General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Persona (페르소나)

Persona (페르소나) is a 2019 South Korean anthology series released as a Netflix original, consisting of four short films by four different directors, all starring the singer and actress IU (Lee Ji-eun, 이지은) in her first film role.¹ The four shorts, Love Set, Collector, Kiss Burn, and Walking at Night, share no story or world; each presents a different character played by IU through the lens of a different director.¹^•² The project was planned by the singer-songwriter Yoon Jong-shin, produced by his company Mystic Entertainment, and financed by Netflix.³

Key fact	Detail
Format	Anthology of four independent short films, each about 22 minutes, sharing one lead actress and no shared storyline⁴^•²
Release	April 11, 2019, 5 pm KST on Netflix, simultaneous in about 190 countries; delayed from April 5 after a national disaster declaration for east coast forest fires⁵^•⁶
Directors	Lee Kyoung-mi (Love Set), Yim Pil-sung (Collector), Jeon Go-woon (Kiss Burn), Kim Jong-kwan (Walking at Night)¹
Lead and supporting cast	IU in all four shorts; Bae Doona, Park Hae-soo, and Shim Dal-gi in supporting roles¹^•⁴
Production	Mystic Story, executive producer Yoon Jong-shin; Netflix investment³
Reception	IMDb 6.5/10 from about 1,800 votes; sixth among 2019 titles in Korea on Netflix's first-28-day viewing ranking⁷^•⁸
Follow-up	A planned second season starring Sulli was halted by her death in October 2019 and eventually released in 2023 as Persona: Sulli⁹

Spoilers

The four shorts

Love Set (러브세트), directed by Lee Kyoung-mi, stages a heated tennis match between two women: IU's character and Bae Doona's, who is about to marry IU's father; the match decides whether the marriage proceeds.¹^•¹¹

Collector (썩지 않게 아주 오래), directed by Yim Pil-sung, casts IU as a strikingly attractive young woman who makes every man she dates pour his heart out to her; Yim said he drew inspiration from IU's song "Jam Jam."¹^•¹²

Kiss Burn (키스가 죄), directed by Jeon Go-woon, winner of a rookie director award for the 2018 film Little Princess, follows two teenage girls pushing back against the pressures of a patriarchal family, with IU as a high school student helping her friend escape her friend's father.¹^•¹³

Walking at Night (밤을 걷다), directed by Kim Jong-kwan and shot in black and white, depicts a deceased woman visiting her former boyfriend in his dream, where the two walk through their city and speak about life, death, love, and loss.¹⁴^•¹³

Concept and production

The title refers to the persona, a term Korean film discourse uses for the actor who embodies a director's alter ego or a particular symbol.⁶ Each of the four directors was given the same muse and asked to tell a different story with her, so the series presents four separate faces of one performer rather than one continuous narrative.¹

Origin. Yoon Jong-shin, a singer-songwriter known for his monthly music release project Monthly Yoon Jong-shin, had been developing video content ideas and working with directors for two to three years; Persona was the first result.⁶ A 2017 JTBC collaboration between short films and variety programming, Whole Audience Viewed, had given him a glimpse of the commercial potential of short films, and Mystic Story produced the project with Netflix investment.³ The directors chosen, Lee Kyoung-mi, Kim Jong-kwan, Jeon Go-woon, and Yim Pil-sung, had built reputations moving between independent and commercial film.⁶ Netflix announced the project on March 13, 2019, describing it as an anthology in which Lee Ji-eun plays four personas through the directors' distinct styles of storytelling.¹

For IU, who had acted in television dramas such as The Producers and My Mister, the experimental short-film format was reportedly a lower-burden entry into film than a conventional commercial feature, and she had received film offers for several years without finding a suitable opportunity.⁶ At the production press conference at the Conrad Seoul on March 27, 2019, she called the debut a turning point in her acting career.¹⁰

Release and reception

Netflix scheduled the release for April 5, 2019, then postponed it after a forest fire on South Korea's east coast led to a declared national emergency; the series launched on April 11 at 5 pm.⁵ It was released simultaneously in about 190 countries.⁶ In June 2019 it was invited to the Korean Fantastic: Crossover section of the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, where it screened on June 29 followed by a talk with the planners and directors.¹⁵

Audience ratings were moderate. IMDb records a 6.5/10 weighted rating from about 1,800 votes, with per-episode scores of 5.8, 7.0, 6.7, and 7.7; the final episode, Walking at Night, scored highest.⁷ In December 2019, Netflix placed Persona in sixth position for Korean 2019 releases measured by viewership in the first 28 days, with only Kingdom and Crash Landing on You ahead of it.⁸ A Daegu University case study notes that Persona was among works whose overseas streaming exceeded its domestic streaming, with IU's large Asian fandom serving as an effective ambassador for Netflix's overseas market expansion.²

Critics generally read the series as a showcase rather than a unified work. Reviews highlighted the distinct directorial visions and IU's willingness to play against her "nation's little sister" image, while noting that the four unrelated shorts leave a fragmented impression for viewers expecting a serialized story.¹⁶^•¹¹ The Maeil Business critic Yang Yu-chang argued that the project opened new possibilities for short films, which had been treated mainly as directors' debuts or student exercises, but found the use of IU itself underexplored, since the scripts did not fully justify why the protagonist had to be IU.³

Persona: Sulli and the unfinished second season

A second season was planned with the singer and actress Sulli (Choi Jin-ri) as the new muse, an anthology of five shorts in which she had completed filming one episode before her death in October 2019, after which production was halted.⁹ In 2023 Netflix released the completed material as Persona: Sulli, consisting of the short fiction film 4: Clean Island (written by Kim Ji-hye, directed by Hwang Soo-ah and Kim Ji-hye) and the feature-length documentary To Truth (written and directed by Jung Yoon-suk), released on October 13.⁹ Streaming catalogs now list Persona as a two-season title, with season 1's four IU shorts and season 2's Sulli material.¹⁷

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026