A young woman joins up with a UFO investigator and searches for her missing boyfriend. Here’s what to know about Netflix’s Glitch.
Now that it is pumpkin spice latte season and everyone is patiently waiting for season 2 of that run-a-way hit show Squid Game, Netflix has announced Glitch. This new Korean drama promises some sci-fi feels for an earlier night. The official poster gives it an X-Files feel, while the show's trailer confirms that the categorization Netflix gives it on its platform is definitely suitable: offbeat.
While the show was announced in December 2020, the production seemed to have a few speed bumps along the way. Of course, the pandemic put a slight pause on production. As the days get darker sooner, this quirky sci-fi drama from Korea may be just the thing to curl up with a pumpkin-spiced drink of your choice.
While the design at the feet of the main character on the poster is kind of obvious to any sci-fi fan as being a crop circle formation, a quick look at the teaser trailer definitely gives one a distinctive, quirky feeling. The trailer follows Hong Ji-hyo (played by Jeon Yeo Bin) through her day-to-day life. There is nothing extraordinary there… except that everywhere she goes, she can see a traditional grey alien wearing a green baseball hat. Ok, not so traditionally grey. And he appears just to watch her. The 2011 film Paul featuring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost shows just how offbeat and quirky those little grey aliens can be.
Ji-hyo comes from a wealthy family and uses her familial connections to land herself a decent job. Life is pretty good for her until her boyfriend of four years goes missing. This is where the series really starts to take off. Ji-hyo teams up with Heo Bo-ra (Nana), a UFO researcher, as they search for her boyfriend (who may not be on the planet!) and other missing persons.
“ Just because I can see it, doesn’t mean I can believe it. The only thing I need to believe in is myself,” — Hong Ji-hyo
The public may know Jeon Yeo-bin from her most recent Netflix series Vincenzo as Hong Cha-young. Yeo-bin will star in Glitch as Hong Ji-hyo, the young woman who loses her boyfriend. She has a unique characteristic as she sees aliens in her daily life. She does not necessarily believe they are real. As she says, “The only thing I need to believe in is me.” She is thrust into trying to solve the mysteries of missing people who may no longer be on earth. Jeon Yeo-bin has been in a number of series and films as well have had won awards throughout South Korea.
For fans of K-pop, Nana is well known for her group After School. Im Jin-ah (Nana) has been stretching her talents into acting and modeling since 2014 when she was nominated for and won numerous awards for acting and modeling. She has appeared in television series and a few films on top of her hectic K-pop career, including subgroups called Orange Caramel and After School Red. She is known as a fashion icon who is extremely popular on Instagram and a standout on red carpets.
Mainly focussing on her acting career recently, Nana, represented by Pledis Entertainment, joined the cast as Heo Bo-ra. The Korea Times reported that Nana will play “A not-so-popular YouTube creator with only a few hundred subscribers” who is interested in UFOs. The pair will join together and uncover a larger mystery than Ji-hyo’s missing boyfriend.
The series is penned by Jin Han-sae, who is better known for his other Netflix series called Extracurricular (2020). In Extracurricular, Han-sae wanted to examine the question, ‘why is crime bad,’ in a unique way. In an interview with The Jakarta Post, Han-sae said Extracurricular was based on his life experience while attending high school in New Zealand, and seeing that a friend of his was selling cigarettes in order to make a little extra money, Han-Sae pushed the envelope for Korean drama by exploring how someone might get into organized crime to afford to go to college. While Glitch may be a bit on the quirky side, it is sure to have a deeper meaning embedded within it.
The director of Glitch is Roh Deok, a graduate of the Department of Film at the Seoul Institute of Arts. Her previous works include Netflix’s The Exclusive: Beat the Devil’s Tattoo, which was heralded as a dark thriller with elements of humour. While she has several feature titles to her name, this will be her first television series. Her style, combined with Han-sae’s script, should lend itself to a thoroughly entertaining and thought-provoking series.
The series will premiere on the Netflix streaming service on October 7, 2022.
TJ Shiner has a quirky and unique take on life and entertainment. With a varied background, from theatre to film, Esports to VR and live event production, he believes in the transformative nature of storytelling. The power of story has the ability to change perception, it can change a mind, and it can change the world!