2023 Wrap: Crazy Cool Concepts from K-dramas

You wake up one day and discover that you’re actually living in a comic book. Or maybe you decide to bring a cat home, only to find out it can transform into a man who’s now in love with you. In K-dramas, the weird is often normal and there’s a lot to love about how these shows don’t blink an eyelid about weaving the surreal and silly into the everyday world of fiction. Here are some of our favourite shows with the strangest concepts from K-dramaland in 2023.

The Heavenly Idol (Viki)

Did you know that Kim Min-gue, the swoony second lead from Business Proposal, almost became a K-pop idol? The actor revealed that he briefly trained alongside mega-group SEVENTEEN (which coincidentally also has a member named Kim Mingyu) but quit because he was a poor dancer, and because he preferred acting anyway. Cut to 2023, Kim starred in a show called The Heavenly Idol in which an ancient priest with divine powers finds himself in the body of a flop K-pop idol. It’s difficult to decide what is funnier — Kim’s terrified expression when asked to dance or that his character’s name is Pontifex Rembrary. Meanwhile, the K-pop idol who is the other half of this body swap finds himself in Rembrary’s world. The idol says he will do the ritual that Rembrary is supposed to perform in order to defeat a dark force, but only after the powers that be help his group win the grand ‘Singer of The Year’ Award. 

My Lovely Liar (Viki)

Mok Sol-hee (played by Kim So-hyun, known for her roles in Love Alarm and The Tale of Nokdu) can always tell when someone is lying. Then along comes handsome musician Kim Do-ha (played by actual musician Hwang Min-hyun, last seen in Alchemy of Souls), who claims he has been falsely accused of murder. When she discovers that her ability does not work on him, Sol-hee is even more intrigued by Do-ha. My Lovely Liar goes disappointingly off the rails in its later episodes, but the original premise is great fun. The drama is directed by Nam Sung-woo, whose filmography boasts such popular shows as My Roommate is a Gumiho, Because This is My First Life and Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo.  

Behind Your Touch (Netflix)

Veterinarian Bong Ye-bun (Han Ji-min) can see the past of any person or animal, as long as she touches their rear. It all started like this: One night, Ye-bun is called upon to treat a pregnant cow at a dairy farm. Just as she is examining its bovine backside, an asteroid hurtles towards the earth. Her hand glows, said bovine backside glows, and there is a massive explosion of light. Next thing Ye-bun knows, she has a superpower and it’s quite an asset (pun intended). 

Moon in the Day (Viki)

A handsome celebrity has an accident during a shoot and in the time that he’s unconscious, his body is possessed by the spirit of a nobleman from ancient Korea. Now that he’s seeing everything from the nobleman’s perspective, he realises that the firefighter who saved the celebrity is the reincarnation of the woman who killed the nobleman in his time. In the modern present, the celebrity (possessed by the nobleman) plots to kill the firefighter — only to find himself falling in love with her.  

My Demon (Netflix)

It isn’t too much of a stretch to imagine Song Kang as a handsome devil, but the twist in this tale is that all his supernatural powers come from a tiny tattoo. When the crucifix tattooed on Gu-won (Song Kang) inexplicably transfers itself upon Do-hee (Kim Yoo-jung), it turns out that the only way for Gu-won to access his powers is by holding Do-hee’s tattooed wrist. Needless to say, the only way forward for these two is to have a fake marriage. There’s a definite hint of Guardian: The Great and Lonely God (which introduced many of us to the swoonworthy Gong Yoo), but this one feels less problematic because Do-hee is very much her own woman and not a teenager who needs saving. 

My Man is Cupid (Prime Video)

She (Nana) is a veterinarian whose love life seems doomed because becoming her boyfriend invariably means a near-death experience for the gent in question. He (Jang Dong-yoon) is a “human love fairy” who has lost his wings and one of his friends turns into a dog when he least expects it. The two of them are part of a posse of Korean cupids, complete with bow, love arrows and wings — and hanbok, naturally. You can only make this stuff up.   

Special mentions: A Good Day to Be a Dog, Moving and Twinkling Watermelon from our list of best K-dramas of 2023.