Made in Korea, the latest Netflix original movie feels like a film designed by the algorithm to tap into the market of Gen Zs who are fond of Korean movies and music. Starring Priyanka Mohan as the central character, Made in Korea is basically a different adaptation of the Hindi movie Queen. In terms of the feel factor, calling this an adaptation of the Vikas Bahl movie would be a disrespect to that fantastic film. With cheesy and cliched plot points getting presented in the most broad-stroke manner possible, the title Made in Korea might end up looking like an insult to that country.
Shenba from Tamil Nadu has had this dream of going to South Korea ever since she was in school. Shenba was also in love with her childhood friend Mani, who was struggling to have a stable income through his business. The marriage pressure on Shenba eventually forces the duo to elope to Chennai. While they both planned to go to South Korea to begin a new life, in an unfortunate turn of events, only Shenba left for Korea. The struggles of Shenba in that lonely journey are what we see in Made in Korea.
A girl who felt betrayed by her partner finds herself in a foreign country, faced with culture shock. Then she meets a handful of good people, and the journey with them shapes her as a strong individual. This was something we have seen in the Kangana Ranaut starrer. Made in Korea, directed by Ra Karthik, lacks any subtle qualities. They have roughly five bullet points in the story, and they are trying to join them using the most worn-out imaginations possible. There is a point in the movie where Shenba supports an elderly woman to fulfill her dream of running a restaurant. And they are doing this as a secret plan in broad daylight, with their secret plan getting wide social media coverage. The writing just wants to assemble many empowering emotions, and being coherent is of least concern here.
The way the writing approaches characters and story is extremely basic, and they are not expecting the audience to focus on the movie. Every dialogue here is overstretched, and the movie has these wild shifts from one scenario to another just like that. I would really like to know whether the ease of doing business in South Korea is like what you see in this movie. They have these generic, feel-good ideas of self-evolvement and empowerment, and they don’t really seem to be bothered about making a story that organically connects these ideas. If you look at the trailer of this movie, it would feel like a really tragic story of a girl stuck in a foreign country without money. However, the actual film rarely shows any major struggle, and it skims through all episodes in a very lazy way. The songs have that breezy, motivational feel that the movie couldn’t really create through its narrative.
The mediocre writing of the movie does not offer Priyanka Mohan any space to perform the internalized trauma of Shenba. The only bits where her performance delivers the intended emotion are those sporadic bits of humor. Hye-Jin Park, who was part of Squid Games, plays the role of the elderly woman whom Shenba supports in South Korea. Si- Hun Baek plays the role of the character who supports Shenba in her clueless journey in Korea. Other than these three, the rest of the cast doesn’t have much to do here. And to be honest, one can sense the Korean actors being forced to perform in the Tamil meter, despite the movie being set in their land.
Delivering something fresh and unique is not at all the aspiration of this movie. However, the writing is so uninspiring that neither Gen Z nor the Boomers would find anything interesting in this film, even if they decide to approach it as a mediocre comfort watch. Made in Korea gives you an idea of how analytics-driven content approval would eventually create a pile of mediocre, nothing films that nobody would remember.
