Warning: they are highly compulsive and dangerously addictive.
Long before Parasite made a stir around the world and won the most out of each and every major film awards, adding up this year’s most productive Oscars, Korean culture was gaining popularity around the world. With this Korean wave, also known as Hallyu, you could have heard of the BTS boys group. Or maybe you’ve developed a flavor for Korean haute cuisine with Michelin-starred restaurants like Cote and Atomix. Or you may have a shelf covered with good-looking Korean products for your 10-step night care routine. Korean TV dramas, while perhaps not as critically influenced as the country’s film production, are an indispensable component of the cultural fabric and now many of the most productive are on Netflix. Below are some of the most entertaining K-dramas to watch on the streaming service, from a captivating romantic mystery to an impressive period play.
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This ancient drama takes place at the end of the Joseon period, the last Korean dynasty before the annexation of the country through Japan in the early 20th century. Lee Byung-hun plays Eugene Choi of the U.S. Navy, who returns to his and falls in love with Go Ae-shin (played by The Handmaiden actress Kim Tae-ri), a nobleman who secretly makes the moon for the Righteous Army, a defense. force fighting for the indefinition of Korea. Mr. Sunshine has all the mandatory ingredients for a wonderful K drama: love triangles, story and action. Above all, it is a magnificent cinematic ode to Korea, before it is repositioned forever.
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Mental health, a sometimes taboo topic in Korea, is the central theme of this program. A popular e-book for children (Seo Ye-ji) has an antisocial personality disorder; a psychiatric caregiver (Kim so-hyun), on the other hand, has superior emotional intelligence and more luggage to take care of his autistic older brother. The woman meets the child and begins the healing.
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In this Netflix original (now there are two seasons, a third on the way) set in the Joseon era, the king is mysteriously struck by a strange illness and is presumed dead. Crown Prince Lee Chang (Ju Ji-hoon) tries to find out what’s going on with his father, only to be excluded from the palace through his power-hungry father and father, who conspire to keep the king’s condition a secret. until they can secure their control over the throne (getting rid of Lee Chang, for example). Turns out the king isn’t dead, he’s become a carnivorous zombie. The plague begins to spread across the kingdom and it is up to the crown prince to save his other parents and spread the perverse conspiracy behind his in-law’s takeover of power. It’s like Game of Thrones plus The Walking Dead, but it takes position in 17th-century Korea. And like those programs, Kingdom asks: can other people be more monstrous than the zombies who hunt them? Yes.
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First, Park Sae-ro-yi (Park Seo-joon) is expelled for beating a school bully, who happens to be the son of the tough food conglomerate owner Jangga Group. He then loses his father in a hit-and-run accident, in which the reckless driving force is: who else? – that same rich tyrant. After almost beating his father’s killer, Sae-ro-yi was sent to criminal for 3 years. After his release, he promises to dismantle the tough food company that ruined his life by opening a bar in Seoul’s Itaewon district in an effort to turn it into a franchise. The story of this stranger earned the highest ratings for his varied cast of characters: bar workers come with a transgender woman, a Guinean-Korean, a former gangster and a sociopath, and his description of his difficulties in seeking compatibility in a society that is rarely great for strangers.
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A woman (Gong Hyo-jin) moves to a small town with her young son and opens a bar. She is ridiculed by the women of the village, first for being a single mother (also some other taboo subject in Korea) and also to make a living serving alcohol, basically to men. Not everyone is dissatisfied with their arrival: a local policeman (Kang Ha-neul) is beaten without delay. Despite the show’s romantic comedy flavor, interspersed with comforting depictions of the protagonist’s quotes with his son, it’s also a thriller. There’s a serial killer on the loose and he’ll be her next victim unless her fan catches her first.
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For those around him, the school’s best student, Oh Ji-so (Kim Dong-hee), is the typical intelligent standout, so bland, in fact, that even his third-class counselor suggests that he examine less and move on to social life. Outside of school hours, however, he runs a security service for an illegal prostitution company (while keeping his identity secret) so he can earn enough money for his future. When a classmate discovers his secret and needs to get into the business, things start to get much more confusing and dangerous.
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This Grey’s Anatomy-style exhibit features five friends who have been inseparable from medical school and are now doctors at the same hospital. The screen describes their confusing lives, inside and outside the operating room. And one of the tactics they unleashed? Tap a band once a week (hence the playlist in the screen title).
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Each independent season of the much-loved Reply series is set in the context of a specific year (1994, 1997 and 1988) and describes the main cultural occasions and adjustments of that era. In this version of “1988”, for example, the Seoul Olympics occupy a vital place. The series is a refreshing break from all the melodramas and plot twists that characterize many Korean televisions. Reply 1988 tells the story of five teenage friends, and their families, who grow up in a small community in Seoul as they face very related things like puberty, crushing, access to college and find out what to do in life. Like its other seasons, this is a moving account of the transition to adulthood that is comforting and hilarious, and also very nostalgic.
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In this legal drama about two lawyers who make up one% of the company, Yoon Jae-hee is the spouse of a prestigious law firm with a record and a huge ego. Jung Geum-ja runs his own one-person law firm. The two simply have in common their disproportionate ambition, and struggle to get the most prestigious and lucrative cases, doing whatever it takes to get them. A giant cast (Ju Ji-hoon of Kingdom and the actress of the A Kim Hye-so list) makes Hyena an entertaining watch.
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After a plane his nephew was travelling on crashed on his way to Morocco, specialist Cha Dal-gun (Lee Seung-gi) vows to find out what happened. With national intelligence agent Go Hae-ri (Bae Suzy), the two begin to uncover a terrorist conspiracy leading to the Blue House (also known as the presidency).
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Think of this popular 2013 drama as a Korean edition of The O.C. Cha Eun-sang (Park Shin-hye) is dedicated to part-time work and lives in the home of Kim’s rich circle of relatives, where his mother is a housekeeper. A scholarship allows her to enrol in one of Korea’s top 1% youth schools, where she soon discovers herself in the middle of a love triangle involving the descendant of the circle of relatives Kim Kim Tan (Lee Min-ho) and her enemy Choi Young-do (Kim Woo-bin).
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A South Korean heiress (Son Ye-jin) paraglides and accidentally digs off on the wrong side of the DMZ (the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas). She is rescued through Ri Jeong-hyeok (Hyun-bin), a captain of North Korea’s special police. Unsurprisingly, they fall in love and he will have to keep his identity a secret and bring his house before anyone finds out who she is. Crash Landing on You won gold (currently the third-highest rated screen in Korean television history) thanks to its A-list stars, a strong cast and its multidimensional representation of life in North Korea.
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Former editor Kang Dan-i (Lee Na-young) is an unemployed, divorced and single mother. His most productive friend Cha Eun-ho (Lee Jong-suk) is a complete publisher of an e-book publishing house. Eun-ho asks Dan-i to find him a housekeeper, but without her knowing, she begins to clean her house in secret. Finally, you have to tell Eun-ho about the fact and undertake a transitory task in your editorial. The difficulties and discrimination Dan-i faces as he sought to rejoin the workforce after leaving it to raise a child, they put up some more layer of this captivating romantic comedy.
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