Millions of Americans watch Korean dramas on Netflix

Until recently, practically all of the television series available to Americans were produced in the United States. Popular shows from other countries, even those with English subtitles, were rarely broadcast in the United States, and when they were, they were only on PBS. However, in recent years, this has begun to change. Every day, new British, Canadian, and Australian series are released, and services such as Hulu offer non-English entertainment (like Hatufim, the Israeli show that served as inspiration for Homeland).

Then there's DramaFever, an online video streaming service specializing in Asian television episodes and films. DramaFever has risen to become one of the most famous distributors of international entertainment in the United States since its beginning in 2009.

Thanks to syndication partners like Hulu and YouTube, DF says that its total monthly unique viewers doubled from 2.5 million to 10 million between 2012 and 2013. With a population of 20 million people, it is still increasing.

Big brands have taken notice of the rapid expansion, according to Ad Week. Toyota, AT&T, Verizon, and Samsung have all sponsored ads on DramaFever. The site's content is available in more places than ever before, and it's expanded outside Asian television with partnerships with Hulu, AMC, and YouTube, as well as the addition of Telemundo programming in December 2012.

When Suk Park and Seung Bak founded DramaFever with just four individuals, they didn't anticipate things to take off as rapidly as they did. "When we first started five years ago, we thought our audience would be Korean-American," Park told me over the phone. "On the other hand, we couldn't have been more wrong."

Korean dramas are very popular among non-Asian audiences.

According to Park, non-Asian people make up 85 percent of DramaFever's audience, with 45 percent Caucasian and 25 percent Latino. Park told me that "all races are searching out foreign entertainment" because it "speaks to them more than... traditional television."

DramaFever offers a large content library, but it is best known for its Korean dramas, or K-dramas as they are more popularly known. Of course, K-dramas vary in content and setting, but they all have one thing in common: each series is self-contained, lasting one season and telling a complete story, and it usually revolves around a chaste romance. The first kiss is usually seven or eight episodes into the tale, which normally has 16 to 20 episodes. "Relationships are the focus in K-dramas," Park said. "It's not so much sex as it is true lovers' efforts to make romance a reality."

Take, for example, DF's latest drama Blade Man, which tells the story of a computer game CEO and a game designer falling in love. It appears to be a typical meet cute scenario until you find that the rich CEO, played by Lee Dong-Wook, has a condition that causes his rage to manifest as physical blades erupting from his body. Then there's My Love From The Star, a film about a famous actress who falls in love with a 400-year-old alien that's being remade by ABC in the United States. According to DF, Servant, a version of Sex and the City set during the Chosun Dynasty in Korea, will premiere in a few weeks.

Park admits that the content of DramaFever is different from what Western consumers are used to. It's possible, however, that this is why his service is so popular. Millennials, who account for the bulk of DF's audience, believe it is critical to understand about cultural narratives other than their own, according to Park. Park feels that television may be used to open up and explore new themes since it is a "engine of empathy." "Entertainment is a bridge to civilization," he believes.