Personal List of Top 5 Korean Dramas

I’ve always heard around me how good Korean Dramas are. I used to brush them away as the usual hype you hear about anything that's become mainstream now. Which is why I find myself perplexed that I'm completely engrossed in the genre. So much so, I'm writing this to showcase my personal top five.

To give context to the list, I started watching K-Dramas around May of 2023. Well, technically it was maybe Fall of 2021 because the first-ever drama I watched was then, and I also saw another one in the Spring of 2022. But personally, I say May of 2023 as my starting point because since then, I have literally not watched anything else. It's been K-Drama after K-Drama since then.

This list is not a ranked one. I am using numbers 1-5 just to give this some order. I don't really prefer one over the other, but I do have a standout favorite drama which I will mention in the description of each of my choices. And yes, there will be no spoilers.

1. Crash Landing on You - This is probably the most successful Drama of all time. It’s one that everyone has seen, and if you haven't seen it yet, you have definitely heard of it. It truly is a love story of the ages. It chronicles a South Korean CEO who goes paragliding but crashes down in the North Korean wilderness and comes across a soldier of North Korea, leading to their blossoming love. The music, the chemistry, the story, and even the cinematography are all excellent. The chemistry was so palpable that the lead actors are actually married in real life and have a child together. This drama might start off as your usual rom-com but it becomes so much more as you watch it. My favorite aspect is the interactions between the lead actress and the soldier buddies of her other half.
   

2. It’s Okay to not be Okay - The best way I can describe this Drama is with one word, and that's ‘healing.’ A beautiful story of two brothers, one who is on the spectrum (Moon Sang Tae) and the other who is his caretaker (Moon Gang Tae), who come in contact with a famed children’s book author (Ko Moon Young) who happens to be the favorite author of Moon Sang Tae. The three of them become each other's support system as they help each other heal from deep-rooted trauma. And through their journey, Moon Gang Tae and Ko Moon Young find love. In a world where the issue of mental health is finally being talked about and how childhood trauma can impact your life, this drama is the perfect encapsulation of those feelings and how freeing it can be to work on being better mentally.
   

3. The Good Bad Mother - Arguably one of the best shows of 2023. The show stars my favorite actor Lee Do Hyun as he takes on the role of Choi Kang Ho, a successful lawyer. But disaster strikes as a car accident leaves Choi Kang Ho in a mentally incapacitated state wherein he reverts to when he was a child. His mother moves him back to his childhood home to help in the recovery process. What follows is a healing journey for both of them as the mother can see how her strict and conditional upbringing negatively impacted her son. Choi Kang Ho was also able to reconnect with his childhood love, whom his mother disapproved of, and her two kids. My favorite scene in this drama is when Choi Kang Ho is being fed by his mother but he stops before he is full. His mother tries to feed him more, but he says if he's full he’ll feel sleepy and won’t be able to stay up and study. A tactic his mother often used when he was growing up. This makes the mother break down and tell him it's okay to eat till you're full now. This was the first scene where she is confronted with how her parenting had a negative impact.
   

4. Mouse - This was hands down the best psychological thriller I have ever seen. The story is that of a serial killer versus two police officers on his tail. The blending storylines, the connections between the killer and the officers are so well done. And the big twist is one I never saw coming. Most of the time we, as the audience, can get a sense of what and when a twist is coming. But I couldn’t have imagined a twist so mind-bending as this one. It’s one of those dramas where it's hard to stop once you start watching. Even though this drama has 20 episodes (with each episode averaging 90 minutes), I finished the show in four days. I couldn’t stop watching; each episode ends with the perfect level of suspense.
   

5. TwentyFive TwentyOne - This is my all-time favorite Korean drama, at least for now. It also stars my favorite actress Kim Tae Ri who plays a fencing prodigy Na Hee Do. She gets entangled with a budding sports journalist Baek Yi Jin. The story follows them through her career and how they fall deeply in love. I’ve never had such a visceral reaction to a show before watching this one. Towards the last few episodes, I was ugly crying because of what was happening. It may seem like a love story but it becomes so much more by the last episode. It’s like we’re growing up with these characters, with Na Hee Do trying to be the best fencer in Korea and Baek Yi Jin attempting to become a serious journalist. This takes number one for me, not because of the story or the acting, but because of how those two things made me feel deep inside.

This list took a lot of work to narrow down to five; there are so many more I have seen that would have made other people's lists. But these five are special to me and are probably the reason why, now, almost a year later, I don't feel like watching anything else except Korean Dramas