Netflix’s upcoming Korean series “Slowly, Fiercely” (천천히 강렬하게), a 22-episode drama starring Song Hye-kyo and Gong Yoo set against Korea’s raw, often brutal entertainment industry of the 1960s through 1980s, has been described by the streamer as its largest Korean production to date, with a budget exceeding 70 billion won.
The scale of the investment, unusual even by the standards of Netflix’s increasingly ambitious Korean slate, reflects both the prestige of its cast and crew and Netflix’s broader strategy of using a small number of flagship Korean productions to anchor its content calendar. Acclaimed writer Noh Hee-kyung, known for emotionally layered ensemble dramas including “Our Blues” and “Dear My Friends,” wrote the script, while director Lee Yoon-jung, whose credits include “Coffee Prince” and “Cheese in the Trap,” helms the production.
The cast list reads like a showcase of Korean star power across generations: alongside Song and Gong, the series features Kim Seul-gi, Cha Seung-won, Lee Ha-nee and Na Moon-hee, with Cha playing a legendary composer of the era and Lee playing a hopeful singer entangled in a complicated relationship with the story’s central characters.
The series is slated for release in the fourth quarter of 2026 as part of Netflix’s broader “Next on Netflix Korea 2026” slate, unveiled at a showcase event in Seoul in January. For a streamer that has built much of its global growth on Korean content, “Slowly, Fiercely” represents a bet that a handful of prestige, big-budget originals can do for its Korean catalog what a larger volume of smaller productions cannot: anchor global attention with the kind of scale and star power that rivals feature filmmaking.
Source: Seoul Economic Daily (Sedaily), “Netflix 2026 Series Lineup Unveiled,” January 22, 2026.
