South Korean audio-visual production in Spain: Granada as a ludic-world in the series <i>Memories of the Alhambra</i>

Abstract

Asian audiovisual production has become so international that some of its content, such as television series, are set in foreign countries. Memories of the Alhambra (Alhambeura Goongjeonui Chooeok, Jae-Jeong Song, TVN-Netflix: 2018), for instance, deals with an alternative reality game set in the city of Granada. Drawing on Miguel Sicart´s (2014) play studies, Victor Navarro Remesal´s (2019) research on movies and games, and the theoretical framework of Antonio J. Planells´ ludic-fictional worlds (2015), this paper analyses the aesthetic and narratological approach of a Korean television series to the imaginary of a Spanish city. The intrinsically ludic way in which the series appropriates Granada, its reinterpretation of a theme as markedly Spanish as illusion and the different kinds of underlying worlds are the three main aspects of this analysis.