Coupang Play original drama ‘Newtopia’ starring Park Jung-min and Blackpink‘s Jisoo has gotten off to a great start and is looking promising. The story, which combines romance and zombies, has received refreshing responses and even set a new platform record at the same time of its release.

According to Coupang Play, ‘Newtopia’, which released episodes 1 and 2 on the 7th, has set a new record for the highest number of viewers of all time for a Coupang Play series. It has broken the record of the action series ‘Family Plan’, starring Bae Doo-na and Ryu Seung-beom, which was released late last year and recorded the highest opening score, in just two months.

Viewer response has also been positive. ‘Newtopia’ is a story about soldier Jae-yoon (Park Jung-min) and his girlfriend Young-joo (Ji-soo) running towards each other through downtown Seoul that has been attacked by zombies. It is receiving favorable reviews for the fresh combination of zombies, a major material in horror and thriller genres, and the light and lively romantic comedy genre.

This response is also reflected in the ratings. It is currently scoring 4.1 out of 5 points on the Coupang Play platform, and its Coupang Play viewing score, where viewers rate it, is also high at 4.3 out of 5 points. It received a content rating of 85.71 points (out of 100) on Kinolights, an integrated theater and OTT (online video service) content ranking platform. This is a figure that surpassed the first week score of ‘Family Plan’ (83 points).

Despite being a drama that finished filming in July of last year, ‘Newtopia’ is garnering a lot of attention online for some of its settings that resemble the current situation and recent major incidents and accidents. A representative setting is the setting where civilians and even soldiers are thrown into confusion due to the country’s declaration of martial law due to a sudden zombie outbreak.

In addition, some people responded that the plane crash scene that appeared to express the dramatic situation caused by the appearance of zombies was uncomfortable to watch because it reminded them of the tragic airline accident that occurred in December of last year. Regarding this scene, director Yoon Sung-hyun stated, “It was a scene that was in the original script, and it is a key scene that announces the beginning of the story, so I thought it would be right to show it faithfully as written in the script.”


Reporter Seungmi Lee smlee@donga.com

This article is automatically translated using Google AI. If you notice any inaccuracies, please let us know at allkstar@donga.com.