[ESSAY] “The Visual Language of Korean Dramas” by Titiksha Devrani

^{When Life Gives You Tangerines (2025)}

Ae-sun and Gwan-sik in a field of yellow flowers in Kim Won-seok’s When Life Gives You Tangerines (2025). A scene memorable for the way a singular image can be symbolic of both joy and elegy. It is also a stellar example of a language in which Korean dramas are fluent: landscapes, light, objects, wardrobe, and camera shots that remain etched in memory long after the credits roll.

On the page, a story needs a narrator; on screen, it needs the perfect shot. The cinematography of Korean dramas recalls the Impressionist movement, a nineteenth-century French art revolution that had a significant impact on cinema. Painters such as Monet chased the same light twice and produced two different paintings because the light itself was the subject. This movement continues to inspire artists to capture perception and fleeting impressions of light and atmosphere rather than adhere to strict realism.

^{Choi Jung-kyu’s The East Palace (2026)}

That patience is a technique for which Choi Jung-kyu’s The East Palace (2026) makes a strong case. It does so through shots that linger just a beat too long on dark corridors and flickering lanterns. It also lingers for a few extra seconds on a paper screen across which a shadow moves slowly as people cower on the other side. This is elevated by an editing rhythm paired with a musical cue, or by a sudden silence timed to land on a visual reveal. What the camera lingers on changes from scene to scene, whether landscape, light, or object, but the lingering itself remains constant.

The widely celebrated drama Lee Eung-Bok’s Goblin (2016) brings the same Impressionist quality to landscapes. The two leads often reappear against wildly different backdrops, with each shift in scenery denoting a shift in time and stakes. From storm-tossed coastlines to streets flushed pink with cherry blossoms, the drama’s landscapes cradle elegance alongside meaning.

Most dialogue-driven dramas have a tendency to shrink from the beauty they encounter. Where other dramas are more inclined to use the background as decoration and give the spotlight to the characters, a Korean drama holds a wide shot and lets the landscape remain in focus, all the while using it to illuminate the characters’ emotions. A famous scene in Goblin has the male and female leads walking towards each other in the rain, unaware that fate has tied them together. The scene takes its time to unfold, each beat earned through an unhurried take.

^{Can This Love Be Translated? (2026)}

The very same technique, aimed at light instead of scenery, does something else entirely. Yoo Young-eun’s Can This Love Be Translated? (2026) is about communication barriers between characters. The lighting does the talking even as the characters find themselves behind glass and screens, their bodies separated by rooms full of people, all standing in for the very translation barriers the show explores. The distance between the characters becomes visible right up until the moment honesty finally breaks through. Colour grading works alongside lighting, as many K-dramas desaturate the frame for flashbacks, reverting to warmer tones only once the emotional distance closes. The palette also shifts according to genre, entirely independently of wardrobe or set.

Objects receive the same treatment, as seen in Jae-hong Kim and Lee Jung-rim’s The Revenant (2023), which introduces five tangible items that connect to the intangible realm. With the discovery of each object, the boundary between the two worlds cracks a little further. Each time, the dead draw closer to the living. Kim Kyu-tae’s Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo (2016) does something similar through the use of emotive wardrobe: bright hanboks for dreamers, loud ones for schemers, and dull, muted tones for a grief that defies all hues. By the end of Scarlet Heart, there is a wedding robe that is never worn. Everyone remembers the cloth dyed royal blue, trimmed in red and gold, made for a queen who never gets to be one.

For productions that place such stock in light, these dramas certainly do not shy away from shadow. They make you sit in it, live in it until you begin to question the very concept of light. It is towards the audience that the question ultimately turns, as Korean dramas make you look within, forcing you to question your own motivations and interpretations of the shadows encountered in fiction.

This is hardly foolproof. When a Korean drama uses a slow-motion stare, an object, or even a costume without properly foregrounding it, the feature does not land as it should. These techniques work only when rationed. Still, with their Impressionistic character, Korean dramas have changed what television looks like, largely for the better. Look back at the field of yellow flowers to understand: two teenagers taking photographs of each other, promising things they do not yet know they will lose. The frame holds both what is coming and what has already happened, allowing the audience to carry home both joy and elegy.

^{How to cite: Devrani, Titiksha. “The Visual Language of Korean Dramas.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 7 Sept. 2026, chajournal.com/2026/09/07/visual-languag.}

Titiksha Devrani is a writer and educator currently pursuing a PhD in English at Jamia Millia Islamia. She has taught at NCWEB, University of Delhi, and served as an English Language Instructor at IIT Jodhpur. Her editorial experience includes a long-standing association with the National Book Trust, India, where she contributed to national and international projects, including the Paris Book Fair (2022), the New Delhi World Book Fair (2021), and the PM’s YUVA Mentorship Scheme, as well as undertaking editorial work with Pearson Education. Her writing on Korean cinema has appeared in Asian Movie Pulse, while her general articles have been published on Korea.net.