TV dramas have become South Korea's hottest export since cellphones, female golfers, and kimchi. The Korean craze, which also includes music and film, has swept through Japan, China, the Philippines, Singapore, and most of Asia and is now making its way across the United States.
''It's just a small peninsula nestled between Japan and China, but they've just hit it right," said Tom Larsen, general manager of YA Entertainment LLC, a major North American distributor of Korean dramas. ''They know how to put together a good drama that their neighbors in Asia are eating up."
Korean soap operas used to be only offered in select Asian video stores, but now they are going mainstream with English subtitles. In Hawaii, retailers such as Wal-Mart, Costco, Borders, Blockbuster, and Tower Records are capitalizing on the craze and in the past few months began selling Korean drama box DVD sets for $60 to $120.
The DVDs are also sold in music and book stores in cities with large Asian communities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, and New York, as well as online at Amazon.com.
Since opening in 2003, YA, based in San Bruno, Calif., has seen revenue triple in each of the past two years behind strong sales of its top sellers: the tearful love story ''Stairway to Heaven" and historic drama ''Dae Jang Geum." YA plans to release 22 titles this year.
Fans say the Korean shows, centered around relationships and family, focus more on story lines than special effects and are a refreshing change from American programming they see as too violent and too racy.
Annette Marten, a 69-year-old nurse from Kailua, said Korean soaps depict love in a more romantic and artistic way, without steamy bedroom scenes.
''I'm not prudish in any way, but it's so lovely how they express themselves," she said. ''I get all excited if they get a hug. It has so much more meaning."
Many Korean dramas feature elements also found in American soap operas -- love triangles, forbidden love, evil mothers-in-law, and corrupt business partners. But a key difference is that Korean story lines usually end after 16 to 20 hourlong episodes, no matter how popular they become.
