SEOUL, South Korea — Lee Han-bit helped produce a television series called “Drinking Solo,” in which young adults cramming for a high-stakes civil service exam often drink to relieve anxiety. But working weeks without a break and asking his own employees to work 20-hour days, Mr. Lee was consumed by pressures of his own.

He took his life within days of completing the project, leaving behind a note that decried a South Korean work culture that exploited him and required him to exploit his crew in turn.

“I too was nothing but a laborer,” Mr. Lee wrote. But to them, he added, “I was nothing more or less than a manager who squeezed the laborers.”

Mr. Lee’s message reverberated across South Korea, a country that has long worked too hard.

While Japan famously brought the world the concept of “death from overwork,” South Koreans work longer hours, according to labor data. In fact, they put in 240 more work hours per year than Americans do — or, put another way, an extra month of eight-hour workdays.