Netflix Tudum 2025 Recap: 'Squid Game' And Other K-Culture Moments

Forbes

2 days ago

Netflix pulled out all the stops for its Tudum 2025 live event on Saturday, May 31st at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles. Named after the familiar sound heard at the start of every Netflix film or series, Tudum LIVE—which was first held in 2020 in São Paulo, Brazil—is the streamer's biggest fan event. This year Tudum was livestreamed exclusively on Netflix for the first time ever and featured not only Hollywood A-listers offering sneak peeks into upcoming Netflix titles but also a ton of Korean content for audiences to enjoy.
Here are some of the things that K-culture fans were able to experience at Netflix's Tudum event this year:
Even before Saturday's live event, celebrations started on Friday evening with a 'Global Creator Tudum Kick-Off Party' at Vibiana in downtown Los Angeles, where hundreds of influencers from around the world, along with a few journalists, were invited to experience live performances and various activities centered on popular Netflix shows like When Life Gives You Tangerines and, of course, Squid Game.
Attendees had the chance to film themselves posing against the canola field backdrop from When Life Gives You Tangerines or jumping high into the air like a giddy Thanos with the aid of a Squid Game trampoline. Guests also enjoyed coffee and Squid Game-themed sweets while watching aerial acrobats perform to soundtracks from Squid Game and other hit Netflix shows.
Prior to the start of its Tudum live event, Netflix hosted an immersive red carpet outside the Kia Forum that featured fan activations and installations from its most popular shows. Squid Game arguably had the biggest presence there, with a giant statue of the infamous Young-hee doll towering over the red carpet, photo opps inside a space resembling the show's colorful staircases, and pink guards taking photos with fans in the crowd—some of whom were dressed up in green tracksuits or as Young-hee themselves.
Squid Game actors who were spotted on the red carpet included Lee Jung-jae (Gi-Hun), Lee Byung-hun (Front Man), Park Sung-hoon (Hyun-ju), Kang Ae-sim (Geum-ja) and Choi Seung-hyun (Thanos).
Anupam Tripathi, who played Ali Abdul in season 1 of Squid Game, was also present to interview some of the other Netflix stars there, including his fellow cast members.
Saturday's two-hour live event, which was hosted by Sofia Carson, kicked off with—what else?—Netflix's biggest show ever, Squid Game. In a lively opening film sequence, the series' iconic pink guards were shown rappelling down the Hollywood sign and marching through the streets of Los Angeles before arriving at the Kia Forum, where they gave an electrifying dance performance in front of a live audience.
Indian rapper Hanumankind then joined them onstage to perform his viral hit 'The Game Don't Stop,' which became the anthem to Squid Game's second season.
Squid Game cast members Lee Jung-jae, Lee Byung-hun, Park Sung-hoon, Kang Ae-sim and Choi Seung-hyun (aka T.O.P) appeared onstage to present the trailer for Squid Game season 3, which premieres on June 27th—but not before teaching the audience how to count down in Korean.
Afterwards the live audience headed back outside for the Tudum afterparty, which featured sumptuous desserts, appetizers and mini-entrees (including some Korean bulgogi bowls in celebration of Squid Game) and free merchandise from other hit Netflix shows like Stranger Things and One Piece.
While this year's Netflix Tudum festivities prominently showcased K-content and Korean culture, they weren't the sole highlights, of course. Saturday's live event also featured appearances by Hollywood stars like Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Steven Yeun, Daniel Craig, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Adam Sandler, Guillermo del Toro, Oscar Isaac and many others who came out onstage to deliver sneak peeks into upcoming Netflix titles like The Rip, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, Happy Gilmore 2 and Frankenstein. Audiences were also given exclusive previews of the upcoming seasons of One Piece, Stranger Things and Wednesday.
Backstreet Boy AJ McLean also made a surprise appearance to introduce Netflix's upcoming singing competition series Building the Band, slated to premiere this year.
Lady Gaga—who'll be guest starring in Part 2 of season 2 of Wednesday—closed out the live event with a show-stopping medley of her songs, including "Zombieboy," "Bloody Mary" and "Abracadabra.'
Well, there's the fact that the Netflix Tudum live event took place at a venue named after a South Korean car company (Kia America, the U.S. branch of South Korean auto manufacturer Kia, is the official automotive partner for the Forum).
The Netflix Tudum live event also overlapped with other major events featuring K-culture, including the sold-out Stray Kids concert (which happened right across the street at SoFi Stadium), a concert held by the legendary Korean singer Baek Ji-young, and the annual Head in the Clouds music festival, whose lineup this year included many Korean artists like the K-pop icons G-Dragon and 2NE1.
It's a K-content world, and we're all just living in it.