I go through phases in my TV watching. I seize onto a certain type of show and watch it compulsively until something else distracts me. I probably won’t ever subject you to the results of my Depressed and Divorced Nordic Detectives phase, although I might someday share the fruits of my Extravagantly Long Chinese Costume Dramas phase, or perhaps my Weird Time Travel Around the World phase.
Right now, because people are talking about Squid Game again, I am going to share some recommendations from my Dark and Fucked-Up Korean Dramas phase. You can imagine that this list has a vague theme like, “If you liked watching people die horribly at the hands of unchecked capitalism, you might also like watching people die horribly in these other shows!” But in truth I just want an excuse to share some shows I like.
If television about monsters, revenge, and murder most foul sounds like a good time to you, read on!
Monsters Run Amok
Kingdom (2019)
I have never been terribly interested in zombies, but apparently that doesn’t hold true when you stick a zombie-plagued political thriller in the middle of the Joseon Dynasty. Kingdom is based on The Kingdom of the Gods, a webtoon by writer Kim Eun-hee and artist Yang Kyung-il, and it is somehow both exactly what the elevator pitch sounds like—zombies in medieval Joseon!—and so much more than the sum of its parts. The king is “sick” with a mysterious “disease.” The queen consort is trying to have the crown prince killed. People in the countryside are eating each other. That’s all in the first episode; from there, things only get worse.
It’s violent, bloody, and extremely bleak. The setting and action are fantastic, the tension never lets up, and the cast is wonderful. There are two seasons and a sort of prequel/sequel movie—but definitely don’t watch the movie first. Watch it after you’ve seen the two seasons to get the full gut-punch effect of how it recontextualizes the whole story.
The Guest (2018)
A psychic taxi driver, a grumpy detective, and a prickly priest walk into a demonic possession and, uh, everything goes wrong, in every possible way, and lots of people die. This has all the elements of your typical demonic possession story: exorcisms that go badly, abundant religious symbolism (from both Christianity and musok, or Korean shamanism), abundant body horror, a hot priest, etc.
There are some real scares and some genuine gore in here, but what I really like is that it’s about three people who don’t like each other, don’t want to know each other, and can barely get along, but are inextricably linked by a horrific shared childhood trauma and now, as damaged and angry adults, want to save others from enduring the same pain. I’m not sure all the twists and turns make sense in the end, but it’s a fun ride nonetheless.
The fact that the priest is hot is not relevant to the plot. I just added that detail because I know some of you are into that sort of thing.
We’re Gonna Need Way More Than Two Graves
The Glory (2022)
This is basically a revenge thriller distilled to its purest essence. Taking some ripped-from-the-headlines inspiration from real-life cases of violent school bullying, The Glory is about a woman who sets out to destroy the lives of the people who tortured her in school. That’s it. That’s the story. This show does exactly what it says on the tin. And it’s great! I mean, yes, it’s also genuinely hard to watch in some places because of the nature of the violence and the extreme ways in which adults repeatedly fail children in desperate need of help. But the show is still great.
Nobody is turning the other cheek here. This is not the place for high-minded forgiveness and acceptance. If that’s what you want, this is definitely not the show for you. This is the place for watching terrible people—who have so many chances to be better, and squander every single one—get their comeuppance one by one. The show never shies away from the repercussions of the harm people inflict on each other, the main character is damaged and clever, the schemes are endless, the allies are wonderful, and there is an oddly sweet romance between a woman who just wants to ruin shitty people’s lives and a man who just wants to help her do that. I’m not going to tell you how it goes (so many twists and turns), but I will tell you that it is very satisfying in the end.
Reborn Rich (2022)
Look, I get it. If somebody had told me that a show that combines time travel reincarnation with a plot built on in-depth knowledge of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and subsequent recovery would be so gripping, I would have had my doubts as well. But I didn’t know that going in, so nobody had to convince me that a thriller about the business practices of a totally-not-fictional-Samsung-but-everybody-knows-it’s-fictional-Samsung conglomerate would so very compelling.
This is the story of a mistreated but loyal lackey to a powerful chaebol family who is murdered to cover up some crimes, then comes back to life in the body of one of that family’s heirs. He decides to devote this second chance at life to taking down the family that murdered him, using his knowledge of what’s to come in the world and the people around him to his benefit. Things get complicated, as they always do.
One of the best parts of the show is the incredibly messed-up relationship of mutual manipulation and mutual respect between the impostor grandson and his cruel, controlling grandfather. Every conversation between them has about five layers of nuance that is so fun to watch.
The Devil Judge (2021)
This show is described as having a dystopian setting, but honestly in this fresh new year of 2025 I’m not sure what counts as dystopian and what counts as realism anymore. The premise is that the judicial system has decided to use a reality television show to try criminals and allow the public to decide their fate by using a live voting app. Which is, yes, technically dystopian speculative fiction, but it also sounds like something I would read in headlines and think, “Sure, okay, I guess that’s happening now,” before getting annoyed that my phone has downloaded the judgement app automatically.
There are some times when you watch a show and wonder there the idea came from. And there are other times you learn that it was written by a former judge who loves Gothic fiction and was alarmed by the way the world acted during the pandemic, and you realize that everything makes perfect sense. It’s a political dystopia, it’s a legal drama, it’s a revenge thriller, it’s a Gothic melodrama, and it’s pretty bonkers. But it’s a lot of fun—with a special shout-out to Kim Min-jung’s character Jung Sun-ah, the primary antagonist, who is utterly delightful every second she’s on screen. She might be a villain, but as far as I’m concerned she can do anything she wants.
How Many Murderers Do You Know?
Flower of Evil (2020)
A detective begins to suspect her sweet, loving husband might be a serial killer. Is he? Well… It’s complicated. I don’t even know how to summarize it without getting into spoilers from the very first episode. There are so many twists and turns, and there’s a lot of murder but it’s also somehow stunningly romantic, and you might find yourself thinking things like, “But does it really matter if he does a little murder sometimes when he’s such a good dad?”
Okay, but seriously, what I like about crime shows—good crime shows—is when they aren’t really about cops fighting crime in some heroic fashion, and they aren’t really about criminals being clever, but when all of that stuff is window-dressing for the real story about all the interconnected layers of love and pain and truth and manipulation and fear and hope that shape relationships between damaged people just trying to exist in an imperfect world. Flower of Evil does this by telling its story with a whole lot of interconnected flashbacks that reveal the past even while the present story is following through on all the painful, convoluted repercussions of that past.
Beyond Evil (2012)
On that same note, my final recommendation is for one of my favorite shows of all time. The premise is a familiar one: the buddy cop story where mismatched partners are forced to work together. In this case, the hotshot young cop from the big city is convinced that his small-town partner is a serial killer.
This is one of those shows that succeeds in part because of the chemistry and charisma of the leads. Both characters are absolute weirdos (I say that with utmost affection) who are so annoyed to find that they actually like each other and work well together and, eventually, learn to skillfully annoy everybody else with their obnoxious homoeroticism. Around them is a whole ensemble of characters—fellow cops, family, friends—who emphasize the underlying story about the harm violence will do not only to individuals but to entire communities.
That’s what I love most about this show, on top of the excellent acting and writing and all that. It starts out looking like a cat-and-mouse serial killer mystery, but there’s a change-up partway through (don’t spoil yourselves!) that slams the whole story into an entirely different context. It becomes apparent that this was never really about clever killers and the cops who chase them. It’s about how easy it is for marginalized people to be harmed in a society that barely tolerates their existence. It’s about the cruel, selfish, callous things people in power will do without a second thought to protect their status. It’s about how the very idea of justice must be examined when our system for achieving it is defined by people in positions of authority who care only about maintaining their authority. It’s about those complex webs of interconnectedness, the way communities share in the experiences of violence and fear and grief, but also warmth and care and love. It’s dark and heartbreaking but also beautiful in unexpected ways.
These are just a few shows I’ve enjoyed over the past few years. It is by no means an exhaustive list. Feel free to add your own recommendations for darker, monster-filled, crime-ridden side of Korean television in the comments!