“It works if you just show them what is Korean as it is,” Lee Sung-jin, director of the Netflix series BEEF

Lee Sung-jin, the creator, executive producer and director of the Netflix series, BEEF, speaks at a special session of Broadcast Worldwide (BCWW) 2023 held at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul on August 16. Courtesy of the Korea Creative Content Agency

“Show them what is Korean, the experience and identity of Koreans as they are. It can be a better and more universal story.”

This was the advice that Lee Sung-jin, the creator, executive producer and director of BEEF, a popular series on Netflix, offered to Korean creators. Lee appeared in a special session of Broadcast Worldwide (BCWW) 2023 held at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul on August 16. Broadcast Worldwide (BCWW) is Asia’s largest broadcasting content market organized by the Korea Creative Content Agency.

In Wednesday’s session on the subject, “How to Discover a Story from the Truth of Life,” Lee shared the behind-the-scenes story of how he was able to create BEEF along with his experience as an Asian creator in the United States.

BEEF is a story of how a road rage incident between Danny (Stephen Yeun), a contractor, and Amy (Ali Wong), an entrepreneur, leads to a battle of revenge. A large number of Asian producers and actors took part in making the series, and after its release in April, it became an international success earning good reviews for its original portrayal of the anger and emptiness experienced by people in the contemporary world. The series was nominated for thirteen Emmy Awards--the most prestigious award in U.S. television--in eleven categories.

Lee got the idea for BEEF in a road rage incident he personally experienced a few years back. He said, “A few years ago on my way home from work, a white man driving a white BMW honked the horn and yelled at me when I didn’t notice the lights had changed. My emotions exploded and I followed him driving aggressively.” According to the director, the experience felt like our society on a smaller scale, and he thought it would be a good idea to write about the two characters.

The story, based on Lee’s actual experience, turned out to become a unique series where an Asian woman and an Asian man clashed with each other after Ali Wong and Stephen Yeun joined the production. Lee was born in Korea in 1981 and moved to the U.S. and became a 1.5 generation immigrant. The Korean church in BEEF plainly reflects the Korean American society that Lee experienced.

Lee said there was a big change in the U.S. entertainment industry in the 2020s. He said, “When I first debuted as a writer, Asian writers were a minority, and I wrote worrying, ‘How could I write something that Americans would like?’” But now, with the industry highlighting diversity, Lee said, he no longer worried about matters like that. He said, “I try to express my identity when I write.”

His name is mentioned as “Lee Sung Jin,” following the Korean order, in the closing credits of his work, which is another way of expressing his identity. When Lee was young, he was embarrassed with his name and went by the English name, Sonny. But he reclaimed his original name in 2019, when director Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite won four Academy Awards. He said, “Americans don’t make a mistake when they call out the names of directors Bong Joon-ho or Park Chan-wook. I thought I should be proud of my Korean name, too.”

Lee Sung-jin willingly shared his advice for Korean producers dreaming of entering the North American market. He said, “My friends in the States might not watch or listen to Japanese or Brazilian content, but they watch Park Chan-wook’s movies and listen to K-pop,” and added, “People want to hear and learn about the experience and identity of Koreans.”

Lee said, “All we have to do as Koreans is show them what is ours just as they are. I think perhaps that is the reason for the success of hallyu (Korean wave).”