It’s not often that a Netflix series becomes a global mega-hit but is completely ignored in Germany. After all, “Squid Game”, “House of Money” and co. have long since proven that the biggest hits don’t necessarily have to come from the USA and that the Netflix audience is definitely interested in productions from other countries. In the case of “Extraordinary Attorney Woo”, however, the streaming service has only itself to blame. Netflix neglected to give the hit series a German soundtrack – and thus massively limited its potential for success.
But although “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” hardly received any attention in this country (and also in the rest of Europe), globally it is currently the most successful Netflix series of the past week – even though it has already been running for nine weeks!
The longevity compared to the competition is also due to the fact that two new episodes of “Attorney Woo” are released every week, which is quite unusual for a Netflix series. Nevertheless, it is still an outstanding success.
In the official Netflix Top 10 of the most successful non-English-language series, “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” is already in 6th place, ahead of well-known international hits such as “Lupin” and “Elite”. With over 393 million hours watched in the first 28 days, “Attorney Woo” has surpassed every other Netflix season released since “Stranger Things 4”. But what is it actually about?
THIS IS “EXTRAORDINARY ATTORNEY WOO” ON NETFLIX
“Extraordinary Attorney Woo” is about the lawyer Woo Young-woo (Park Eun-bin), who has Asperger’s syndrome. This causes her to have problems with social interactions, but with her razor-sharp mind and unusual ways of thinking, she thrives in the courtroom.
Our editor-in-chief Christoph Petersen has already had a look at the series and is sure that with a German dub it would be a real success in this country as well, as he pointed out in an earlier article:
“‘Extraordinary Attorney Woo’ is a deeply touching, often absurdly funny as well as surprisingly exciting and twisty justice series in the tradition of “Ally McBeal” with a terrific lead performance by Park Eun-bin. A little cheesy in places (such as the title character’s fondness for whales of all kinds), “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” is not only super-entertaining feel-good fare that hardly anyone can resist. The series also tackles a whole range of really dark issues in a way you wouldn’t expect from such a mainstream hit – and the precision with legal issues (South Korean law is extremely similar to German law) is absolutely unrivalled in comparable series.”
So Netflix could have boosted the already huge success of “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” even further. But the streaming service simply didn’t seize the opportunity to do so. We’ll see if Netflix realises its mistake and possibly adds a German synchro to make the mega-hit palatable to users who don’t want to read subtitles.
