On heels of historic Emmys, another Korean drama hits Netflix charts

SEOUL, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- A new South Korean drama is on the global Top 10 of Netflix shows as Squid Game wins multiple Emmys.

Narco-Saints, a six-episode thriller, was ranked No. 6 on Tuesday, according to Flixpatrol, which tracks streaming data.

Based on a true story, the series depicts a Korean entrepreneur who moves to Suriname in South America to launch a business of trading fish to support his family in Korea.

He is forced to join a secret government mission to capture a Korean drug lord operating in South America.

The cast includes Park Hae-soo, who was nominated for the Emmy for best supporting actor as one of the players in Squid Game, the most popular new series in the history of Netflix.

Squid Game won Emmys on Monday night in Los Angeles for Lee Jung-jae, best male actor in a drama, and for show creator Hwang Dong-hyuk, best drama series director. They were the first Asians to win those categories. It also won for guest acting, stunts production design and visual effects.

Another Korean series, Extraordinary Attorney Woo, about an autistic lawyer, was No. 8 on the global chart.

During a press conference in Seoul before the debut of Narco-Saints, director Yoon Jong-bin said he had originally intended to shoot a film with the story but opted to make a longer Netflix series instead.

"When I worked on the scenario, I realized that a two-hour movie could not capture the whole story," he said. "Against this backdrop, we ended up developing a series under cooperation with Netflix."

The series mostly stars Asian actors, including Ha Jung-woo, Hwang Jung-min, and Park from South Korea, as well as Chang Chen from Taiwan.

The popularity of Narcos-Saints raised the share price of Contentree JongAng, which owns Perfect Storm Film, which produced the thriller. Its share price jumped 5.55% Tuesday on the Seoul stock exchange.