5 Kdramas to Binge on Netflix

About a week ago I read Netflix was getting ready to increase the amount of Kdrama offerings (Korean Dramas). I joked t my husband our 20-year-old daughter will have watched pretty much all of them within the span of a month.

There’s a good reason for that. Kdramas, in many ways, are just better than much of the other new, original content on streaming services. The values are in place, and basic truths like love, loyalty and humility. Mostly, however, they are just really clever and fun. As was already am a fan of Japan’s anime and Jdrama offerings, I figured I’d give the Korean fare a try. My daughter is a massive fan of Kdrama, so whe was more than ready get others sucked into her favorites.

Thanks to movies like the brilliant Train to Busan, and series like the excessively popular Squid Game, kdramas are getting some well-earned love worldwide. There are more kdramas being dropped all the time, and this can get confusing. Here are five personal picks to get you started down the kdrama rabbit hole.

I’ll kick off with the one I’m watching right now.

Vincenzo

Korean born Vincenzo Cassano is a highly respected consigliere for the Italian mafia. He returns to Korea looking for a stash that will help with some future money laundering opportunities. He winds up in a culture clash from the people of his home country, but eventually ends up helping them fight for justice against a corrupt corporation. Explosions, dark (and dorky) comedy, and some great scenes with a cool, hot Korean dude screaming at the sky in perfect Italian. Oh yeah, and he “John Wicks” some baddies with various ordinary objects from tape measures to hockey pucks.

All of Us Are Dead

I love a good zombie series, and this one set in a high school is the right mix of gory scares and human conflict. The story can get a little down at times, but immediately picks up with some knuckle-biting moments. If you find it hard to keep track of the large amount of characters in the beginning, don’t worry. The cast starts “thinning out” pretty fast…and the zombie transformations are horrifying. Catch up now, because Season 2 is on the way, soon.

The Uncanny Counter

A sometimes goofball, sometimes touching, supernatural hunt.This one doesn’t take itself too seriously.That’s a good thing if you’ve just watched a bleak zombie invasion. Four people who range in age and personality types, have been given a special ability to find, hunt, and hopefully banish evil spirits. They face down both human and inhuman foes, get some unlimited funding from an eccentric benefactor, and work in a noodle shop.

Love Alarm

I felt I needed to include a romance for those who love them, and I am not by any means a romantic drama person. I always find them nauseating and saccharine. This one my daughter got me into, and I actually found myself taking sides. The story has an underlying message of the dangers of relying on social media, as the story is set in a world where an app was created to detect if someone in the vicinity “loves” you. Sounds kinda cutesy poop, but there’s some dark undertones of why this is a very bad thing. It starts in high school and does a four-year jump in the second (and I think final) season. You can see how this technology effects everyone’s life and personal decisions.

Sweet Home

A good, old fashioned monster horror. The residents of not-so-great high rise, including one suicidal loner, are facing the end of humanity right in front of them. People are becoming monsters, and the reason for their turning isn’t what you think. There’s an old-timey stop-motion effect to the monsters that some might be put off by in the clean “CGI” world. Personally, I really loved it. It reminded me of the old Ray Harryhausen creatures that both fascinated me and scared the crap out of me as a kid. The set design is very stylized, too. It has a sleek Rear Window-like design to the the big green building. It ends on a sort of downer note, but there is a second and third season coming that will hopefully answer a few questions. There’s an epic soundtrack on this one, and weirdly enough the song that links the heroic scenes is Imagine Dragons’ “Warriors.”

So if you want a departure from the endless reboots and retreads, give a few kdramas a try. They aren’t perfect, but they might just be addictive.

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