The early 1970s were a serious low point in men’s fashion, especially among South Korean drug dealers with a penchant for polyester shirts. This is one of the most frightening lessons to be absorbed from quirkily amusing narcotics tale The Drug King , made available on Netflix only a couple of months after its general release in cinemas. Not to trivialise the manufacture, supply and administration of the highly impure form of crystal meth called “crank”, but among the dark deeds and double-crossings of the drugs trade there are laughs to be had – at least according to director Woo Min-ho’s understanding of it. Most are offered inadvertently by bumbling gang leader Lee Doo-sam (played by Song Kang-ho), who falls into the business by jumping from a ship while trying to smuggle watches. Bae Doona (seen to mesmerising effect in Cloud Atlas ) plays his flinty lover, Kim Jeong-ah, who supplies the dodgy high-level connections. While the small-fry crooks must decide whether it’s better to be busted as drug mules or Pyongyang communists, the gormless, approachable Lee, in exporting his product from Busan to Japan and helping to turn all Koreans’ natural enemies into junkies, is considered a patriot. “He’s improving our country’s reputation,” says one lackey, admiringly. Slow-motion sequences accentuate action, violence is sustained and extreme and Doors-flavoured rock plays on radios: expect the Quentin Tarantino remake soon. Formula 1: Drive to Survive – Netflix takes viewers behind the scenes William Shakespeare wrote a play called Hamlet, featuring courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in minor roles. A few years later, Tom Stoppard wrote a play called Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead , with said duo in starring roles, their tragicomedy taking place in the wings of Hamlet, whose action continues regardless. The makers of 10-part Netflix documentary series Formula 1: Drive to Survi ve, filmed during the 2018 Grand Prix season and now streaming to coincide with today’s start of the 2019 season, must have felt condemned to their own Rosencrantz and Guildenstern moment when the two most glamorous and capable teams, which spent 2018 in a mutual scrap for honours, refused to offer much beyond limited access to personnel, citing potential distraction. Perhaps that’s why its makers gave the series such an overwrought title. Unexpectedly, however, the official absence of Mercedes and Ferrari – whose cars can still be seen in race footage – has allowed other teams to peek out from the wings and take top billing for once. These include Red Bull (former serial title winners) and the likes of Renault, Haas, Williams, McLaren and Force India, whose intriguing stories are told through backstage footage from the track, team headquarters and even drivers’ homes, by the self-possessed drivers themselves, spiky team principals, engineers and pit-crew mechanics, with no little bile included. Must-see sport movies: the best outdoor, adventure and extreme documentaries It’s not all arrogance and spite in “the piranha club” though: “It feels like flying … it’s almost like having superpowers,” says grateful Haas driver Kevin Magnussen (a decidedly different Prince of Denmark) of his job. Red Bull boss Christian Horner, meanwhile, acknowledges F1 drivers’ “fighter-pilot mentality” that “separates them from mere mortals”. As with other candid sports documentaries, of which there seems to be no shortage on streaming services, it’s the casual viewer, perhaps more than the aficionado, to whom the message is being preached. And the message is that despite the hogging of the limelight by two or three usual suspects, F1 ’s 21-instalment soap opera of dazzling racing skill and daring (with annual episodes in Shanghai, Suzuka and Singapore), in which sleek works of mechanical art are powered by real engines making an infernal racket, remains entire street circuits ahead of Formula E, whose electric milk floats pootled around Hong Kong last weekend. Take that, environment.