We countdown the 10 best South African television and streaming drama series. The list consists of shows that premiered between 2020 and 2021, in case you were ready to call us out. Rather than focusing on popularity and ratings, the shows here have been listed according to their power of storytelling, quality of production, cast performances and their impact on the culture.

If you are looking to jump on the K-drama bandwagon, from which you might never come back, we’ve got a list of five South Korean drama series currently streaming on Netflix. Two things; most of them come in their native language, which means you will have to be comfortable with the English subs. Secondly, most of them run for one super long season (around 20 episodes), with each episode averaging an hour of viewing. However, most of them sign out after one (usually conclusive) season.

5. WHEN THE CAMELLIA BLOOMS 

Gong Hyo-jin delights as the adorable and shy Dong Baek, the lead character on this romantic South Korean drama. She’s a single mother to her son a Pil Gu, and together they have recently moved to a small rural town of Ongsan.

She becomes both a source of intrigue for the local women, and a target for gossip and taunting by the locals who are curious about her character. It doesn’t help that she also runs her own restaurant ‘Camellia’, which becomes a popular joint for the men in the town. Many of them are married. Their frequent dining here makes the local girlies mad.

Dong Baek soon meets Hwang Yong Shik, a local police officer who falls madly in love with her. As they nurture a beautiful platonic relationship, her ex-boyfriend Kang Jong Ryeol, a famous baseball player who used to hide their relationship to the public, reappears in her life. As Dong Baek navigates her new life with blossoming love, something dark and sinister follows her around. It’s deadly. 

One of the things you might love about this series is the perfect balance of pure comedy and the crime mystery that unravel towards a shocking end.

4. ITAEWON CLASS

One thing about Korean dramas – they will work out a brutal revenge storyline to the finest detail. Park Sae-Ro Yi (Park Seo-Joon) is out for blood on a mission to avenge the unjust killing of his father. To do this, he must take down a tycoon bully who uses his wealth and influence to terrorise the defenceless.

The show starts off with Park on his first day as a new student at a high school. It doesn’t take he gets himself in trouble. He punches his classmate Jang Geun-Won after he witnesses him bullying a fellow classmate. What he doesn’t know at this point is that Jang is absolutely off-limits. He’s the son of CEO Jang Dae-Hee, the bully who will eventually come face to face with Park Sae-Ro Yi in a David vs Goliath showdown.

CEO Dae-Hee runs a leading restaurant company, where Park’s father worked.

When asked to apologise, Park Sae-Ro-Yi refuses, setting in motion a series of events that lead to expulsion and more shockingly, the firing of his father from his job. What comes next marks a new chapter in his life; his father dies in a motorcycle accident caused by the CEO’s son. In a rage, he beats the bratty former classmate to a pulp, which leads him straight to prison on charges of assault. It’s here he spends time crafting the plan to establish his own business to compete with CEO Jang Dae-Hee, and eventually oversee a giant’s collapse.

3. LAW SCHOOL 

If you thought How To Get Away With Murder was great, Law School will likely have you trying to bunk work to keep up with the complex web of plot twists. Both shows are set in a university, where law students soon learn that justice is not as black and white as the books would suggest.

A group of students and professors at the Hunkuk University Law School find themselves involved in an unusual murder case. The show’s lead character, Yang Jong-Hoon (Kim Myung-min), is a former prosecutor turned professor at the Law School. Dubbed ‘Yangcrates’ by the students over his cold demeanour, he leads a class of brilliant first year students who, along with him, find themselves leading suspects to a murder that happens on school property.

We soon meet Kang Sol and Han Joon-Hwi, who will eventually become the professor’s most active minds as the murder slowly unravels, threatening to bring the university to a fault.

2. VINCENZO 

Vincenzo Cassano is a larger-than-life protagonist that would put Chuck Norris right back in his place. He’s the best dressed, the most charming, the best fighter, the most loved and the most envied. Everyone is constantly fawning over him and its ridiculous and funny. It’s also effective to distinguish this character as a luminary for justice now, who was built to be an assassin then.

An Italian by citizenship, Vincenzo has just returned from the fashion capital, where he grew up after being adopted at the age of 8 years (his mother had given him for adoption when she found out she had cancer). The lawyer rises up through the ranks of the criminal underworld after working for a Mafia as a consigliere. When a war between the mafia groups turns ugly, he flees to South Korea, where he gets involved with lawyer Cha-Young (Jeo-Yeo-Bin).

In the crime thriller the pair, who couldn’t be more different from each other, find themselves partnering up to take on an evil corporate empire with strong ties to the government and other spheres of society. The war they have taken up proves to be a deadly one.

1.  THE WORLD OF THE MARRIED 

If you still want to get married after watching The World of The Married, then the realities of of marriage are definitely your joint. The drama series surfaced as one of the most viewed K-dramas by South Africans on Netflix last year. There’s good reason why the whole world was hooked until the very bizarre end that left us all hoping for more. The show also holds the record for being the highest rated drama in Korean cable television history, with Kim Hee-ae winning Best Actress at the 56th Baeksang Arts Awards.

The show follows the life of Jin Sun-woo (Kim Hee-ae), a revered family doctor and associate director at Family Love in Gosan, South Korea. On the exterior, she has the perfect life (and wardrobe. Sorry, it needs to be said). She’s married to an inspiring director, the hunky Lee Tae-oh (Park Hae-joon). Together they are raising a son, Lee Joon-young. Her perfect fairytale life is plunged into absolute chaos when she discovers that her husband has been having an affair with a woman named Yeo Da-kyung. Everything now feels like a ghetto scam and our lady is livid.

You will be gasping from beginning to end.

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We’re gasping!

The second season of Blood & Water is up next, and Netflix on Monday released a snippet of shockers to unload. There’s a new hottie in town, and he’s looking to shake the table.

Season 2 picks up where we left off, but it looks like we are getting closer to some truth. The glimpse is packed with flashes of hot drama, new fallouts, new relationships, as well as some of big names joining in to amplify this teen mystery crime drama.

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