If ever there was a time to bust out your Netflix or Hulu account, now would be it. There’s nothing quite as distracting, or entertaining, as a good K-Drama. K-Drama is a term for a television series, typically lasting one season, originating from South Korea. With the spread of the hallyu, a term used for the worldwide popularity of South Korean entertainment and culture like K-Pop or K-Beauty, K-Dramas also gained popularity outside of South Korea. These series are known for following a lot of archetypes American television series are known for and then some. Some popular storylines in K-Dramas fall along the lines of ‘Rich Boy Falls in Love With Poor, But Pretty Girl’, or ‘Older Woman Falls in Love With Younger Man’, and so on.
The great thing about K-Dramas, besides the unabashedly romantic, dramatic, or comedic (sometimes all three) storylines is that they’re fairly easy to get through. Unlike American television series which can drag on for years, or decades, and may feel almost impossible to catch up on; the majority of K-Dramas last one season, and typically comprise of hour-long segments which usually end after 16 episodes.
Here are a few of Global Glam’s recommended K-Dramas to binge on:
- Itaewon Class
To put it frankly, there has never been a K-Drama quite like Itaewon Class. This series features romance, suspense, drama, quite a bit of mystery and so much more. The series is focused on main character Park Sae-ro-yi, whose life was turned upside down after getting expelled for punching a school bully and losing his father in a terrible accident. Park spends the majority of his series focused on building his restaurant-bar, DanBam (Sweet Night), located in Itaewon alongside his manager and staff.
To give a little background, Itaewon is a district in Seoul known for being popular amongst non-Koreans and features a range of clubs and restaurants meant to appeal to a wide arrange of backgrounds. Several of the characters featured in this K-Drama also veer from the typical casting; including a transgender character an African character. The series explores topics about the LBGTQ community, xenophobia, racism, and classism; subjects that typically aren’t covered in your average South Korean television series. There is a good mix of light-hearted and funny moments to balance with the more intense, heavy scenes featured.
- Hyena
If you’re not as into the romance-focused version of K-Dramas, then Hyena is just the thing for you. The show focuses on two lawyers, Jung Geum-Ja, who is very witty and comes from a bit of a rough background, and Yoon Hee-Jae, an elite lawyer with a cocky attitude. After a very…intense and surprising first meeting, the two duke each other out in the courtroom time and time again using their wit and charms to outdo the other. The show features intense cliffhangers, exciting pacing, and just enough romance and flirting to still make things a little more sexy.
- Romance Is A Bonus Book
Romance Is A Bonus Book has some similarities to the American series “Younger” in that the main character has to fudge some details about their life in order to get a job to pay for their child’s education after a bad divorce, and returning back to the workforce after taking several years off to raise their child. In “Younger”, the main character Liza Miller fibs about her age, portraying herself as a twenty-something year old woman. Whereas, in Romance Is A Bonus Book, the main character, Kang Dan-i, lies about her educational background and says she only graduated with a high school diploma. The reason for this is that in South Korean culture age hierarchy plays a strong role, and older co-workers are unable to easily work with younger co-workers in the same position. This series talks about topics such as the difficulty for older women to be in the workforce, as a working mom, a single woman with no kids, or a mom just returning to work after several years dedicated to child-rearing. It also features a healthy dose of love triangles, swoon-worthy romantic lines and affectionate gestures, and some pretty cool fashion looks for the male and female characters alike.
- Oh My Ghost
Oh My Ghost is about a timid young woman named Na Bong-sun who is possessed by a virgin ghost named Shin Soon-Ae…no, you read that correctly. Soon-Ae is a young woman who regretfully died as a virgin and will remain be unable to move on to the afterlife until she has resolved her grudges. Bong-sun is able to see spirits, thanks to her shaman grandmother, and ends up as a sort of host body for Soon-Ae and her mischievous antics. The series features love, romance, humor, and a intriguing amount of suspenseful storytelling as we get more of a background on why Soon-Ae is still haunting around. A delightfully quirky K-Drama to keep oneself distracted and entertained.
- It’s Ok To Be Sensitive.
Technically, this series is considered a web drama because it is solely premiered via the internet versus television and features episodes that are roughly ten minutes long. This is a fairly progressive series that talks about issues such as the “Me Too” Movement, sexual harassment in an educational and work environment, and so on. In South Korea, the “Me Too” Movement and other similar feminist movements is not quite as widespread as it is in American or Europeans media outlets, but has been seeing gaining popularity in recent years. The series is as adorable as it is progressive, and features plenty of light-hearted romantic content for the viewer to enjoy.
With the exception of It’s Ok To Be Sensitive, which can be found on YouTube, all the K-Dramas mentioned can be seen on Netflix.
Written by: Nicole Kirichanskaya
