Channel A‘s weekend drama ‘The Witch’ is quickly gaining popularity, dominating the charts in major Southeast Asian countries within a week of its release.

According to the weekly charts for the third week of February (February 17-23) announced by Viu, Asia’s largest regional OTT platform, on the 27th, Channel A‘s weekend drama ‘The Witch’ (English title: The Witch) showed a steep upward trend, ranking 2nd in Indonesia and Thailand, 3rd in Malaysia, and 6th in Singapore and Hong Kong each.

‘The Witch’ is a mystery romance drama about a woman who is branded a ‘witch’ and driven out of her village after the men who like her start getting injured or dying one by one, and a man who tries to save her from the law of death. Actors Park Jin-young and Noh Jung-eui play the lead roles and lead the intense narrative, and the drama is also garnering attention for being based on a webtoon of the same name by Kang Full.

‘The Witch’’s early performance on the Viu charts is unusual. Unlike the romance genre that has been strong in the existing K-drama market, it quickly settled in the overseas market and garnered attention as a mystery thriller.

In particular, the scenes of the male and female leads‘ school days at the beginning of the drama served as a box office hit, as they meshed with the recent popularity of ‘school uniform epics’ in Southeast Asia. Following ‘Family Assembly’, ‘Study Group’, now ‘The Witch’ is climbing the Viu charts, continuing the success of K-dramas that include school elements.

Viu is a pan-regional OTT platform of Hong Kong PCCW that is introducing popular Korean content to 16 countries overseas, including Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Currently, various K-contents such as ‘Study Group’, ‘Please Take Care of the Five Eagle Brothers!’, ‘Undercover High School’ are being serviced.

Jeon Hyo-jin, Donga.com reporter jhj@donga.com

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