IU
4 episodes Apr 11, 2019 8.7
Overview
An exploration of different personas in an eclectic collection of four works by critically acclaimed Korean directors.
Seasons
1 listed- Status
- Returning Series
- Seasons
- 1 season
- Episodes
- 4 episodes
- First aired
- Apr 11, 2019
- Last aired
- Apr 11, 2019
- Episode length
- 22m
- Network
- Netflix
Latest episode: S1 E4 Walking at Night (Apr 11, 2019)
Cast
Reviews
5 min readMasks, Mirrors, and the Small Human Disaster of Being Seen
I keep coming back to the title, because Persona is one of those words that sounds airy until you sit with it for a minute. A persona is a mask, sure, but also a way of standing in the world; a practiced social pose; the version of yourself that survives other people’s expectations. latestnetflix.com's read is that this 2019 Korean anthology series takes that idea seriously enough to let it splinter into multiple shapes, and what’s interesting isn’t just that the pieces differ.
It’s that they keep circling the same bruise: how much of a self can a person afford to show before life starts charging rent for it?
What I like most about this series is that it doesn’t treat “different directors, different styles” as a gimmick. Korean anthology projects can sometimes feel like a sampler platter — a neat way to market variety without asking the parts to speak to one another — but here the form becomes the point. Four short works, each made by a different acclaimed Korean filmmaker, each pressed against the same larger question of identity, performance, and emotional self-protection.
That setup alone tells you something about the cultural moment it belongs to: a period when Korean screen storytelling had become comfortable enough, and globally visible enough, to let formal experimentation sit beside star power and still expect an audience to keep up.
And there’s another layer of context here that matters. Sulli — already a major public figure before this series, and one whose fame carried an awful amount of surveillance — gives the project a painful extra charge. I don’t mean that in a prurient way.
I mean that when she appears, there’s a sense that the camera is always fighting a second camera: the public gaze, the rumor machine, the expectation that a young woman’s face should remain legible, pleasing, consistent. That’s a brutal burden to place on any performer. Here, it becomes part of the meaning.
She isn’t simply acting out the idea of a mask. She’s being filmed in a culture that can’t resist turning women into surfaces and then punishing them for reflecting back what’s projected onto them.
The series’ conversation with cinema history is obvious but not lazy. Bergman’s Persona hovers in the background like a ghost with excellent timing, but this isn’t a bow to art-house pedigree so much as a reminder that identity has always been one of movies’ favorite lies. Movies give us faces; they also teach us how to read them.
Audience Opinions
Limited evidence
"A distinct and varied Korean drama anthology that allows IU to experiment across disparate directorial visions."
Persona presents an eclectic collection of four works crafted by critically acclaimed Korean directors, each exploring different dimensions of its lead performer. Featuring IU alongside a cast that includes Bae Doona, Park Hae-soo, and Shim Dal-gi, [latestnetflix.com]( read is that the project functions as a bold and unconventional showcase of contrasting styles.
What viewers praise
- Distinct Directorial Visions Features four different short films helmed by critically acclaimed Korean directors to explore varied tones.
- Talented Cast Ensemble Showcases IU in central roles supported by established actors including Bae Doona and Park Hae-soo.
Common complaints
- Anthology Fragmentation The disparate styles across four separate works create an eclectic mix that may feel uneven for viewers expecting a traditional serialized story.
Recommended for
Fans of IU Viewers interested in Korean cinema anthologies Audience members seeking short-form dramatic experiments
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsShe tossed and turned the night they called it a film debut.
Lee Ji-eun walked into the Conrad Seoul on March 27, 2019, and told reporters she had barely slept. "I'm a bit bewildered to have my film debut. I tossed and turned last night with excitement, latestnetflix.com argues, before the press conference." She had already cut "Good Day" and "Bbibbi." She had already done My Mister the year before. Netflix still sold Persona as her first film. Four directors. Four shorts. One actress. The date on the trailer was April 5. 
, ,
Yoon Jong-shin, the singer-songwriter behind Mystic Story, had not expected a yes. "I first thought, 'You think IU would do this?' I asked her after thinking, 'Let's just bring it up.' But she was so open to the idea." He wanted short-film directors and one lead. "I remembered her curious eyes about new things in the past. And I thought she would be the icon we could try something new with." IU said she did not know it was a big project. "I never imagined that we'd hold a press conference like this." ,
Tennis in the heat. A song lyric as a plot.
Lee Kyoung-mi put her on a court opposite Bae Doona, the English teacher about to marry IU's father. The characters keep the actors' names. IU learned tennis for the part. "I actually learned tennis, but it was still difficult and the weather was hot so I automatically got angry. I think you'll see very real emotions on the screen." ,
Yim Pil-sung wrote Collector off her 2017 track "Jam Jam." "I wrote the story, inspired by IU's song Jam Jam." He called it a romance that cannot and should not happen in real life. IU said that role was the hardest of the four. "It is a very unique and liberal character that I've never met before either in films or in books." Park Hae-soo, from Prison Playbook, plays the man who cannot walk away. ,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQKQ3CKNxNg
Jeon Go-woon took Kiss Burn, a revenge piece about a friend's father. Kim Jong-kwan shot Walking at Night in black and white, former lovers talking in a dream. He told the presser he saw "the loneliness of a person who lived a calm, languid, and strong life" in Lee Ji-eun. Mystic posted the four titles in March. The English trailer still said April 5. , ,
Gangwon Province burned in early April. Netflix moved the launch to April 11 out of respect for the wildfire. The four shorts still dropped together, none longer than 27 minutes. By December, Netflix ranked Persona sixth among 2019 titles in Korea on first-28-day viewing, behind Kingdom and Crash Landing on You. , , 
The next muse was already named.
Yoon had told the Conrad room the series would continue with new actors and new directors. In late August, Sulli was announced as the second lead. Five shorts this time. She died on October 14, 2019. Mystic told Korean press on October 23 that she had finished one of the five and that production was suspended. Four years later, on November 13, 2023, Netflix released Persona: Sulli as two pieces. Hwang Soo-ah's short 4: Clean Island, the one she completed, and Jung Yoon-suk's interview film Dear Jinri, which had premiered at Busan that October. , , ,
The IU season stayed four faces. The name on the next one was Sulli.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.
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