K-Pop Star Bae Suzy to Play Idol in Netflix Series ‘Doona!’

Lee Jung-hyo, director of hit Korean series “Crash Landing on You” is set as director of “Doona!,” a coming-of-age drama series that tells the tale of a romance between a freshman college student and an established female pop idol. The show will play Netflix in the New Year.

K-pop star Suzy (aka Bae Suzy, aka Bae Su-ji) will portray the pop idol while Yang Se-jong (“Temperature of Love” “Still 17” and “Dr. Romantic”) plays the starstruck male lead.

Suzy was previously a member of the K-pop group Miss A, before establishing a solo career some five years ago. She has previously acted in Netflix’s “Start-up,” “Anna” and “Uncontrollably Fond.”

The show is just the latest Korean series to be adapted from a webtoon. In this case “Lee Doona!,” written by Min Song-a and published by Naver Webtoon, is the underlying source material for Jang Yu-ha’s screen adaptation

The story sees the successful female star, key to her group’s popularity, abruptly announce her retirement. Away from music, she isolates herself inside a college town shared house. There she meets an ordinary, broke college student who, with warmth and integrity, shelters her from the harsh realities of her decision.

Production is through CJ ENM’s Studio Dragon, Showrunners and Naver’s Studio N, with distribution by Netflix.

Korean content continues to perform well for the streamer. It reports that more than 60% of global members have watched some form of Korean content in the current year and that Korean shows have charted in the top ten most watched rankings in 90 territories. Three of them from the last 15 months – “Squid Game,” “All of Us Are Dead” and “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” – feature in Netflix’s all-time ten most popular non-English-language shows.

The platform has a trio of other Korean shows to release by the end of this year. Season two of dating reality show “Singles Inferno” uploads from Tuesday this week. Drama series “The Fabulous” premieres on Dec. 23, while the revenge thriller “The Glory,” starring Song Hye-kyo launches on Dec. 30.