What did Netflix learn from “Paper House”? She learned she could take a good series from a non-English speaking country, produce new seasons for it, turn it into an unprecedented global hit into a non-English speaking series and then replicate the success across the globe. And here are the results of this lesson: next year will see the series “Berlin”, a spin-off that will follow the story of Andres de Poniosa, known in the series as “Berlin”. And last week we got the series with the horny name “Paper House: Korea – A Common Economic Area”, which is a kind of Korean remake of the first season. From here it can spread like a plague.
The dramatic success of the Korean near-remake that hit Netflix last week almost certainly ensures that in the coming years we will see more remakes of the series in other markets that Netflix is interested in, because it turns out that the formula works even when duplicated in another language and place. In the case of “Paper House: Korea”, it takes place in an imaginary world where South Korea and North Korea unite and this twist gives it enough of its own original background to escape the comparisons to the Spanish original. The similarities are many, but the series are different enough for the suspense to continue working.
Like most of Netflix’s Korean productions, here too the level is very high, the cast is excellent and also contains some faces that are probably familiar to lovers of Korean culture, including Sui Island Park from “The Squid Games” and Kim Yun Jin from “Lost”. The first six episodes of the season provide the Big Time merchandise, with Korean seasoning that gives the series a kimchi-flavored twist, and mostly make one wish for the second part of the season that the date of its ascent is not yet known. We have some ideas for Netflix about an Israeli remake, but we stole most of them from “under our noses.”
>> “Paper House: Korea”, six episodes, now on Netflix