The Americanization of Korean Drama Style and the Change of Local Characteristics: Cultural Game in the Streaming Era

Abstract

The Americanization of Korean Drama is essentially a cultural transcoding project. When Ali in "Squid Game" kneels down, the camera deliberately captures the similarity between the prayer callus on his forehead and the Korean "sacred gesture" action - this visual translation allows the audience in the Islamic cultural circle to instantly understand the character's motivation. The cost of transformation is also clear: the "leisure aesthetics" of traditional Korean dramas is compressed into a 90-second quick cut in "Model Taxi". But it is worth noting that the seasonal broadcast structure required by the platform forces "Kingdom" to refine the history of party struggles into three power reversal points in each episode, accidentally creating a narrative granularity suitable for TikTok dissemination. The real crisis lies in the "technical wonders" devouring the depth of culture. The second season of "Sweet Home" added 200 CG monsters but reduced the exploration of human nature, and was ridiculed by Korean netizens as "special effects kimchi". The key to future survival lies in whether it can maintain the cultural edge carried by the comic knife stabbing the system in the suicide scene of Cao Shifeng in "D.P." - when technical standards become the new hegemony, Korean dramas need to prove that the budget of 2.3 million US dollars per episode can not only create visual shock, but also refine a cultural dagger that penetrates the times.