I love a good K-drama and my usual choices are fluffy, happy romances tempered with clichés. But living in a pandemic, as if suspended by time, I began craving for slow-burning dramas. The ones where nothing happens—like our self-isolated lives—but also by the end of the episode, something has changed—like how we are surprisingly near the year’s end. These are the kind of shows I watch on late nights after work or on a lazy weekend. Here are some great K-dramas—featuring slow-boiling mysteries, gruesome fairy tales, and workplace politics—to lose yourself in as the nip in the air becomes stronger.
1. It’s Okay Not to be Okay (2020)
In It’s Okay not to be Okay, your dream Pinterest board meets the darkest fairy tales that (might) give you nightmares. The socially inept, fierce, stylish, beautiful but cruel Ko Moon-young (Seo Ye-ji) is a famous children’s book author. Her life gets tangled with two brothers, Moon Gang-tae (Kim Soo-hyun)—caregiver at a psychiatric ward—and Moon Sang-tae (Oh Jung-se)—talented artist on the spectrum—who move every year when spring and butterflies arrive. The drama is a visual romp through illustrations, stylish outfits, airy psychiatric wards, isolated mansions and dark fairy tales. Each episode is woven around a story by Moon-young (the books were published after the show’s popularity and are bestsellers) or a folktale. You’ll meet a laughing dog, a Shadow witch, a boy whose face is stolen, a zombie boy, monk fish, torn butterflies, and frozen lakes.
The drama does not make caricatures of the patients at the mental health facility but offers a deeper look into their psyche. The main characters—all chained to traumas of their past—lean on one another but ultimately leap towards freedom on their own. It was Sang-tae who stole the show for me—the final fairy tale will have you weeping for joy.
Watch it on Netflix
2. Stranger (2017)
I watched Stranger S1 on a broody, rainy week, the kind that leaves you washed out when the pandemic woes hit harder than usual. It was just what I needed—men in suits and women in coats solving crimes. The emotionless, socially challenged, brilliant prosecutor Hwang Si-mok (Cho Seung-woo) and the warm-hearted detective Han Yeo-jin (Bae Doona) try to get to the bottom of a murder case in the first season. In the process, they uncover the murky secrets of a private conglomerate, corruption in government offices and secret lives of higher officials. While a snail-paced plot might be something to frown about in a drama, this is what captured my attention in Stranger. I knew the villains, but would Si-mok only follow things by the book? I needed to know how his team would find loopholes. I sniffed for rats in the system; I waited for the slow unraveling. Si-mok’s eccentric investigation of recreating the crime scene by imagining himself to be the culprit and victim—which sometimes tampers with the evidence—was strange. But I knew from the first episode that I could trust this cold-hearted-seeming man and by the end of the season, I was glad I stayed with him. The second season, released in 2020, is bleaker, and less exciting, about conflicts between the prosecutor’s office and police force. But perhaps it will save me on another dull week.
Watch it on Netflix
3. Signal (2016)
Signal is a police procedural show revolving around cold cases, some inspired by real life—including the infamous Hwaseong serial murders. A modern-day criminal profiler Park Hae-young (Lee Je-hoon) is able to communicate with detective Lee Jae-Han (Cho Jin-woong) from 1986 through a mysterious, battery-less walkie-talkie. They help one another solve crimes—in the past, and present—but changing the past leads to changes (deaths) in the future. Jae-han, we later learn, is a man who has been missing for fifteen years. Cha Soo-hyun (Kim Hye-soo), a member of Jae-han’s team is still waiting for news of her mentor (and love) in the present day, where she is Hae-young’s team leader.
I loved this fight against time and fate. The communication is unpredictable—sometimes years have passed in the past when Hae-young makes contact again. I binged through the series yearning for the raspy, crackling, frequencies and in the very last episode I was worried, hopeful, and anxious about how it would end.
Watch it on Netflix
ALSO READ: 5 Feel-Good Korean Dramas To Stream Online
4. I’ll Go to You when the Weather is Nice (2020)
This is the story of cello player Mok Hae-won (Park Min-young)—who quits her job in Seoul and comes to her hometown to stay with her aunt—and bookseller Im Eun-seob (Seo Kang-joon). There are small moments of tenderness—browsing books, blogging, frozen pipes bursting—accompanied by measured connections. I have never experienced a snowy winter in real life, but felt like I lived through one thanks to this series. Watch it for long, silent scenes listening to the coffee drip, a not-your-usual book club where members share stories and eat roasted tangerines, snow-laden roads and winter drizzles. Or play the instrumental OST—that instantly takes you to a serene, wintry place—and unwind after a long day.
Watch it on Rakuten Viki
5. My Mister (2018)
Slow, intense and filled with grey characters, My Mister is too real, which is perhaps what makes it a gripping watch. Directed by Kim Won-seok (who directed Signal as well), the drama follows Ji-an (IU), a gloomy, blank-faced woman working as a temp in an architectural company. She is riddled with debts, hunted by a loan shark, works multiple jobs and packs leftovers from restaurants for dinner. She agrees to get the honest, hard-working Park Dong-hoon (Lee Sun-kyun) fired in exchange for money.
The characters navigate failure, infidelity, workplace (dirty) politics, but often find moments of tenderness in their otherwise gritty, drab lives. I went into My Mister without expecting to love it, but came out feeling a need to comfort the characters. I wanted to whisper in their ears ‘Life is unfair’; I kept going back to see if they are doing okay. This is a drama about being broken, and lifting yourself up again. It makes you think your life will turn out alright too.
Watch it on Netflix
6. Search: WWW (2019)
Search: WWW would pass the Bechdel test with more than flying colours. We follow three women in their late thirties working at top web portal companies. When Tae-mi (Im Soo-jung) is fired from Unicon, she joins the competitor Barro, and forms a team to take down her former company. There’s enough corporate drama—ruining competitor’s projects, ruthless strategies, friendships vs competition, keyword manipulation, and trends-fabrication—to keep you glued (and also ponder about public sentiments being swayed in an internet-savvy world, at the touch of a few keys). The screen space is often minimally populated leaving large empty areas that adds a dramatic effect to the slow-burning workplace drama. I was smitten by the serious, intelligent dialogues and the complex dynamics that string careers. Neon lights, fluorescent tones, urban landscapes and large office spaces add beauty in the backdrop.
You will relish spending time with these women—be it gasping at their anger issues, gleefully watching them smash up a villain’s car, laughing at the hacker in the team who hacked the system some years ago to create a traffic jam so she could walk with her crush or relating hard as they get worked up watching makjang dramas.
Watch it on Netflix
7. Something in the Rain (2018)
If you are a romantic at heart, there’s nothing better than the slow, wistful Something in the Rain. It follows the romance between a 30-something woman Yoon Jin-ah (Son Ye-jin) and a younger man Seo Joon-hee (Jung Hae-in). But most of all, it is a drama of a woman simply breathing, existing, inhabiting a space.
I loved the idea of a woman walking around the city, eating, buying food for her crush, staring into space, and fighting—workplace harassment, stalking, nagging mothers, taboos of dating—in her own way. Watch for the breathtaking cinematography and a wholesome cast— protective friends, supportive fathers, bickering mothers, selfish colleagues. Be warned you’ll crave hot food—instant soup and noodles worked for me—and also sigh several times during the episodes.
Watch it on Netflix