Ever since Squid Game took the world by storm, becoming the talk of offices, campuses and schools everywhere, Korean Dramas or K-Dramas have been given a whole new level of attention.
Netflix has of course tried to repeat the success of the series with a second installment on the way and a game show coming in November. Korean shows like the recent Zombieverse are being pushed way more outside of Korea than they would have previously been. It's good to see the best streaming services going global with their output.
Amazon Prime Video has launched its own flagship K-Drama, The Killing Vote. The first episode went live on the 10th of August with weekly instalments to come (there are currently 2 episodes).
In fairness, it is perhaps harsh to consider it solely through the lens of Squid Game but there are a few similarities. For a start, they both have big Halloween costume potential with the mysterious killer in The Killing Vote wearing a dog mask (think Snoopy meets Jigsaw) that might be as popular as the Squid Game guards. Both series also package murder in a novel way, Netflix's show used playground games to eliminate players whereas The Killing Vote uses democracy. Every two weeks, the people of Korea are given the chance to vote via their phones whether someone should live or die. The ultimate court of public opinion.
Having watched the first episode I would say that despite these similarities The Killing Vote is more akin to a dark police thriller with the odd joke thrown in like say Apple TV's Slow Horses. It certainly is a unique premise and it will be interesting to see how much traction it gains.
While Prime Video has a very impressive catalogue of titles and some original series of its own, it does need to up the scale of its own output if it is to compete directly with Netflix as people's go-to source of new content.
