Viewers never get to see what Korean teen Inhyung Chung’s face looks like after her long-awaited surgery. All we see, when she comes to, is a bloody mass of bandages, and a man’s voice saying, “Damn, I’m in trouble”, along with two surgically enhanced faces with limited expression ranges.

And then we see the back of her head when she sits down to dinner and the frozen expressions of her family. Roll credits. The end. The end of up-and-coming Korean filmmaker Doyeon Noh’s 11-and-a-half-minute 2014 short film, "Human Form", that is.

In the works is the six-episode one-hour drama adaptation, "Alienated", by Singapore-based Viddsee Studios for Singapore’s Mediacorp, which is promising a fantasy, thriller and social horror in its first adaptation of a Korean short film.

Filming on "Alienated" started in Singapore at the beginning of March wrapped towards the end of April. Three episodes drop on streaming platform MeWatch on Monday, 20 November, followed by the second three on Monday, 4 December. Mediacorp’s English-language broadcast service, Channel 5, premieres the series on 20 November at 10pm, and will air one episode a week in the same Monday slot.

Directed by Singapore’s Glenn Chan ("Titoudao") with Korean writer/director Doyeon Noh, "Alienated" is set in alternative universes, and stars Lim Shi-An as Luna, the 18-year-old student constantly bullied for being poor and ugly. She is resentful and blames the world for what she sees as her misfortune. As she reaches her breaking point in a universe where everyone looks the same, an other-worldly character appears and offers her options. Will the extreme measures she chooses free her from her pain?

The English-language long-form adaptation was announced in December last year, following Mediacorp’s Creatives Assembly 2021 and Viddsee Labs development initiative. Human Form was shortlisted as one of 12 Asian IPs to be developed under Viddsee Labs in 2022.

Viddsee said at the time that the short film had accumulated more than seven million views globally, with more than 90% of viewers younger than 34. The U.S. has been its top performing territory. 

Mediacorp has since described Alienated as a “youth-centred series [that] seeks to explore various societal issues such as toxic positivity, cancel culture, bullying and social injustice”.

"Alienated" co-stars include Lim Yu Beng as Humpty, Bryan Wong and Lina Ng as Luna’s parents and Estelle Fly as friend Becca. 

The series is Viddsee’s second for Mediacorp after the adaptation of 16-minute original short film, "Home is Where the Heart Is", into an eight-episode half-hour English-language series directed by creator Chang Kai Xiang along with Singapore’s Glenn Chan. 

Produced by Kenny Tan, the adaptation stars Naomi Yeo ("The Intruder") as a privileged young lawyer who becomes a reluctant champion of the vulnerable when she takes on pro-bono cases. 

The series was nominated in the Best Drama for a Single Market in the 2022 ContentAsia Awards.

 On 21 April, "Home is Where the Heart Is" became Viddsee’s first series on Netflix; the drama streams on Netflix across Southeast Asia and is also available on Mediacorp’s meWatch. 

"Home is Where the Heart Is" and "Alienated" are all part of an upsized Viddsee, which celebrated its 10th anniversary earlier this year, and last month said it had signed distribution deals for more than 170 titles on six platforms in Asia. 

New platforms airing Viddsee content include Muslim Pro’s SVOD service, Qalbox; MNC’s Vision+ in Indonesia and Singapore Airlines’ inflight entertainment. Viddsee also distributes series on Indonesian platform Vidio. 

The content mix includes Viddsee Originals titles from Viddsee’s marquee 50-episode short film anthology, "Scene City", drama series, "A.I. Love K-Drama", "The Lying Theory" and "Siti Vampire", plus indie films such as "Please Be Quiet" by William Adiguna and "Day 40" by Muhamad Bagas Satrio.

Published in ContentAsia's 2-14 May 2023 eNewsletter