Where the Form Went: Austen, Brontë and K-Dramas
The first part looked at why Korean series recall Jane Austen. This part asks where that narrative form went in Europe. The short answer: to cinemas and to streaming. The longer answer has figures – and a caveat.
A reminder for anyone who does not watch K-Dramas: a Korean series usually spends sixteen episodes on a single open question – will the two end up together or not – and the obstacle is almost always social: origin, money, family. Happiness is deferred, and that is what carries the story.
On television: gentle and older
German-language television still has love stories, mainly on Sunday evenings. Germany’s public broadcaster ZDF has shown “Rosamunde Pilcher” films since 1993. According to the broadcaster, the audience is 59 years old on average, and ZDF has reduced the number of new films to spend the money on reaching younger viewers. That says less about the narrative form than about linear television, whose audience is getting older.
In cinemas: two examples
“Little Women” (2019), Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s novel, is about four sisters, money and marriage. Production costs of 40 million dollars, worldwide takings of about 219 million.
“Wuthering Heights” goes back to Emily Brontë’s novel of 1847: Heathcliff, a foundling without origin, and Cathy, the daughter of the house. In the usual reading, their love fails on origin and station. Emerald Fennell’s adaptation with Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi opened on 13 February 2026. It is a free adaptation, and critics were divided: some disliked the lavish style, others felt the novel’s themes had been misread. Audiences came anyway – after one month, the film had taken more than 210 million dollars worldwide, against production costs of 80 million.
| Film | Production | Worldwide gross |
|---|---|---|
| Little Women (2019) | 40 million $ | about 219 million $ |
| Wuthering Heights (2026) | 80 million $ | over 210 million $ (after one month) |
At the opening, industry observers named three reasons: the classic material, the cast and the openly erotic treatment. What evidently did not put people off is that the story does not end well. Netflix had offered 150 million dollars for the film; the producers chose Warner Bros., because the studio committed to a wide theatrical release.
What cannot be read from it
Success can always be explained in hindsight – like a crime novel read backwards. Beforehand, nobody knew whether “Wuthering Heights” would find an audience. Netflix bet 150 million on it, the producers bet on cinemas. And box office is not profit: cinemas keep their share of every ticket.
The figures show that there is an audience for this form. They do not show how to reach it.
Where Korean series do the same
What single films achieve in European cinemas, Korean series deliver continuously – through streaming services. “Queen of Tears”, already discussed in the first part, aired on the Korean channel tvN in 2024 and was the most-watched Korean series on Netflix in the first half of 2024, with 689.5 million viewing hours. The story: a marriage between the heiress of a conglomerate and a man from a small town. Origin, money, family – the same obstacles as in Austen and Brontë.
For European readers, that is the real cultural transfer: a form known here from the nineteenth century is present-day storytelling in Korea, and it is watched around the world from there.
What transfers
Not the story, but the technique: holding a question open for a long time, building intimacy through signs rather than action, admitting renunciation as a possible ending. And one condition: the obstacle has to be credible to the audience. In Austen it is the lack of fortune, in Crash Landing on You the border between North and South Korea.
We are telling a story of this kind ourselves: “Hanni” follows a woman from Vienna and a Korean politician in exile in the 1930s. The next parts of this series will set further films alongside Korean series.