Netflix Debuts First Trailer for Its First Korean Original Animated Movie: Watch

Netflix has officially released a teaser trailer for its first original Korean animated motion picture, Lost in Starlight. The film is a sci-fi romance starring two literal star-crossed lovers. An astronaut named Nan-young falls in love with a man named Jay, whom she bumps into before leaving Earth for Mars. Lost in Starlight takes place in the not-so-distant future of Seoul, South Korea, where everything looks modern enough with some futuristic technology thrown in to add some flavor to the environment. The movie stars Korean actors Kim Tai-ri as Nan-young and Hong Kyung as Jay. Han Ji-won, the same director behind the 2023 Korean animated film The Summer, will be directing Lost in Starlight. The film is expected to hit Netflix on May 30th, 2025.

The teaser’s main theme is the couple remaining connected as Nan-young heads out on her mission into space. The trailer’s big focal point showcases how the couple initially fell in love, and their eventual anguish as they have to deal with Nan-young having to leave for a long mission among the stars. Lost in Starlight‘s metaphor is about the difficulties of maintaining a long-distance relationship, detailing the loneliness and longing for human connection when away from the people you love. The big question mark the footage tease is whether Non-young and Jay can overcome their distance and reunite during the film’s runtime.

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Lost in Starlight is Part of Netflix’s Push for the Korean Market

Pop culture media from eastern Asia has dominated streaming charts in the last several years. Japanese anime has become increasingly more mainstream, while live-action Korean dramas have become one of the most popular shows on streaming services like Netflix. South Korea’s Squid Game is one of the most-streamed series in the world, so it makes sense for Netflix to invest heavily in content from the country. Anime is being looked at as the next big thing, with 2025 set to become the biggest year for the medium yet.

Even though Korean animation isn’t technically anime since the term is used exclusively for animation from Japan, Korean animation and Japanese animation share plenty of aesthetic similarities. Fans of that specific style of Asian animation will look at Lost in Starlight no differently from other Japanese animated films or shows. Lost in Starlight may become the next big hit on Netflix, given how much overlapping interest the film has. Anime fans would want to tune in for the film because it’s so stylistically similar to anime movies, whereas Korean drama fans would want to watch it. After all, they love that kind of drama.

Lost in Starlight has a unique setting and a promising premise, mixing in light sci-fi elements to convey this very human message about love and isolation. We all like falling in love, but life is so much more complicated than that. Lost in Starlight adds that very real emotion and throws in a space mission to Mars for a visual flourish.

H/T: Polygon