Sherlock Holmes detective story still popular among Koreans

“Sherlock Holmes is a famed detective, scholar, chemist and my own brother.” When a young girl stated this, world-renowned detective Sherlock Holmes appeared from behind her and greeted the audience. Then Sherlock Holmes and the girl join forces to resolve cases in phases. The movie “Enola Holmes” ranked fifth among the most popular contents in Korea soon after it was released by Netflix on October 23. Korean viewers say that the movie is an excellent spinoff of the narrative of Sherlock Holmes, in which his younger sister is playing the protagonist character.

The Sherlock Holmes series, written by British novelist Arthur Conan Doyle some 130 years ago, remains very popular in Korea. As many as nine volumes of the Sherlock Holmes series were published as Korean translations in October alone. “Conan Doyle,” published in June by writer Lee Da-hae after she visited the British novelist’s birth home, is gaining popularity among Korean mystery novel fans. The season 2 of “Sherlock Holmes,” a comic play based on the mystery novel, was launched in Seoul’s Daehangno in July despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

The popularity of Sherlock Holmes is an indicator revealing the lack of Korean mystery contents, some critics say, adding that webnovels and webdramas have emerged as new genres in Korea, which lacks characters and flagship writers representing mystery stories.

“Japan nurtured Kim Jeon-il and Conan as cartoon characters, and Keigo Higashino and Miyuki Miyabe as novelists,” said a Korean webnovelist who is writing mystery stories. “Korea needs more efforts to nurture attractive characters and bestseller writers to elevate the stature of mysteries.”


hoho@donga.com