Gas Station 2 (730,000 viewers) and the My New Sassy Girl, which was D.O.A. after selling 77,000 tickets. All three sequels went ahead in the absence of most of their original casts. Others have fared better, but rarely threatened to match their predecessors, such as 2013’s Friend: The Great Legacy (2.97 million viewers), or 2014’s Tazza-The Hidden Card (4.02 million card), which came 12 and 8 years after their originals, respectively.

Of course, with a studio system and exhibition market as mature as Korea’s and with local visual effects companies continuing to evolve, it’s probably only a matter of time before a small number of top dollar properties are pushed down the franchise pipeline. As of now, two major sequels are on the horizon, THE ACCIDENTAL DETECTIVE 2 and Detective K 3. Both are buddy cop-comedies and are arriving shortly after previous installments, unlike the long-gestating sequels we've seen in the past few years, and are expected to do well.

Due for release at the end of this year is the first part of the mega-budget two-part fantasy film Along with the Gods, which reportedly has a USD 25 million budget. With a hugely popular webcomic source, a vast array of stars and the Asian film industry’s best visual effects company behind it (Dexter Studios), distributor Lotte Entertainment was confident enough to bankroll a pair of simultaneous productions, with the second slated for a Summer 2018 release.

Beyond these, many recent chart-toppers have been rumored to get follow-ups, including Woochi (2009), The Berlin File (2013), New World (2013), The Divine Move (2013), The Pirates (2014), Roaring Currents (2014), Veteran (2015) and Midnight Runners. Not all of these will go ahead, but the trend does seem to be on the rise, and if one or two of them scored at the box office, it may really take off.

While budgets continue to increase in Korea, the lure of the sequel will only get stronger as investors, much like they have in America, may opt to hedge their bets by going back to the well with stories and casts that have already proven their value to Korean viewers. But even as franchise begin to take root in Korea, it’s hard to imagine local viewers turning their back on the original, homegrown stories that have made the industry what it is today.