Twenty years ago, Korean cinema was virtually unknown outside Asia. Today, it is the most exciting, innovative, and globally influential national cinema in the world. How did this transformation happen?
This essay traces the rise of Korean cinema from the democratization of the 1990s to the global triumphs of the 2020s, exploring the economic, cultural, and artistic factors that made it possible. The result is a story about how a small industry with limited resources produced some of the greatest films of our time.