After months of staying at home due to the pandemic, Pakistanis have binge-watched everything under the sun from mainstream movies and TV shows to old classics. Some got hooked to Turkish content, while others found new avenues of entertainment in Spanish series. And after finally overcoming the barrier of subtitles, all thanks to Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite, the next stop in the world of entertainment is Korean dramas.
With romantic comedies, cliffhangers, deaths and departures, this new culture offers a lot to entertainment-hungry viewers. If you were recently introduced to Korean dramas and are confused about what to watch first, here we have listed 5 dramas which are available on Netflix.
1. Crash Landing on You (2019-2020)
A woman from South Korea was paragliding when a sudden tornado hit, causing her to crash-land in North Korea. Yoon Se-Ri (Son Ye-Jin), a successful entrepreneur who is also an heiress, finds herself in the Korean Demilitarized Zone — stuck in a tree above North Korean officer Ri Jeong-Hyeok (Hyun Bin). While the premise is far-fetched, what follows is a convincing romance that steadily tugs at the heartstrings as Jeong-Hyeok attempts to hide Se-Ri and send her back home.
2. Signal (2016)
Criminal profiler Park Hae-Young (Lee Je-Hoon) is haunted by the kidnap-murder case of his elementary school classmate—the culprit was never caught. When he finds a mysterious walkie talkie through which he gets connected to Detective Lee Jae-Han (Cho Jin-Woong), from the year 2000, he finds an opportunity to solve the case. Soon, their communication across time allows the pair to stop crimes from happening in the first place. Signal smartly weaves real-life incidents in South Korea—a case in the series is inspired by the Hwaseong serial murders—into a fast-paced narrative that immerses the viewer in multiple timelines, each with its own mysteries.
3. Stranger (2017)
When a man with close ties to high-ranking law enforcement officials is murdered, prosecutor Hwang Shi-Mok (Cho Seung-Woo) who has lacked empathy since undergoing brain surgery as a child — teams up with warm-hearted police lieutenant Han Yeo-Jin (Bae Doo-Na) to solve the case. As the odd couple searches for a trail left by the culprit, they uncover the sprawling corruption taking place within the structures. Stranger is a gripping murder mystery that challenges the intentions of the authorities entrusted to defend the law.
4. The Reply series (2012-2016)
The three seasons of this drama (Reply 1997, Reply 1994, Reply 1988) each revolve around a group of friends and their families, whose lives from the eponymous year of the installment are recounted. The cast’s transition to adulthood is captured as they navigate relationships against the backdrop of real-life historical events. The series is best known for delivering poignant vignettes of the bonds between friends, families and occasionally lovers, packing sentiment and nostalgia into the seemingly mundane activities of everyday life.
5. Descendants of the sun (2016)
