10 Netflix series from South Korea that are really worth watching

K-Drama on Netflix: 10 series that every beginner must watch.

“Squid Game”, “Hellbound”, BTS or Blackpink: Entertainment from Korea was booming in 2021. And an end to the Hallyu phenomenon (the Korean term for the culture boom) is not in sight any time soon, because numerous series from South Korea are waiting to be discovered by a new audience on Netflix. We introduce you to 10 must-see K-Dramas that make the broad spectrum of the K-Film industry tangible. (Also interesting: BTS: This is the secret of their success)

K-Drama: What are the specifics?

To get one thing clear at the outset: Series from South Korea are not necessarily kitschy or melodramatic and they are not always primarily romantic stories; Crime, drama, sci-fi and fantasy series are summarized under the keyword K-Drama. But whatever the genre, South Korean series almost always follow certain conventions that differ from Western series, particularly in the way the plot is structured. On Netflix, one usually finds productions that consist of only one season, which consists of between 10 and 20 episodes; however, these are often feature-length. Not only that, but the plot development is much more insidious than we are used to. After the first episode, it is often not possible to tell what the series is about. (Also interesting: The 25 best science fiction series on Netflix, Amazon, Sky & Co.)

However, as in most US series, romances are almost always part of the narrative, whereby these are presented in a much more chaste manner than we are used to: bare skin is taboo and kissing is only seldom, instead the tension of the connection is created by deep looks and tender touches, like little hands hold, or stroke a strand of hair from the face, expressed.

Top 10 Netflix series from South Korea

As a starting point The IMDB platform, which contains all film and series reviews from viewers and critics, is used for this series ranking an overall rating. The best possible rating is 10 stars. For our selection, we focused on series that have a rating of 8 or more stars.

Start-Up (2020)

Because the start-up scene attracts eccentric personalities and sometimes seems a bit silly due to its tech jargon, it is often parodied in films and series. In contrast, this South Korean series offers exciting insights into the complex processes of founding a company and also tells a moving story about friendship, love and family: Because she wants to prove to her estranged family what she’s made of, the idealistic Seo Dal-Mi ( Bae Suzy) took part in a start-up competition. Together with three chaotic programmers (Nam Joo-hyuk, Kim Do Wan, Yoo Su-bin) and a bitchy designer (Stephanie Lee), the ambitious young woman tries to change the world for the better; but first she and her team must learn to believe in themselves.