An Indonesian remake of South Korea’s 2017 TV series “Tunnel” will be one of the first pieces of original content for Goplay, a recently launched video streaming service backed by Indonesia’s tech giant Gojek.
“We just finished production yesterday, and we are in the process of the next phase: post-production,” Tanya Yuson, chief of creative development at Indonesian producer Base Entertainment, told Variety.
Yuson and Shanty Harmayn are handling the Indonesian adaptation as showrunners, while Jogjakarta-based Fourcolors Films is producing the show. Multiple Citra Award winner Ifa Isfansyah is one of the three directors assigned to direct different episodes, while cast includes “The Raid” actor Donny Alamsyah and up-and-coming actress Hana Malasan.
“There so many universal elements in the original, and Thailand has remade it very close to the original one. We really made it into the local setting, shifting the context, although we still kept the spirit of the [original’s] mystery and the time slip theme,” Yuson said.
Goplay, which came into being in September, bought the streaming rights to the Indonesian remake of “Tunnel” at pitching stage.
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“Something like this, an adaptation, is something that is pretty new to Indonesia. Goplay is willing to break new barriers and offer its viewers something that hasn’t been already seen in Indonesia,” Yuson said.
Inspired by the Hwaseong serial murders, on which top South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho’s “Memories of Murder” is based, the 16-episode series was broadcased on Korea’s OCN and set the highest ratings of all time for the channel.
“Korean contents [and its popularity] has brought together the fractured Asian market together,” said Yuson. “We have some other projects that touch on that [K-pop connection].”