Korean audiences are turning away from formulaic genre films and gravitating instead toward more human-centered stories that strip away excess spectacle. In a cultural moment saturated with ever-intensifying stimuli, viewers appear increasingly drawn to films that offer warmth, emotion and everyday experience rather than scale or shock value. In 2025, diversity films — works that break from conventional genre formulas and present unfamiliar perspectives — found notable success in the Korean market. Instead of large-scale conflicts between good and evil or visually elaborate, incident-driven plots, audiences embraced stories rooted in personal emotion and lived experience. The box-office leader among Korean films released this year was “My Daughter Is a Zombie,” which earned praise for blending zombie action with family drama. Unlike typical zombie narratives centered on survival, the film focused on a father’s struggle to protect his daughter, combining genre thrills with human-centered storytelling. Director Yeon Sang-ho’s low-budget film “The Ugly” also became a hit. P