Memories Of Alhambra To The Silent Sea: Your Perfect List Of Sci-Fi Korean Dramas To Binge Watch
To kick start your viewing experience with Korean culture, here are a few K Dramas or Movies in the Sci-fi genre.
Sci-fi has always been a genre that has dared to dream. It is futuristic and might sometimes be impractical but it takes us to fantastical worlds and shows the sheer potential for science and technology’s growth in the past years. K-dramas typically emphasize overcoming obstacles and achieving happiness. This outlook is inspiring for viewers.
For the audiences who watch sci-fi thrillers and dramas most of what America, Europe, and Australia have to offer, when it comes to exaggerated science, shifting their focus to what Asia has to offer will give them a completely different outlook on this genre.
Due to their quick duration, Korean science fiction shows are worth watching for every viewer. There aren't many small-screen endeavors that last beyond four seasons. It implies that viewers may catch up on a lot of shows in a short amount of time. In addition to having highly inventive narratives, the production qualities are on par with or even superior to those of American productions.
To kick start your viewing experience with Korean culture, here are a few K Dramas or Movies in the Sci-fi genre.
Are You Human
Tightly paced show with solid cliffhangers and plot twists. The story follows Nam Shin, a young heir who falls into a coma after being attacked. His ambitious mother creates a perfect AI replica of him named Nam Shin III to maintain control of Shin’s inheritance.
Things start getting complicated when Shin wakes up from the coma and his bodyguard is taking care of both Shin and Shin III, and eventually developing feelings.
The drama explores themes of artificial intelligence, identity, and what it truly means to be human. It stars Seo Kang-joon, Gong Seung-yeon, Lee Joon-hyuk, and Kim Sung-ryung.
Joseon X-files
It has two investigators modeled after Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, one who believes in alien life and another who is skeptical. However, the show uses a period setting, with events taking place in an alternate version of the Joseon Dynasty.
Plenty of twists and turns to satisfy fans with all aspects as well. Hinting towards one of the investigators being an alien, the finale concludes with the cool one-liner, “I know who you are”. Characters you will fall in love with are in the show but strong sinister ones are there as well who are a part of a top-secret organisation.
Alice
Alice is about a woman called Yoon Tae Yi (who later goes by Park Sun Young), who travels back in time to retrieve the Book of Prophecy, which talks about the beginning, middle, and end of time travel. After she finds out that she’s pregnant, she decides to stay in the past and have the child, but soon realizes that the Book of Prophecy is a story about her and her child, who soon becomes the keeper of time.
When she gets killed by an unknown person, Jin Gyeom, her son decides to avenge her death by becoming a police officer and investigate the whole issue. He soon meets another Yoon Tae Yi who looks exactly like his mother. Beautifully depicted the storyline while maintaining the concept of time travel.
Memories of Alhambra
The story centers around Jin Woo, the CEO of a gaming company who has arrived at Granada, home to the Palace of Alhambra after receiving a call from a game developer to frantically meet him there. To avoid his business competitor as well as his ex-best friend and partner he hurries to Granada to check out the game and the developer.
He understands that the game is far more “magical” than he thought and understands he must seal the deal ASAP and reaches the meet-up point – Hostel Bonita where his sister manages the hostel. Unfortunately for Jin Woo, the developer is missing and Jin Woo needs to seal the deal fast. Little does he know, what the game has in store for him.
My Holo Love
This K-drama uses technology as a board on which to anatomize mental and general health. In it, Han So-yeon decides to live life as a recluse because of frustrations stemming from her inability to remember people. She suffers from face blindness disorder so she has a hard time making any friends. So-yeon’s life improves when she orders an AI-powered hologram and begins interacting with it. Soon she falls in love but finds it hard to keep up because it neither shares her principles nor has the same likes as her. Luckily, she works her way around the challenge by the end of the show.
Circle
The show has a strong and interesting storyline where they go about three different timelines. Firstly there is the year 2007, when a family of twins and their father live peacefully with an alien they rescued. Second, there is the year 2017, where one of the twins is a college student, and then there is 2037, where the world is divided into Normal Earth (heavily polluted and crime-ridden) and Smart Earth (clean and technologically advanced). It isn’t until the last two episodes that everything begins to make sense, so viewers would be advised to be very patient while watching the show. The payoff is truly worth it.
Rugal
Detective Kang’s wife gets killed as he is trying to bring down one of South Korea’s most powerful criminal factions. The lawman also gets blinded during the attack but because he is brave, the intelligence service recruits him to a special task force whose members receive biotechnological enhancements. With super strength and a new pair of eyes, Kang goes to work and brutalizes hundreds of gangsters.
Plenty of effort is put into the character development, so none of the numerous individuals that pop up on the screen ever feel like strangers. In addition to that, several flashbacks give viewers a better understanding of the proceedings.
It is yet another sci-fi show that’s more likely to appeal to action fans than those looking for groundbreaking scientific concepts.
Don’t Date Him
In the dating market, finding someone with good intentions is hard, so Seo Ji-seong — a senior employee in an AI-powered appliances company — comes up with a solution for that. While creating refrigerators that can tell how fresh food is, she inserts a secret chip that can scan all visitors in a house and tell how dateable they are? Sounds weird right?
As expected, Ji-seong benefits the most from the invention. She finds out that her fiancé isn’t who he says he is. And when she invites a firefighter over, things get even worse because the AI fails to come up with any information about him. This leaves Ji-seong, wondering whether she should believe the man or not. The arc also serves as a reminder that technology isn’t always reliable and should used in check.
W: Two Worlds Apart
Just like Dc and Marvel have always toyed with the entire idea of creators interacting with the characters, W: Two Worlds Apart also rides on such a concept through the story of a woman who gets sucked into the world of her father’s unfinished comic while searching for him. There she meets and bonds with the main character, who is trying to investigate his family’s murders.
The show’s fun moments generally involve characters traveling between the real world and the fictional world. The initial creator turns out to be the villain by the end and since he is furious he can no longer dictate the trajectory of the comic’s plot. Plenty of obstacles keep getting thrown into the paths of the protagonists, but they manage to overcome them all by the end.
The Silent Sea
Set shortly where Earth is suffering from extreme desertification. Soon, a group of scientists get handpicked and are sent to the moon to get a sample, which later they realize is lunar water. The elements in this kind of water multiply at an uncontrollable rate, so any person who drinks it drowns internally. What the government thus seeks to do is find a way to control the elements so that Earth can have all the water it needs.
It all seems like a direct retrieve-and-go mission at first, but unusual discoveries, betrayals, and attacks by an unknown superhuman entity make the story more engrossing. In addition to that , a major government conspiracy involving the covering up of thr deaths of 117 astronauts who died at the same five years earlier, is revealed. Overall, there are numerous unforgettable moments throughout.
Sanya Bhattacharjee is a final year student currently studying at Bennett University, pursuing BA in Journalism and Mass Communication.
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