14
Secret Love (2013)
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Kang Yoo-jung is your friendly neighborhood girl, living her best life until she takes the fall for her boyfriend, Ahn Do-hoon after he gets caught up in a hit-and-run case. She goes to prison for him and is sentenced to five years. Yoo-jung wishes for an uninterrupted, smooth-sailing life after jail with her boyfriend, but he seems to have been driven by power and status and dumps her instead. So Yoo-jung plots an act of revenge by teaming up with Se Yeon, the girlfriend of the guy who was injured in the accident. Secret Love involves a grand chaebol family, contrasting backgrounds, and relationships that face many challenges as the main leads find themselves entangled in a web of secrets. It is the show’s engrossing plot and memorable acting that truly holds the fort.
13
Reborn Rich (2022)
The Soonyang is an influential conglomerate running an incredible empire. When a member of the family makes a tax fraud, they try to cover it by wrongfully blaming and murdering a devoted higher-up employee Yoon Hyun-woo (played by Song Joong-ki). But fate has other plans for him because, in 1987, he finds himself waking up in the body of Jin Do-jun, the youngest member of the Soonyang family. Seeking justice and revenge against those who ruined him, he meticulously plots to rise through the ranks of wealth and power within the family business while keeping his true identity hidden. While executing plans to topple his enemies one by one, Hyun-woo also unfolds the family’s darkest secrets. Reborn Rich uses science fiction and thriller elements to transform the corrupt chaebol from within.
12
Lawless Lawyer (2018)
The plot of Lawless Lawyer is simple – a gangster lawyer and a suspended attorney join forces to take on a corrupt justice system. Bong Sang-pil has suffered a great loss and trauma after witnessing the death of his mother, a former human rights lawyer. Now driven by grief and rage, he takes notes from his gangster uncle and becomes an unrivaled lawyer. As for Ha Jae-yi, she’s a feisty young woman who was also wronged by the system. Together, they seek their own brand of revenge. Along the way, the duo, played by Lee Joon-gi and Seo Yea-ji, form allies, enter seedy loopholes, and get into fights, all to expose the corruption permeating Korea's legal and political world. At its core, the show is all about one’s ability to think one step ahead.
11
Eve (2022)
Another revenge drama starring the very talented Seo Yea-ji, Eve follows the female protagonist, Lee Ra-el, as she spends 13 years plotting the perfect revenge to try and take down one of the wealthiest families in South Korea, LY Group, for having planned the assassination of her scientist father. Despite being clichéd with its theme, the show delivers a tremendous number of plot twists and elaborate cons as new secrets are uncovered in each episode. With the cunning and charm of a crook, Ra-el infiltrates the elite business circle and straightens out a hidden web of corporate intrigue and political corruption, only to be followed by some of the most dangerous sequences on television. Quite feminist in nature, Eve is a binge-worthy K-drama.
10
My Name (2021)
For a show that spans only eight episodes, My Name packs plenty of gore and dark themes and action scenes that will keep you on the edge of your seats. The plot goes something like this: a young lady named Yoon Ji-woo (played by Han So-hee) loses her father under suspicious circumstances. When she discovers the truth, she vows to take exact revenge on the killer. To do so, Ji-woo strikes a deal with Choi Moo-jin (played by Park Hee-soon) and join his gang. He helps Ji-woo enter the drug investigation unit of the police department under a new name to infiltrate the criminal organization responsible. She juggles her dual identities, but the execution of her soul-stirring mission against the vicious gang is what keeps the viewers hooked.
9Somebody (2022)
The year 2022 seems to have produced an assorted range of revenge-themed Korean dramas because Somebody, created by Jung Ji-woo, is a brilliant melodramatic crime series. The show follows a shy and introverted Kim Sum, a developer who creates a dating app called “Somebody.” When suddenly disturbing murders start occurring in the area, we find out how the only thing connecting the cases is Sum’s app. With the help of her close friends, Mok Won, a shaman, and Ki Eun, a detective, and an architectural designer Sung Yon Oh, she decides to get to the bottom of this mystery. Somebody gets dark in its theme as it explores the millennial dating scene with a psychopathic serial killer with a detached persona lurking nearby.
8
Revenge of Others (2022)
Set in Yongtan High and revolving around a bunch of high school students, Revenge of Others is a strangely addictive K-drama that will keep you up and night wondering who the mystery killer is. While the show’s central plot is about a murder that was deemed as a suicide, the elements of teenage revenge are truly peculiar. The show follows Ok Chan-mi, a high school student who is devastated by the passing of her twin brother Park Wonseok and is led to believe that he took his own life. She transfers schools, meets Ji Soo-heon, and realizes he may have been related to the incident. Together, the two try and catch the perpetrators. The drama, as far as high school dramas go, explores themes of school violence, with the actors delivering some of the best performances of their careers.
7
Remarriage and Desires (2022)
Not all revenge dramas are about murders, retaliation, and following the policy of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Remarriage and Desires deals with the idea of having the course of your life altered in a matter of minutes and seeking to cause the same amount of emotional damage to the person responsible. The show revolves around Seo Hye Seung, a middle-class housewife in Gangnam who is thrown off guard when he husband suddenly demands a divorce. Turns out, he’s been cheating on her this whole time. Hye-seung, determined to infiltrate his plans, seeks help from a matchmaking agency and threatens to upend the life of his ex-husband’s new mistress. While revenge-seeking steals her humanity from her, Hye-seung must decide whether to forgive or move on or continue her schemes and risk the happiness of many.
6
Graceful Family (2019)
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No other feeling motivates a main character more than punishing the person who damaged and brutally harmed a loved one. Such is the plot of Graceful Family. The drama follows Mo Seok-hee, played by Im Soo-hyang, a young woman traumatized by the death of her mother. Her drive to solve the case and find the truth leads her to a numbing discovery. It turns out someone from her own family had killed her mother, so she begins churning a scheme to expose the murderer. Seok-hee’s haunting past fuels her desire for retribution, and she beings manipulating people bit by bit. The show steers around the many dark, long-kept secrets that bind an affluent family together, each unaware of the petty paybacks taking place behind closed doors.
5
The World of the Married (2020)
Fans of the beloved Han So-hee gather around because this fantastic drama called The World of the Married features her as a stunning mistress embroiled in a delicate marriage. Ji Seon-u believes that her life is perfect; she’s thriving in her career as an accomplished doctor and hospital associate director, she has a charming husband, Lee Tae-oh, who is quite influential in his business, and the two have a son together.
But her picture-perfect life is torn apart when he discovers that Tae-oh is having an affair with So-hee’s Yeo Da-kyung and has been betraying her this whole time. She embarks on a path of deception and manipulation herself as she plans a sweet revenge. Seon-u uses her intelligence and her social connections to uncover secrets about the other woman and makes sure their world comes crashing down. As the drama unfolds, we see the three characters deal with all-consuming emotions before beginning to heal.
4Taxi Driver (2021)
Former UDT (underwater demolition team) official turned taxi driver Kim Do-gi is actually a vigilante who seeks justice and revenge for people who have suffered at the hands of criminals and scammers. After his mother was killed by a serial killer, Do-gi decided to join Rainbow Taxi Company as a taxi driver and use his cab as a front for exacting bloody vigilantism against corrupt individuals and organizations. He and the group are all driven by personal tragedy and they target those who escape punishment under the law – from loan sharks to criminal gangs to sex offender rings. From do-gooders to hackers, Do-gi and the team stage elaborately choreographed plots to make sure justice is served. Taxi Driver explores how a corrupt system draws out the humanity in normal people is what makes it so thought-provoking and poignant.
3
The Glory (2022)
The Glory is considered to be the most-watched and most discussed recent series among fans of Korean dramas and the revenge genre. The story centers around a woman who seeks revenge against her ruthless bullies from high school in the strangest ways. Being a former victim of violence, Moon Dong-eun (played by Song Hye-kyo) grows up to become a homeroom teacher at the elementary school of her bully, Yeon Jin’s child. Dong-eun has spent over ten years preparing for this exact moment, and Hye-kyo brilliantly taps into her increasing strength and determination to enact deliciously clever plots of revenge againts Yeon Jin and her group. The show is driven by a thirst for payback and is filled with unexpected twists. Moreover, its well-written storyline is way to satisfying to ignore. Which is great because Dong-eun’s silent fury earned her a second season as well.
2
Vincenzo (2021)
Perhaps the most intriguing and popular of all the dramas on the list, Vincenzo is filled with the kinds of plot twists and mind games that will leave you with a desire for more. The show follows an Italian-Korean mafia consigliere Vincenzo Cassano (played by Song Joong-Ki), as he turns his sights to revenge against wicked corporations in Korea. After spending years working as a lawyer and enforcer for the Italian mafia, he returns to his homeland for some unfinished business.
He joins forces with a spirited lawyer Hong Cha-young (played by eon Yeo-been), to exact justice against evil conglomerates involved in criminal activities. Using his cunning knowledge of the law and inside tactics of the mafia, Vincenzo sets up clever operations to punish all those who are guilty of bribery, corruption, fraud, and abuse, and he does so publicly. But as he goes deeper into this obsession and takes on increasingly powerful enemies, he must balance his desire for revenge and deal with this newfound feeling of redemption.
1
Itaewon Class (2020)
Starring Park Seo-joon and Kim Da-mi as main leads, Itaewon Class, charts a thrilling territory as it follows a young high schooler who, on the first day of school, lands a punch on the school bully, Jang Geun-won. Unaware that Geun-won is the son of Jang Dae-hee, CEO of the company where Park Sae-royi works, he refuses to apologize. As a result, his father is fired and killed, leading Sae-royi to plot to vanquish the man responsible while pursuing his own dreams of rising to the top of Seoul’s competitive social hierarchy.
Sae-royi opens a multicultural pub in the heart of Itaewon and, with the help of loyal friends and employees, wages war against his enemy using strategic business tactics rather than direct confrontation. Itaewon Class becomes a subtle balance between Sae-royi’s gradual quest for vengeance and making sure he goes good for the community and finds personal happiness.
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