What is the purpose of the Korean captions in Crash Landing on You?

What is the purpose of the Korean captions in Crash Landing on You? - Crashed airplane cabin after accident on snowy land under sky in winter

In the South-Korean drama Crash Landing on You, a successful business woman from Seoul accidentally crash lands in North Korea. What is curious is that even though the series is in Korean, at several points throughout the movie Korean captions are displayed:

Example image of the Korean captions

Second example image of the Korean captions

This is not a full captioning, throughout the course of the initial 70 minute episode there's only about a dozen captions like this.

From inspecting the Korean SDH subtitles, I found out that the bold characters always seem to refer to a word from the spoken dialog. By running the caption through a translate app, it seems that the captions offer a description on that specific word.

But why is this necessary? What is so special about those words that they require additional explanation?

I have a suspicion, but would like to hear an answer from someone more familiar with the cultural background.



Best Answer

Those are North Korean words that are not familiar to South Koreans. Due to limited cultural exchange between the two halves, the language has diverged a bit.




Pictures about "What is the purpose of the Korean captions in Crash Landing on You?"

What is the purpose of the Korean captions in Crash Landing on You? - Old weathered airplane cabin after disaster on snowy land
What is the purpose of the Korean captions in Crash Landing on You? - Old weathered aircraft after disaster on snowy land under sky in winter in daytime
What is the purpose of the Korean captions in Crash Landing on You? - Old airplane after disaster on snowy land near mounts



What is Crash Landing on You called in Korea?

Crash Landing on You (Korean: \uc0ac\ub791\uc758 \ubd88\uc2dc\ucc29; Hanja: \uc0ac\ub791\uc758 \u4e0d\u6642\u7740; RR: Sarang-ui Bulsichak; MR: Sarang-\u016di Pulshich'ak; lit. Love's Emergency Landing) is a 2019\u20132020 South Korean television series written by Park Ji-eun, directed by Lee Jeong-hyo and starring Hyun Bin, Son Ye-jin, Kim Jung-hyun and Seo Ji-hye.

How accurate is Crash Landing on You depiction of North Korea?

According to her, the Hyun Bin and Son Ye Ji starrer Crash Landing on You achieved 60% of the things representing North Korea correctly.

What is the moral of Crash Landing on You?

We learn that no matter how dark things seem to be, when the next morning comes, you can still be off to a bright start. Throughout the show, things that go wrong often turn out to be a blessing in disguise, which tells us that even when you're on the wrong track, you might be accidentally on the right one.

Is Crash Landing on You based on true story?

The writer for Crash Landing On You Park Ji Eun revealed that she drew inspiration for the Kdrama from a real-life event. This involves South Korean actress Jung Yang. Park explained that the incident spiraling the news in 2008 inspired her to write this love story.



50 Useful Korean Phrases in Crash landing on you




Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Images: Matheus Bertelli, Matheus Bertelli, Matheus Bertelli, Matheus Bertelli