New K-Drama Thriller Led By Squid Game Star Lands On Netflix’s Global Chart In Less Than A Week

A new K-drama has already made its way onto a major Netflix streaming chart. The streaming platform has a wide library of licensed movie and television titles, but over the years it has become known for its originals. Their flagship series include the 1980s-set fantasy sci-fi drama Stranger Things, the killer anthology Monster (which has so far brought the stories of Jeffrey Dahmer and the Menendez brothers to the screen), the steamy Regency-era romance Bridgerton, the Spanish crime drama Money Heist, its prequel series Berlin, and the action-thriller The Night Agent.

Some of the most popular series on the platform are Netflix original K-dramas. The streamer has scored hits with a variety of K-dramas, including Sweet Home, Hellbound, and All Of Us Are Dead. However, by far the most popular is the survival thriller Squid Game. Season 1 is the most-watched Netflix original series in any language, while season 2 is the third most-watched, falling behind season 1 of the English-language series Wednesday.

Karma Is Already Charting On Netflix

It Has Only Been Available For A Few Days

Now, a new K-drama centering a Squid Game cast member has made a splash on the platform. The crime thriller Karma, which is adapted from the Choi Hee-seon webtoon of the same name, stars Park Hae-soo as Kim Beom-jun, a man whose life is plunged into chaos when he witnesses an accident and finds his fate intertwined with a variety of other seemingly disconnected characters. The Karma cast also includes Kim Sung-kyun (Divorce Attorney Shin), Shin Min-a (Oh My Venus), Lee Hee-joon (Handsome Guys), Lee Kwang-soo (Running Man), and Gong Seung-yeon (Aloners).

Park Hae-soo played Player 218, Cho Sang-woo, in Squid Game season 1.

Netflix has now calculated their global Top 10 chart of the most-watched non-English shows for the week of March 31 through April 6. Thanks to 3.6 million viewers accumulating a total of 19.3 million viewing hours, Karma has debuted at No. 5 on the chart, in spite of the fact that it premiered on April 4, which means that this total only measures its first three days on the platform. The show is in the Top 10 in 37 different countries spread across four continents, including South Korea, Japan, Chile, Argentina, Greece, Romania, Morocco, and Nigeria.

What This Means For Netflix

Their K-Drama Stable Continues To Grow

The Netflix success of Karma season 1 comes at a time that the K-drama genre has been performing particularly well on the streamer. In fact, it is accompanied on the current chart by three other South Korean series, namely The Potato Lab (No. 8), Weak Hero: Class 1 (No. 4), and When Life Gives You Tangerines (No. 1). If it continues to maintain a strong position on the chart, this could not only mean that it will likely be renewed for season 2, but it could help lead Netflix to continue developing even more series in the same vein.

Source: Netflix