From cassette tapes to bus conductors, retro K-dramas tap into Gen Z's love for nostalgia
Retro fever is sweeping Korea's television screens, bringing back the sights and sounds of an era defined by pagers, cassette tapes and neon-lit dance battles. The new tvN series "Typhoon Family," debuted Saturday, has been getting extra attention for its meticulous recreation of the 1990s zeitgeist. The drama’s opening sequence draws viewers straight into the heart of 1990s Seoul. On one side of the city, the camera pans across the busy offices of Typhoon Trading, a medium-sized firm nestled in Euljiro, where employees hustle through another long workday. On the other, just across the river in Apgujeong, outside a buzzing nightclub, a group of flashy young trendsetters — known as the “Orange Tribe,” affluent 20-somethings from Seoul’s upscale Gangnam District — pose for TV interviews, exuding the glamour and excess that defined their time. Enhancing the time-capsule effect, the sequence even re-creates the broadcast captions used on 1990s Korean television. As the story unfolds, characters interact with the era’s everyday essentials — pagers, outgoing-call-only “city p
