10 Healing K-dramas on Netflix
There has been a huge influx of global attention to Korean tv shows also known as K-dramas in recent years. With the basic plot of romance, action, melodrama, comedy and tragedy all in one, most K-dramas usually get overwhelming for viewers that only want to have a good time without worrying about insane plot twists.
The genre of K-dramas that aims at providing fans with just that is called Healing K-dramas. The term Healing K-dramas refers to shows that follow a slice-of-life-style plot. With close to no high-stakes and crazy plot twists, these shows are light and engaging that one can enjoy at any point in their life. Netflix’s global popularity allows fans to watch K-dramas and the platform has a great selection available to watch.
So here are our picks for the Top 10 best Healing K-dramas on Netflix.
Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha
One of the most talked-about K-dramas from 2021 was Kim Seon-ho and Shin Min-a starrer small-town drama, Hometown Cha Cha Cha. The story is a love story set in the seaside village of Gongjin where a city brat, Yoon Hye-jin falls in love with a small-town man – Hong Du-shik.
Hye-jin used to be a dentist in the city and is what they call a beauty with brains. After her perfect life in the city is disrupted, she moves to the Gongjin village. She encounters Du-shik also known as Cheif Hong who is a jack of all trades in the village.
Chief Hong helps everyone in Gongjin with any situation encountered and with her life in shambles, Hye-jin is someone that needs an awful lot of his help.
Reply 1988
One of the most loved parts of the Reply series is the K-drama, Reply 1988 which tells the story of five childhood friends who live in the Ssangmundong neighbourhood of Seoul. The five friends lean on each other to survive their challenging teen years as they set a path for their futures.
The five friends include Sung Deok-sun struggles for attention as the middle child in her poor family as well as Kim Jung-hwan has a one-track mind for soccer. Sung Sun-woo is the perfect student, Ryu Dong-ryong is a geek who knows a lot about girls and life in comparison to his friends, and Choi Taek is a genius baduk player who dropped out of school to go professional.
This group of friends gets in and out of mischief around the neighbourhood and hopes to carry their experiences from these memorable times together into whatever will become of their future lives.
18 Again
Based on the Hollywood Movie ’17 Again’ the comedy K-drama, ’18 Again’ revolves around the life of Hong Dae-young who is in a tough spot in his relationship with Jung Da-jung, his wife and the mother of his two children. 20 years after giving up on his dream he starts a family with Da-jung who had fallen pregnant after they graduated high school.
Dae-young blames his wife for the way his life turned out to be. Convinced life would be better without her husband in it, Da-jung gives up on saving her marriage and files for divorce. This makes Dae-young regret his mistakes from when he was 18 years old and he wishes to go back in time and choose his career over his relationship.
Dae-young is suddenly transformed back into his 18-year-old self as he gets a new chance to change his life and turn it into what he desires it to be. The only catch is that now that Dae-young sees his life as an outsider, he realizes what he was missing out on all along.
Kill Me Heal Me
The emotional 20-episode K-drama follows the life of Cha Do-hyun (played by Ji Sung). Do-hyun has had a traumatic childhood experience that left him suffering from memory loss and dissociation. Due to his dissociative disorder, Do-hyun has created seven distinct personalities inside his mind.
Wanting to regain control over his life, he asks Oh Ri-jin, (played by Hwang Jung-eum) who is a first-year psychiatric resident, to help him. Ri-jin unexpectedly falls in love with one of his personalities.
Meanwhile, Ri-jin’s twin brother, Oh Ri On (played by Park Seo-joon), is a writer who is determined to uncover the unscrupulous lives of the rich and starts following Do Hyun around.
Can Do Hyun take control of his condition before one of his seven identities takes control of him instead?
Our Blues
2022’s omnibus-style K-drama Our Blues tells the story of diverse characters that are somewhat interconnected in one way or the other. The series revolves around the sweet and bitter lives of people who are standing at the end, climax, or beginning of their lives against the backdrop of Jeju Island in South Korea.
Lee Dong-suk is a guy born on the beautiful island of Jeju where he sells goods from the mainland in his truck. He meets Min Sun-ah, a girl with a mysterious past who has come to Jeju to escape her past life.
We also have Park Jung-joon, a ship captain who falls in love with Lee Young-ok, a diver with a bright and bubbly personality and Jung Eun-hee, a fish shop owner who reunites with her past lover Choi Han-soo.
The Light In Your Eyes
In order to save her father from an accident, 26-year-old Kim Hye-ja (played by actresses Han Ji-min) uses a mysterious watch to rewind time in an attempt to prevent the accident. She fails in the process and desperately ends up rewinding the watch too many times.
Hye-ja accidentally ages herself and becomes her 70-year -old self (played by actress Kim Hye-ja). She is confused and oblivious as to how she ended up like this and eventually she sets out on a journey to put everything back on track.
Along the way, she encounters her family and friends who no longer recognize her including Lee Joon-ha (played by Nam Joo-hyuk), a young man she loved. Joon-ha yearns for Hye-ja while struggling with his life.
As 70-year-old Hye-ja and the young Joon-ha come together to form an unlikely bond, a devastating and life-turning truth is revealed which becomes the crux of all the time she lost.
One Spring Night
The romantic K-drama ‘One Spring Night’ follows the lives of a librarian and a Pharmacist. Lee Jung-in is feeling trapped in a stale four-year-long relationship where she is hesitant to marry someone she thinks is the love of her life.
After meeting Yu Ji-ho at the pharmacy where he works, Jung-in starts developing romantic feelings for him. Knowing that she is still very much engaged to be married, Jung-in learns that she never truly loved her partner. She wants a relationship with Ji-ho but the pharmacist has past baggage of his own that raises the stakes for anyone he dates.
Knowing that they cannot hope to have a future together, the two keep each other close by embarking on a secret friendship while navigating the minefield of familial and societal expectations until they realize what they truly want.
It’s Okay To Not Be Okay
While most won’t consider the melodramatic psychological show to be a healing drama, the K-drama, ‘Its Okay To Not Be Okay’, the show portrays the journey of healing and growth for characters.
It’s Okay To Not Be Okay follows the life of a temperamental and moody author – Ko Moon-young. She is suffering from an antisocial personality disorder which makes her seem extremely selfish, arrogant, and rude. One day, she meets Moon Gang-tae, a community health worker at a psychiatric ward who can sympathise with others and has the patience to deal with her erratic self.
Moon-young wants ownership of Gang-tae but he does not seem like the type to submit to someone like her. The two navigate through their own traumas and Gang-tae helps Moon-young fight her demons as they end up falling in love during the process.
Hospital Playlist
Throughout its two seasons, Hospital Playlist narrates the stories of people at a hospital who think they are going through seemingly ordinary days in their lives.
Five doctors in their forties, Lee Ik-jun (played by Jo Jung-suk), Ahn Jeong-won (played by Yoo Yeon-seok), Kim Jun-wan (played by Jung Kyung-ho), Yang Seok-hyeong (played by Kim Dae-myung) and Chae Song-hwa (played by Jeon Mi-do) work at the Yulje Medical Centre after becoming friends during medical school in 1999.
Hi Bye, Mama
The 16-episode comedy tells the story of Cha Yu-ri (played by Kim Tae-hee) who has been a ghost since she died 5 years ago. She left behind her husband Jo Kang-Hwa (played by Lee Kyu-hyung) and their child. To become a human again, Cha Yu-Ri carries out a reincarnation project for 49 days.
Meanwhile, Kang-Hwa works as a chest surgeon who was a loving husband however, after losing his wife, he has a personality change. He was slowly getting his life back on track after he remarried three years after Yu-ri’s death. Now, five years after her death, Yu-Ri reappears in front of him.
And there we have it, our list of the best Healing K-dramas on Netflix!
What do you think of our list? Have we included your favourites? Or have we missed any must-watch dramas? We love to hear from you so do feel free to let us know in the comments below.