"Aftermath" — Korean Drama Review

Netflix continues to expand it's reach through offering it's streaming services to numerous countries, commissioning more original content, and offering global content to a more international audience. While foreign content has often struggled to expand it's viewership due to language barriers, Netflix is an ideal place to circulate things, as subtitles are always included for foreign content.

Korean drama, or "K-dramas" as they're known to some, have grown increasingly popular both in and out of Korean and Asian markets. Many shows and films from Asian markets have begun to pick up in Netflix's selection.

One such series is "Aftermath", a supernatural crime show with two quick seasons available on Netflix. Protagonist Dae-yong develops supernatural powers after a near-death experience that allow him to see when someone is about to die or commit murder. As a mere high-school student, such abilities naturally inject a large dose of chaos into his life.

A highly unique attribute of the series for an audience that is largely accustomed to the formats of Hollywood content is that each episode is just under or occasionally over ten minutes in length. The shorter episode length doesn't only allow for quicker binging, as the entire series is under two hours in length, but means that there is absolutely no filler content. With only ten minutes to tell a story complete enough to work as an individual episode, the writing gets straight into the central plots of Dae-yong's story, be it stopping a person's death or his struggles to establish a romantic relationship with his high school crush.

All the lead actors give strong performances. There is a flamboyant quality to the style of acting, which appears to be purposeful due to the genre of the show. The make-up work on the soon-to-be-dead and would-be-murderers looks a bit rushed, but there is a possibility that the show may have been created with a smaller budget and time constraints (though that's purely speculative on our part). All things considered, it's a fun ride to take for an hour and a half and those new to Korean content should be able to connect to the story without much cross-cultural confusion.

Aftermath is available for streaming on Netflix.