Dear Gossips,
Pachinko won the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Foreign Language Series last night following the massive success of Squid Game which won the category last year. Pachinko is a truly international co-production, with American, Korean, and Japanese talent involved in front of and behind the camera. And it wasn’t the only nominee this year with Korean connections.
Netflix’s Extraordinary Attorney Woo was also nominated in the Foreign Language Series category – and series star, Park Eun-bin was at the CCAs alongside producer-director Yu In-sik. I mentioned Extraordinary Attorney Woo back in October because it was actually one of Netflix’s most successful shows of 2022. At one point in August, it was outstreaming Stranger Things on the strength of the story about a lawyer with autism and Park Eun-bin’s performance playing the character. This is not a perfect show about an autistic person, it is not without clichés, but it does center her experiences and opened up conversations about the experiences of autistic people in our communities. It was, for example, only after watching the series that I sought out reviews written by autistic people about what the show did well and how it could be improved.
For some people reading this who are not familiar with Korean dramas, The Good Doctor might come to mind. There’s a connection here too. The Good Doctor is an American adaptation of a 2013 Korean drama series. Daniel Dae Kim secured the rights for the show and pitched it in the US. Interestingly it was just announced that there will be a spinoff series called The Good Lawyer. I’m curious if there will be similarities with Extraordinary Attorney Woo. Once again, if you haven’t already, Attorney Woo is worth a watch. You will fall in love with Park Eun-bin.
Yours in gossip,
Lainey
