Korean Dramas Released 2016-2022 Streaming Only on Netflix
Netflix began releasing K-dramas around 2016, and by 2019, several K-dramas were exclusively streaming on its platform. Below is a list of Korean dramas released between 2016 through 2022 that are “Only on Netflix” and have a published review on PopGeeks.
- (NOTE: In some instances, you can buy or rent these K-dramas on other platforms like Amazon Video, Apple TV, etc.)
♦ Years 2016 – 2019
♦ Year 2020
♦ Year 2021
♦ Year 2022
♦ MY Top 5 Picks From The List?
(1) 2018 Memories of the Alhambra
Without a doubt, the best sci-fi mystery series ever! A guy gets trapped in an AR video game. The mystery started when the creator of the game disappeared. Then two (2) entrepreneurs wanted to purchase the rights to that game, and they do battle, playing/challenging each other in the video game. One of them was killed DURING the video game.
Meaning? It wasn’t a real death! The other player left the scene because … ??? It was just a game. But then he learned that the man he left sitting on the bench had died. That’s not all. The video game keeps reactivating, and the guy who supposedly died keeps coming back to fight him! Will the game ever end? What about the game creator? Did he die too? (O.o)
(2) 2018 Mr. Sunshine
Without a doubt, the best historical period Korean drama series ever! It’s a Netflix Original, set in the late 1800s and early 1900s, during a tumultuous, revolutionary, and evolutionary period in Korean history. It’s about war and the relationships between the United States, Japan, and Joseon; the effort of the Korean freedom fighters who want independence; and a romance between a noble lady in Joseon and a man who was born a slave in Joseon, smuggled to America, and came back to his country as a high-ranking military official.
There are interesting characters who have relationships with the male and female lead characters, and their interactions with them add to the complexity of an already intricate storyline.
(3) 2019 Vagabond
A stuntman’s young nephew died in a plane crash. The news reported there were no survivors. The families are told that it was either a defect or a malfunction, and they will receive compensation from the company. However, before the nephew died on the plane, he sent his uncle a video eMail that had the face of one of the passengers. When the uncle flew to Morocco, he saw the passenger at the airport. How? If nobody survived, why was that man at the airport? 200+ people, many of them children, died. WHY? The uncle suspected it was a terrorist attack. Everybody dismissed him, saying he couldn’t handle his grief. Everybody except an NIS agent working undercover, who had the same suspicion. They teamed up to reveal the truth.
(4) 2021 Sisyphus: The Myth
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king who tricked the gods, managing to avoid death multiple times. The god punished him for his trickery by condemning him to perform an eternal task in the underworld. He had to roll a massive boulder uphill, only for it to roll back down every time he neared the top. It was a laborious task that never ended. A genius invented an uploader that allows people to time travel.
One person traveled through time to kill him, and one woman traveled through time intending to save him. In the future, there would be a war, and the country would be destroyed. Here’s the dilemma: the genius fell in love with the woman who came to save him. The killer kept manipulating the situation and forcing the genius to choose: save the woman OR save the world. The genius wanted to do both. But each time he tried, the killer would time travel back and forth, changing the future over and over and over.
(5) 2021 The King’s Affection
Twins were born to the royal princess: a boy and a girl. During the Joseon Era, twins were considered a bad omen. An order was given to kill the baby girl. But the mother faked the death of her daughter and had her taken away to grow up elsewhere. The child was a lowly maid, working in the palace. One day she crossed paths with her twin brother, the crown prince. He insisted that she trade places with him so that he could leave the palace and see the world outside.
The grandfather learned that the daughter was alive and sent an assassin to make sure the twin girl was killed THIS TIME! Only the assassin killed the crown prince because he was dressed up like his sister. When the mother realized what had happened, she forced her daughter to take the place of her brother, the now deceased crown prince, otherwise they would kill her too. She can’t lose both of her children. From then on, every day of the young girl’s life was perilous. What would happen if her true identity were exposed? She lived in constant fear.
♦ No Picks for Year 2022?
For the year 2022, there are no “faves” on my list, but there are two (2) Korean dramas worth an “Honorable Mention”.
(1) 2022 Tomorrow – The Jade Emperor assembled a team of grim reapers, and their mission is suicide prevention. One member of the team, however, is a man who is between life and death. On Earth, he is lying in a hospital bed in a comatose state. To be clear, he wasn’t trying to kill himself. It was an accident. He accidentally interfered with the Grim Reaper’s suicide team, who were trying to stop another man from jumping off the bridge.
In the other world, his spirit had a meeting with the Jade Emperor, and he was given a choice: work as a “temporary” member of the team for a certain number of days and then awake from a coma, OR die and become a permanent member of the grim reaper team. What would you choose?
(2) 2022 Under the Queen’s Umbrella – A queen has several sons, and all of them are eligible to become king, but none of them wants to be transformed into “king material”. It’s more fun just being a prince with no royal duties or responsibilities. Besides, there are sons of the concubines, and their mothers want them to be king. Let one of them have the throne. But their mother, the queen, is wise and knows what happened to the previous queen.
That queen was told she could just go somewhere and live quietly with her sons. But her sons were murdered because the queen mother and certain corrupt court officials and nobles wanted to make sure they never came back to claim the throne. This queen did not want history repeated with her sons. She had to protect her position as queen AND protect her sons. One thing she did have in her favor: her husband, the king, trusted her and was willing to let her handle the matter.
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