Shakespeare and K-Drama

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet crosses the boundaries of expected gender roles of early modern England. The play’s transgressive potential speaks to our times. This essay examines a popular K-drama, Crash Landing on You (2019-2020) and compares it to the motifs in Romeo and Juliet. The K-drama chronicles the romantic love between a South Korean woman, Yoon se-ri, and a North Korean man, Ri Jeong-hyuk, and—as in Romeo and Juliet—the characters switch gender roles as defined by their cultural tradition. In Crash Landing on You, Jeong-hyuk is depicted as possessing what has come to be known as soft masculinity. He is singularly focused on his partner’s needs. In contrast, Yoon Se-ri is a woman who pursues her ambition as the heir to her father’s company. This essay reveals how Romeo and Juliet has influenced popular Korean cultural imagination of forbidden love and how, drawing upon Shakespearean motifs, K-dramas have deconstructed South Korean patriarchal drama norms.