Love runs out, time travel fixes it, and a children’s book writer with serious childhood trauma is somehow the most romantic person on television. Korea has been studying heartbreak longer than you have been alive. Take notes.
Welcome to the pep talk!
So you just got your heart broken. You have nowhere to be, a blanket that hasn’t moved in three days, and a very strong opinion about your ex. Good news: Korean television has been preparing for this moment your entire life. These five K-dramas will take you from ugly-crying on the couch to cautiously believing in love again, and you will not need to leave the house once.
If your ex ever made you feel like love simply ran out, this one is for you. Queen of Tears follows Hong Hae-in, a powerful chaebol heiress and president of Queens Department Store, and her husband Baek Hyun-woo, a brilliant lawyer from a humble background. They look perfect on paper. Underneath, the marriage is falling apart. Written by Park Ji-eun, who also wrote Crash Landing on You, and directed by Jang Young-woo and Kim Hee-won, the 16-episode drama stars Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Ji-won. The two leads are devastating together. This show will remind you that love is not something that just disappears quietly. It fights back. Stream it on Netflix, then take a walk after episode 11.
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This one is for anyone who has ever loved somebody so much they would rewrite time for them. Lovely Runner stars Byeon Woo-seok and Kim Hye-yoon. Right after Ryu Sun-jae, a top star, ends his life, Im Sol, his top fan, somehow ends up at a time when they were in high school and tries to protect him. Im Sol is devastated by the sudden and tragic death of her favourite star, Ryu Sun-jae, a former swimmer turned K-pop idol. When she was little, she had an accident and had to give up on her dreams, but listening to Ryu Sun-jae’s song on the radio gave her comfort, and she has been his fan since then. The time-travel premise sounds like a lot, but it plays completely straight. Byeon Woo-seok made half the planet fall in love with him through this role. The series aired on tvN in 2024 and is based on the web novel Tomorrow’s Best. It is available on Netflix. Watch it when you are ready to feel hopeful.
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This drama has no interest in being gentle with you, and that is exactly why it works. It’s Okay to Not Be Okay stars Kim Soo-hyun as Moon Kang-tae, a caretaker working at a psychiatric ward who does not believe in love, and Seo Ye-ji as Go Moon-young, a children’s book writer who is clueless about love. The series tells an unusual romance story between two people who end up healing each other’s emotional and psychological wounds. The show catapulted to an astronomical sensation owing to its portrayal of mental health, repression, and the seeping effects of childhood trauma and conditioning. It aired on tvN from June to August 2020 across 16 episodes and is available worldwide on Netflix. Seo Ye-ji’s wardrobe alone is worth noting, but it is Oh Jung-se’s performance as the autistic older brother that will genuinely wreck you. This is not a show about fixing people. It is a show about two damaged people learning they do not have to fix themselves alone. Post-breakup viewing does not get more appropriate than that.
Sometimes a breakup does not shatter you. It just quietly confirms what you already knew: that the person was wrong, the relationship was exhausting, and you were running on fumes. Something in the Rain gets that. Jin-ah is a woman in her mid-thirties who has become single after discovering that her boyfriend is cheating on her. One day she bumps into a handsome young man, only to discover that he is Joon-hee, the kid brother of her best friend. Son Ye-jin plays Jin-ah with the kind of quiet realism that makes you feel like someone wrote this character specifically about you. The romance develops slowly and honestly. The show is not without its frustrations, and the ending divides fans, but the first two-thirds are some of the most believable adult romance television has produced. It is on Netflix.
Save this one for when you are past the initial devastation and ready to think about what you actually want from life. My Mister follows Park Dong-hoon, a middle-aged engineer working at a company where his college junior is his boss. He is anything but happy, and it is the least of his problems. A young woman and the middle-aged man develop a sense of kinship as they find warmth and comfort in one another. The drama stars Lee Sun-kyun and IU, and it received critical acclaim, winning Best Drama at the 55th Baeksang Arts Awards. IU delivers the kind of performance that makes you forget she is also one of South Korea’s biggest pop stars. This is not a conventional love story. It is something quieter and, honestly, more useful after heartbreak: a story about two people choosing to see each other when the rest of the world has stopped looking. It is on Netflix and it is a 9.0 on IMDb for a reason.
None of these shows will tell you the breakup was a good thing or that everything happens for a reason. They will simply remind you that people survive loss, that feeling things deeply is not a weakness, and that somewhere out there, fictional or otherwise, someone is willing to fight for you. That is enough for now. The blanket can stay.
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