“Movies or dramas about North Korea before were always about spies and serious stuff, so as a love story it was very refreshing to watch,” said Wang Ting-chih, a 23-year-old fan from Taiwan.

Featuring Hyun Bin and Son Ye-jin in the lead roles, Crash Landing On You was filmed in South Korea, Switzerland and Mongolia, making for dreamy landscape backdrops.

“It’s hard to beat a show where beautiful people are in beautiful places,” said Anne Lim, 23 from Singapore.

Other fans appreciated it as a well-produced drama with the right balance of elements.

“It had romance, tragedy, political manoeuvring, conflicts and a look into what life was like in North Korea,” said Mau Chi-wang, a 64-year-old retired public affairs consultant from Hong Kong. “It was successful in a sense that it had all these different elements that is able to satisfy the curiosity of those watching, no matter what age group you are in.”

It even captured the attention of those who don’t usually watch K-dramas. Enoch Lam Yee-lok, 24, works as a government town planner in Hong Kong. He binge-watched the entire series in four days.

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“One minute you’re crying, and the next scene you’re laughing at how different cultures are between the South and North,” Lam said, referring to the seamless switches from scenes of tearful goodbyes to the playful bickering between North Korean soldiers and gossipy village ajummas, or middle-aged Korean women.

The heart-wrenching love story aside, experts have also highlighted the producers’ decision to show a more humane side of North Koreans.

“North Korea tends to appear in our imagination as the ‘axis of evil’, we think of [negative things like] nuclear weapons and human rights abuses,” said Joanna Elfving-Hwang, associate professor of Korean studies at the University of Western Australia. “This drama has dared to think about North Korean people differently and represented them as quite human and quite Korean.”

Other storylines feature a North Korean wiretapper who initially helps corrupt officials only to later change allegiances. Details such as North Korean village ajummas gathering to make kimchi and try out smuggled skincare sold secretly at street markets add touches of realism. To accurately depict the everyday lives of North Koreans, from the food people eat to the songs children sing at school, producers consulted real-life defectors.

“It is refreshing how it portrays various aspects of North Korean society without unnecessarily passing judgment, and shows North Koreans as complex people who are ultimately relatable and even lovable, even if they are culturally different,” said Sokeel Park, director of research and strategy at Liberty in North Korea, a non-profit group that helps North Korean refugees.

Rubio Chan Shing-kwan, co-founder of GLO Travel, a Hong Kong company organising tours to North Korea, also appreciated the nuanced details.

“The accent, as well as the boisterous and sometimes brusque way the ajummas spoke in the drama were just like those [people] I have seen and met in North Korea,” said Chan, who has travelled to North Korea more than 30 times in the past eight years.

“Even details such as how department stores would put up plaques by the front door commemorating leaders’ visits were exactly what you would see in Pyongyang.”

Despite its thorough research, the drama has apparently upset North Korea’s leadership. Last week, state-run media outlet Uriminzokkiri published an editorial calling recently produced South Korean films and television dramas “deceptive, fabricated, absurd and impure”, condemning them as “an unacceptable and atrocious provocation”, although the editorial did not mention any specific titles.

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The popularity of Crash Landing On You coincides with a period of fluctuating relations between the two Koreas. Although the countries are officially still at war, as there was no peace treaty signed after the Korean war ended in 1953, South Korean President Moon Jae-in has met several times with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, seeking to ease military tensions and enhance cross-border exchanges.

However, that rapprochement has slowed in recent months as Pyongyang’s denuclearisation talks with the US stalled and North Korea resumed weapons testing.

Steve Chung Lok-wai, an expert in Korean affairs at Chinese University, noted that the writers of the drama were careful to avoid sensitive political matters.

“Lots of people questioned whether the male lead, the North Korean soldier, would end up defecting to the South for love, but they were able to sidestep that scenario and gave it a plausible ending where the two would meet in Switzerland instead of glamorising the whole issue,” Chung said.

“It’s quite smart because they avoided all the real taboos but made it believable enough where it would make people think about these political problems.”

Some conservative parties in South Korea have accused the drama of painting a flattering picture of the reclusive North, which is racked by poverty and severe food shortages.

Certain other aspects of the drama were also criticised as highly unrealistic. North Korean defector Kang Na-ra, who was also a consultant on the show, said the characters were able to slip across the border much more easily than in real life.

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“I had to pay a broker 10 million won (US$8,400) to swim across the Yalu river [which borders North Korea and China] while being shot at from behind by soldiers [when I escaped],” Kang said in a YouTube video.

Carol Yip Pui-yu, a 29-year-old Hong Kong viewer, shrugged off the plot holes and far-fetched scenarios.

“If you wanted to watch a drama that made sense, you wouldn’t watch K-dramas,” she said. “I doubt you’d find an actual North Korean soldier who looks like Hyun Bin in real life, but the absence of [realism] may be the exact reason people are drawn to it.”

Setting aside the debates about whether Crash Landing On You gets it right or takes too many liberties, one explanation for its appeal throughout Asia may simply be a matter of timing.

“It definitely has something to do with the coronavirus outbreak,” Chung said. “Everyone’s just stuck at home with nothing to do but to watch Netflix.”