Hymn of Death (Season 1)

Hymn of Death (사의찬미, 2018) is a South Korean historical drama you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Park Soo-jin and starring Lee Jong-suk and Shin Hye-sun.

Set in the 1920s, the series follows the ill-fated real-life love between Kim Woo-jin, a married playwright, and Yun Shim-duk — Korea's first professional soprano. They meet as students in Tokyo, two young Koreans seeking a modern identity while their homeland is under Japanese occupation. The drama doesn't romanticize the affair so much as examine the cost of living outside the rules your era has written for you.

The story is rooted in documented history: in 1926 Yun Shim-duk recorded "Death Song," considered the first Korean pop record ever released. That recording haunts the series the way a last word haunts a silence. Stream Hymn of Death (2018) on iFILM.