About Newtopia
Newtopia is a 2025 South Korean genre-mashing series that premiered on Coupang Play and streamed internationally on Amazon Prime Video, telling an apocalypse love story with a deliberately comic streak. At its center are Lee Jae-yoon and Kang Young-joo, a couple who have drifted to the brink of breaking up just as an unexpected outbreak turns Seoul upside down. When the city is suddenly overrun and the two are separated, the romance that seemed to be ending becomes the very thing that drives them to survive.
Lee Jae-yoon, recently back from his stint as a soldier, finds himself fighting his way across a transformed city to reach Young-joo, who is trapped inside her apartment building as the chaos spreads. The series cuts between his cross-town odyssey and her tense, often darkly funny attempts to stay safe with the other residents, building its tension out of near-misses, bad timing, and the small absurdities of an ordinary couple caught in an extraordinary disaster. The threat is treated as a backdrop for character rather than spectacle, with the horror elements handled in broad, non-graphic terms.
Adapted from the webtoon-style novel Influenza by Han Sang-woon and directed by Yoon Sung-hyun, Newtopia leans into tonal whiplash on purpose, swinging between sincere romance, action set pieces, and deadpan comedy. Park Jeong-min and Jisoo anchor the eight-episode run as the estranged pair, supported by an ensemble of survivors whose bickering and bravery keep the mood light even as the stakes rise. The result is positioned less as a straight survival thriller and more as a romantic comedy that happens to unfold during the end of the world.