When you love something, you begin to understand it and then you truly see it, says ‘Extraordinary Attorney Woo’ director Yoo Insik, quoting a Korean proverb to explain the phenomenon that K-dramas and music have become world over. And he believes India is on the cusp of a similar global popularity wave.

His 2022 drama on Netflix topped the charts with its heartwarming story of an autistic lawyer, Woo Young-woo (Park Eun-bin), navigating the Korean legal system as a new hire at a firm.

On his maiden trip to India, the filmmaker, who is also the person behind hits such as ‘Vagabond’, ‘Dr Romantic’ and ‘Pinocchio’, has had a busy couple of days as he visited the Taj Mahal in Agra and then flew to Hyderabad’s Ramoji Film City to meet producers. In the city, he also sampled the famous biryani. He believes he has gained weight in just four days of his stay in India, a PTI report from New Delhi stated.

“I’m very happy to be here. Thanks to the invitation from the Korean Embassy, I had this precious chance to see the astonishing beauty of your country and so many surprising things,” the director told PTI in an exclusive interview in New Delhi at the Korean Cultural Centre India (KCCI).

Director Yoo said he is familiar with many fans of Bollywood who get together to enjoy the song and dance of these movies. Personally, he has watched the Aamir Khan-starrer ‘3 Idiots’, SS Rajamouli-directed ‘RRR’ and ‘The White Tiger’, starring Priyanka Chopra, Rajkummar Rao and Adarsh Gourav.

“I was very impressed because the three movies are very different. And (they have) a very high level of creativity. ‘3 Idiots’ has a very good fable with deep wisdom. ‘RRR’ shows astonishing imagination and a high level of technology. And ‘The White Tiger’ has very sharp social insight.

“And thanks to the chance the Korean Embassy gave me this time, I got to know about the scale and amazing potential of Indian content to become global. I think it’s a matter of time,” he said.

According to Yoo, when global audiences fall in love with something, they become curious about the culture behind it.

“There is a Korean saying that ‘when you love something, you begin to understand it. And once you understand it, you begin to truly see it.’ So maybe the new wave like Hallyu can happen anywhere in the world,” he said, giving the example of recent hit ‘K-pop Demon Hunters’.

“I didn’t think of the Korean traditional hat ‘Gat’, or kimbap and ramyun. It’s just typical Korean food. And the Seoul Fortress was just an everyday landscape for me. Until the ‘K-pop Demon Hunters’ changed everything,” he added. Hallyu or ‘The Korean Wave’ is the term coined to explain the global popularity of everything Korean, be it dramas, movies, music, food or the attire.

The filmmaker believes Korean shows have clicked with the Indian audiences in such a big way because they both share a painful colonial past and common interests.

“Korean society is changing at a very rapid pace. Koreans tend to be very sensitive to trends. So, our creators have to closely observe the global audiences. Maybe that’s why global audiences feel Korean content deals with some common interests nowadays and feel that Korean content is somewhat cool and trendy now.

“But especially in India, maybe the two countries share some similar painful history as colonialism. Indian society is changing rapidly. Naturally, the common interests like class issue or inequality or the clash between traditional values and modern values is a good source of story,” he said.

Will India inspire Korean creators like him in his stories? “I was very impressed with India. I went to the Taj Mahal. The scale was astonishing. And when I got closer to it, I found the details so lovely and amazing. They said it took 20 or more years to build it. I think they were very fast to get the level of detail and the scale. It was amazing. India is full of imagination. Someday, our creators (will) find something,” he said.

As for his next project, the director has reunited with actor Park Eun Bin for ‘The Wonder Fools’, a comedy about a group of losers in a small town who gain superpowers and happen to save the world.

The series, which will air on Netflix next year, also stars Tony Woo and Cha Eun Woo. With Netflix, he has another project — period drama ‘100 Days of Lies’. Starring Kim Yoo-jung, the spy melodrama is set in the Korea of the 1930s.