How The Love Of Korean Dramas Inspired The Filipino Story ‘K-Love’

When Corinna Vistan, a Marvel Studios executive who worked on 19 of the 29 Marvel films, returned to the Philippines, she was well acquainted with the dynamics of fandom. What the award-winning studio executive did not expect was the different but very enthusiastic fandom she encountered in her native land.

“I came home three years ago and I was surprised to find that all my friends, all my best friends, loved k-dramas,” said Vistan, now head of originals at VIU Philippines. “It was this huge, huge phenomenon. It still is. I kind of laughed because I went from the Marvel fandom to the k-drama fandom, two sets of fandoms. My friends loved Korean dramas so much they even learned how to speak Korean, so they don’t have to read the subtitles. I was completely fascinated with what they were obsessed with and wanted to learn more about it.”

Learning more about the phenomenon inspired the plot of a new Filipino drama that will air on VIU on Oct.14. That drama is K-Love, the story of five Filipino k-drama enthusiasts who let dramas inspire their decisions. When Vistan was asked to join VIU she thought the story would be a perfect fit.

“VIU is known for Korean dramas in Asia,” said Vistan. “It really is our bread and butter. It just seemed like the perfect pairing to do a show about its audience. So, I got these writers, local writers who are huge drama lovers. Some just came to appreciate k-drama as the pandemic happened. As we were all home, it was the feel-good aspect of k-dramas that really comforted a lot of people during the pandemic, and the writers as well.”

Vistan, winner of a Gold Clio and a Silver Telly award, recruited an array of international talent to create the show. The talent includes cinematographer Ian S. Takahashi, seven-time Emmy winning director Bobby Yan, authors Tara Seering and Tweet Sering plus writer/producer Lea Dizon and screenwriter/development consultant Katherine Visconti

“What really turned out was this beautiful collaboration between the US and Filipino filmmakers in creating K-Love,” she said. “Behind and in front of the camera it’s US and Filipino filmmakers creating a show about the fascination with Korea. It’s a cultural mishmash of these three countries, which is really really beautiful.”

While K-Love references some storylines from actual Korean dramas, it’s also focused on real-life issues faced by Filipino women—and women around the world.

“It’s basically the lives of these five Filipinos, four women and one man, and it really does talk about the very complex lives these Filipinos live in the very cosmopolitan city of Manila. It talks about modern challenges, the challenges that Filipinos face. Tish, our lead is this 30-something brilliant career woman. She is CEO of her own company. She is single and doesn’t have any kids, but sometimes society makes her feel like she got enough. Then there is her best friend Sheila, who is a mother of three. Her husband is a CEO, she had kids when she was really young, but then she’s made to feel like being a mom is not enough. She gets the line, oh you’re just a mom. So it really does analyze the lives of these different women. What do you really value, when is it enough?”

Vistan considers the stories of these characters to be very universal. “In every country this is the plight of women when they talk about their careers and motherhood,” she said. “It’s very universal, but what I love about K-Love is that we’re able to include aspects of the Filipino culture and hopefully people from around the world will learn a little bit too. They hopefully can relate to these characters and get a glimpse into what our culture is like.”

The show stars popular Filipino actress, TV host, dancer and model Iza Calzado; actress, model and singer Sue Ramirez; actress, TV host and model Isabelle Daza; rising star Gabby Padilla and Filipino American actor and model Jake Cuenca.

“They’re very well known actors,” said Vistan. “Sometimes when we would shoot in a public place, like a mall, we would have to stop production for a few minutes because there’s a line of people wanting to take photos with them.”

The combination of k-dramas and popular actors was bound to generate a lot of buzz.

“We posted our trailer on social media and had 3.4 million views in two days,” said Vistan. “All the comments have been, ‘I love k-dramas, this speaks to me,’ and it was really touching to read comments from people, saying ‘k-dramas got me through the pandemic. K-drama got me through hard times in my life.’ So it’s nice that we’re celebrating the show but we really are celebrating the content of k-dramas.”

Korean dramas have been popular in the Philippines since the 2000s and hundreds have aired there during the last two decades. One of this year’s most popular dramas, produced by VIU in collaboration with ABS/CBN, was The Broken Marriage Vow, a Filipino adaptation of the Korean drama World of the Married, which was adapted from the British series Dr. Foster.

“It just broke a ton of records and won a lot of Asian awards,” said Vistan. “I find it inspiring that it was originally a show from the UK that Korea redid and the Philippines adapted and that it worked in every territory. Our stories are much more similar than we think.”

Following the most common k-drama format, K-Love will start out as one 16-episode season. “Our writers are avid k-drama fans, so that’s why we wrote it for one season to follow k-dramas, but we’re taking a look at what the fans want and what the audience wants,” said Vistan.

Vistan is inspired by the global reach of k-dramas and hopes it motivates more people to watch other Asian content, such as dramas from the Philippines, and provides a chance to introduce the world to talented Filipino actors and creators.

VIU, a Hong Kong-based OTT video streaming provider with 58.6 million monthly users, is currently available in 16 markets across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. For now K-Love is not available in Europe or the US, but Vistan hopes that will change.

“Global quality content can come from any country and it really doesn’t matter what language you speak. It’s a universal language. We all speak the same story, we all live the same life. We share so many similarities.”