Deep in the Heart of Textiles

My K-drama List

K-dramas are limited television series produced in South Korea. I started watching because of the beautiful costumes in the historic dramas, but I have fallen in love with the plots, settings, and acting as well, and I have gotten interested in the culture as portrayed in the modern slice-of-life dramas. This is a page to share the ones I have watched, and related resources.

The first one I watched, Bon Appetit, Your Majesty!, was dubbed into English.  All the rest I have watched in Korean with English subtitles.  And I am aware that there are lots of highly recommended series that I have not yet watched — I am saving them for the future!

Historical Dramas of the Joseon Era (1392-1897)

Many of these are not set in any particular year; just in a fictional past. [And let me just say that I had a hard time formatting this list, and I never could get the spacing the way I wanted it.]

• Bon Appetit, Your Majesty! (2025) A chef from our time finds herself about 500 years in the past, when she has to placate the king and others by cooking wonderful foods.
  This was the first one I watched.  There were so many little plot surprises that I was hooked.
• Rookie Historian Goo Hae-Ryung (2019) Set about 1830, a highly-educated young woman earns a position as a court historian, assigned to a prince who is a virtual captive.
  This one handles exposition so well, by having minor characters explain the hierarchy system to the rookie historians, having characters reveal statistics in arguments, etc.
• 100 Days My Prince (2018) Two young friends, a prince and a girl of the nobility, are separated in childhood by tragic events.  Years later, the prince lives through an assassination attempt but is now amnesiac, and is restored to health by commoners in a village, where our heroine has been living in anonymity.
  The ensemble cast for the villagers is wonderful at portraying a found family; as I heard in a podcast later, “This group of villagers walked, so that others could run.”  The flashbacks to the childhood events were too repetitive, but otherwise this was a light-hearted series that I enjoyed.
• Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency (2019) A team of three guys run a marriage agency, and are asked by a commoner-turned-prince to protect his lower-class love interest, and turn her into a fine lady.
  This is possibly the most unlikely plot I have come across, but this is one of my absolute favorite series.  Multiple levels of society were shown, and both male leads were so likeable; I could not guess which one she would choose.
•  Secret Royal Inspector and Joy (2021) A scholar who wants a quiet life is sent off to be a secret royal inspector.  His job is to uncover corruption by local officials, which could lead to his death if he is found out.  He comes across a young woman who has run away from her lazy husband and mean mother-in-law.
  There were lots of interesting intertwined sub-plots, but a few very dark and shocking events interspersed through the series keep me from recommending this one to a general audience.
• The King’s Affection (2021) A pair of twins is born to the queen, but this is considered unlucky.  The girl child is fated to die, but the queen saves her secretly and she is sent to an orphanage.  Years later she has to take the place of her crown prince brother and live as a male.
  Honestly this one moved a little slowly, even for me, but I am glad I watched it, because the actress Park Eun-bin (who plays the substitute prince) went on to be in Castaway Diva and Extraordinary Attorney Woo, and I am glad I first saw her stomping around like a tiny imperious prince.
• Captivating the King (2024) Rather than let a young child take the throne (and be subjected to evil regents), the dying king’s loyal brother usurps it, but now he trusts no one, not even the (secretly female) baduk player that was his companion.
  I chose this one because the female lead from Rookie Historian, Shin Se-kyung, was also the lead in this one, but here her role consisted mostly of standing still, looking uncertain or tearful. Also there was way too much palace intrigue for me.

Modern-Day Slice-of-Life

• Hometown Cha-cha-cha (2017)  A dentist is blacklisted throughout Seoul for not pursuing all possible profits for her employer, and must start over in a small town, where she meets the town chief, an unconventional man who does an assortment of odd jobs.  Our village ensemble includes three grandmothers, a has-been singer and his young daughter, a film crew, a gossipy restaurant owner, and others.
  This is the gold standard for slice-of-life dramas with some large helpings of romance.
•  Castaway Diva (2023) Two middle-school students that are physically abused at home seek to run away and follow their dreams.  The girl falls overboard on a ferry and ends up surviving on an island for 15 years.  Finally rescued, she chases her dream of becoming a kpop singer, but also does whatever it takes to help the family that takes her in.
  I absolutely loved this one.  The abuse scenes were very tough, but I found the theme of the series compelling — the different aspects of persistence, on a continuum of selfish to selfless.  Also the actress Park Eun-bin, whom I first saw in The King’s Affection, does her own singing! And the songs are beautiful.
• Can This Love Be Translated? (2026) Aspiring actress with some psychological damage meets multilingual translator.  As part of a reality show cast and crew, they travel to Canada and Italy.
  I was looking forward to this one, because the male lead, Kim Seon-ho, was in other series I liked, Hometown Cha-cha-cha and 100 Days My Prince, but this series fell a little flat for me.
• Beautiful Gong Shim (2016) A girl rents out her rooftop apartment to a pro bono lawyer, and both of them befriend another young man.  He is heir to a big business, but only because his cousin, the rightful heir, was kidnapped at age five. Many complications ensue.
  This one was enjoyable with likeable characters and lots of little plot twists.  It is also one that you could watch with kids or grandparents around — there are fight scenes but they are more choreography than brutality.
• The Potato Lab (2025) Through no fault of her own, a young woman had to leave her big-city job, and start over in the country as a researcher in a potato lab.  Now that same company is taking over the lab, and a corporate manager comes to the tiny town to downsize it.
  I really liked the way this one focused on the actual work being done, and the ways of the small town.  This is another one that anyone could watch.
• Tastefully Yours (2025) A rich heir in competition with his brother for control of the family restaurant corporation, tries to steal recipes from a small town chef, but instead learns values from a found family.
  This one had interesting scenes set at a food truck competition, a high-end restaurant in Japan, and in a Buddhist monastery.
• Welcome to Samdal-ri (2023)  A professional photographer is accused of workplace harassment and has to return to her small hometown on Jeju Island, where she encounters her former boyfriend, a meteorologist.
  I was interested in all the jobs and workings of the small community, but since it was set on an island, I was hoping for something relaxing.  There was so! much! crying! in almost every episode.
• Once Upon a Small Town (2022) A big city vet has to take over his grandfather’s vet practice in a small town.  He meets a child friend who is now a police officer/all-around community helper.
  This was a very light and easy series with lots of scenes of farms and animals.  The episodes are also shorter than in most series and there are only 12 of them.

Recent Past

• Typhoon Family (2025) The 1997 Korean financial crisis affects people at every level of society.  A young man has to give up his own dreams as he tries to keep his father’s trading company in business.
  Apparently there are many series dealing with this same era — I chose this one because the company starts out importing textiles!  But they really don’t come into the plot too much.  It was so interesting as it showed how different people tried different strategies to survive.

My favorites:

1. Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung
2. Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency
3. Bon Appetit, Your Majesty!
4. Hometown Cha-cha-cha
5. Castaway Dive
6. The Potato Lab

Other resources:

There are a lot of podcasts about K-dramas — some of them review a particular series episode by episode, so if I haven’t watched that series yet, I haven’t listened to those podcasts.  I tend to like the ones that cover various aspects of K-dramas, so currently I am listening to:

1. How I Met My Kdrama
2. Afternoona Asks (the same hosts do Afternoona Delights and Afternoona Army)
3. I enjoyed the audio book How to Speak KDRAMA: Cracking the K-drama Code by Jungho Park. (I listened for free as part of my Spotify subscription, so if you have a similar subscription you may be able to find it also.)
4. And Spotify will generate a playlist called “My Life as a K-drama” which I find very entertaining.  It pulls songs from the K-drama soundtracks.

 

If you have found K-dramas too, please let me know in the comments!