Recently, many Korean producers have favored exploiting cross-border love stories to attract audiences.
For example, at the beginning of the year, the fantasy romance film "Eye Love You" received many positive reviews for its character development as well as humorous moments arising from the cultural differences between the two main characters.
They are Yoon Tae Oh (Chae Jong Hyeop) - a Korean graduate student in Japan and Yuri (Fumi Nikaido) - a CEO with the ability to read minds through eye contact.
Not only has "Eye Love You" been on Netflix Japan's top 10 list for five consecutive weeks, it has also been on Netflix Korea's top 10 list for four weeks.
On September 27, the healing romance film "What Comes After Love" starring a Korean-Japanese duo will be released to the public.
Based on the famous novel of the same name co-written by Korean writer Gong Ji Young and Japanese writer Tsuji Hitonari, "What Comes After Love" tells the story of Choi Hong (Lee Se Young) and Aoki Jungo (Kentaro Sakaguchi) - who accidentally meet again after 5 years of separation.
The film marks the debut on the Korean small screen of famous Japanese actor Sakaguchi - a famous actor with many romantic films such as "No Longer the Female Lead", "10-Year Wish"...
Meanwhile, Han Hyo Joo's film "Romantic Anonymous" with Japanese actor Oguri Shun started filming in March and is expected to air next year.
The film depicts the love story between Han Na (Han Hyo Joo) - a genius chocolate maker and Fujiwara (Oguri Shun) - a famous chocolate shop owner with social anxiety.
The film is directed by Japanese director Sho Tsukikawa, who is famous for the film "Let Me Eat Your Pancreas" (2017).
According to the Korea Herald, the production of films starring Korean and Japanese actors reflects both countries' efforts to reach and attract larger audiences beyond their saturated local markets.
"By collaborating on a global scale, content producers from Japan and Korea are looking to leverage each other's strengths.
Japanese production companies are looking to capitalize on the growing presence of Korean content and the Hallyu wave globally by casting Korean actors in their productions.
Meanwhile, securing manufacturing investment from Japan helps Korean manufacturers expand their production scale because domestic production budgets are limited," the Korean newspaper quoted.
However, according to Sakaguchi - the male lead of "What Comes After Love", currently the cooperation between Japanese and Korean actors is limited to the romance genre, so he hopes that producers can expand to more genres in the future.
"I believe that we should not limit ourselves to just this genre. Starting with the trend of Japan-Korea collaborations in romance series, I hope to see more diverse genres and collaborations in the future."
