10 Korean Dramas About Marriage
Every love story that we watch on TV or in the movies almost always ends in marriage. After the dating and chasing phase, it seems that every culture has its own expectations of couples walking down the aisle after being together for a time. Tying the knot so to speak. A symbolic start of building a new life together. Two perfectly functioning individuals will now get willingly entangled in this chaotic web called married life. This article features Korean Dramas About Marriage and couples living together.
We all know that getting married is just the tip of the iceberg. Every situation is different. This list of 10 Korean Dramas to binge-watch tells compelling stories of conventional and exceptional situations of couples bound within the laws of marriage. As the saying goes, getting married is definitely not a walk in the park.
Here are some of the binge-worthy Korean dramas for your next binge-capade! Get your snacks ready. Enjoy, chinggu!!!
Watch links are available on every drama. Just click on the buttons at the bottom of each summary.
TOP 10 Dramas About Marriage
- Full House 2004
- Fated to Love You 2014
- Marriage Contract 2016
- Something About the 1% 2016
- Because this is my First Life 2017
- Familiar Wife 2018
- 18 Again 2020
- Once Again 2020
- The World of the Married 2020
- Love ft. Marriage and Divorce 2021
Check out the links provided for your binge-watching pleasure!!!
01. Full House 2004
| Title | Full House |
| Male Lead | Rain as Lee Young-Jae |
| Female Lead | Song Hye-kyo as Han Ji-eun |
| Writer | Min Hyo-Jung |
| Episodes | 16 Episodes |
| Release | July 14 – September 2, 2004 |
| Genre | Romantic Comedy, Drama |
| Language | Korean |
| Country | South Korea |
STORYLINE
Han Ji-Eun (Song Hye-Kyo) is a trusting and optimistic girl who aspires to become a writer. She got tricked by her friends into thinking that she won a free vacation so they can sell her house when she leaves. Lee Young-Jae (Rain) is a famous actor who has a big ego and is hard to deal with. He wants to make his crush jealous so that she will realize that she likes him too. They meet on a plane and get acquainted while on vacation.
When they get back from their trip, Han Ji-Eun finds out that her friends had sold her house to Lee Young-Jae. They had no choice but to live together. As they learn about each other’s life issues, Ji-Eun decides to help Young-Jae make his crush jealous by entering into a contract marriage with him. Trouble ensues when they both start to have feelings for each other.
02. Fated to Love You 2014
| Title | Fated to Love You, You are my Destiny |
| Male Lead | Jang Hyuk as Lee Gun |
| Female Lead | Jang Na-ra as Kim Mi-young/Ellie Kim |
| Writer | Joo Chan-ok, Jo Jin-kook |
| Episodes | 20 Episodes |
| Release | July 2 – September 4, 2014 |
| Genre | Romantic Comedy, Drama |
| Language | Korean |
| Country | South Korea |
STORYLINE
Kim Mi Young (Jang Na-ra) is a secretary at a law firm who gets bullied a lot by her coworkers because she doesn’t know how to say no. She goes on a trip and meets Lee Gun (Jang Hyuk), a wealthy CEO and the heir of his family’s company. Lee Gun was preparing an elaborate proposal for his girlfriend who was a ballerina but she did not show up.
Lee Gun and Mi-Young both got drunk and had a one-night stand that resulted in a pregnancy. Because Lee Gun wanted to be responsible for his actions, he and Mi-Young decided to get married. Along the course of their contract marriage, they begin seeing each other as their true selves and they begin falling for each other.
This is easily on top of my all-time favorite Korean Dramas about marriage.
03. Marriage Contract 2016
| Title | Marriage Contract |
| Male Lead | Lee Seo-jin as Han Ji-hoon |
| Female Lead | Uee as Kang Hye-soo |
| Writer | Jung Yoo-Kyung |
| Episodes | 16 Episodes |
| Release | March 5 – April 24, 2016 |
| Genre | Melodrama |
| Language | Korean |
| Country | South Korea |
STORYLINE
Kang Hye-soo is a single mother who is struggling to raise her daughter while paying off her late husband’s debts. She was diagnosed with a terminal disease and was given a limited time by her doctor to live. Han Ji-Hoon is the son of a wealthy family who is looking for a liver donor for his sick mother.
They met by accident when Ji-Hoon almost hit Hye-soo while he was driving. He brought her to the hospital to have her checked. Hye-Soo finds out that his mother needs a liver donor. Having just found out that she was terminally ill, she enters into a contract marriage with Ji-Hoon. She agreed to donate part of her liver to his mother in exchange for enough money to pay off all her debts and for her daughter to survive until she becomes an adult.
04. Something About the 1% 2016
| Title | Something About 1% |
| Male Lead | Ha Seok-jin as Lee Jae-in |
| Female Lead | Jeon So-min as Kim Da-hyun |
| Writer | Hyun Go-Woon |
| Episodes | 16 Episodes |
| Release | October 5 – November 24, 2016 |
| Genre | Romantic Comedy |
| Language | Korean |
| Country | South Korea |
STORYLINE
Something About 1 Percent is a remake of the 2003 television series and based on a web novel of the same title. Lee Jae-in is a ruthless businessman who is set to inherit his grandfather’s company on one condition. He had to marry the woman he chose for him as stated in his last will and testament.
Kim Da-Hyun is a kind and warm-hearted elementary school teacher who once rescued Jae-in’s grandfather. The incident left a good impression of Da-Hyun on Jae-in’s grandfather and he decided to scheme in an attempt to force his grandson to realize what are the things that are most important in life.
The two leads are pushed to the wall with their situations so they enter into a marriage contract for six months. As they live together and pretend to be a real couple, they begin to realize that there might be something more to their relationship than just pretending. This is one of the many Korean dramas about fake marriage that is endearing. It is a feel-good series with not too many conflicts to resolve.
05. Because this is my First Life 2017
| Title | Because this is my First Life |
| Male Lead | Lee Min-ki as Nam Se-hee |
| Female Lead | Jung So-min as Yoon Ji-ho |
| Writer | Yoon Nan-Joong |
| Episodes | 16 Episodes |
| Release | October 9 – November 28, 2017 |
| Genre | Romantic Comedy |
| Language | Korean |
| Country | South Korea |
STORYLINE
Nam Se-hee is a no-nonsense IT professional who uncharacteristically bought an expensive house. He rents out his extra bedroom to help pay for his huge mortgage. Yoon Ji-ho is a screenwriter in between jobs who needed to find an apartment right away. She had to move out of the apartment she is sharing with his brother after he got his girlfriend pregnant.
After a couple of unsuccessful tenants, Se-hee came across Ji-ho’s inquiry to rent his extra room. Thinking that he is male, he offers her to be his tenant. Ji-ho, who is in a bind and needs to find a room quickly, accepts Se-hee’s offer thinking that he was a girl.
They both get the surprise of their lives when they find out that neither of them was who they thought the other was. When the initial shock wears off, they realize that they can share a home based on their common goals and values thinking that they are both safe from the mutual attraction. They enter into a contract marriage and soon after realize that it is not as simple as it looks.
06. Familiar Wife 2018
| Title | Familiar Wife |
| Male Lead | Ji Sung as Cha Joo-hyuk |
| Female Lead | Han Ji-min as Seo Woo-jin |
| Writer | Yang Hee-sung |
| Episodes | 16 Episodes |
| Release | August 1 – September 20, 2018 |
| Genre | Romantic Comedy, Drama, Fantasy |
| Language | Korean |
| Country | South Korea |
STORYLINE
Familiar Wife is a fantasy romantic comedy-drama that explores a question many of us have. It explores the idea of what could have been if there was a particular turning point in your life where things would have been dramatically different if the decision you made was the complete opposite of what you did choose in real life.
Cha Joo-Hyuk and Seo Woo-jin are married couples who have been married for five years. Joo-hyuk is a bank employee who finds his professional and personal life so stressful that he always wants to escape his current situation. Woo-jin on the other hand tries her best to balance her career and the responsibilities she has as a wife and a mother to her children. She is deeply resentful of her husband and she has developed anger management issues.
One day, as if by some stroke of magic, the couple suddenly finds themselves living completely different lives. They are both given the chance to live their what-ifs.
07. 18 Again 2020
| Title | 18 Again |
| Male Lead | Yoon Sang-hyun as Hong Dae-young |
| Female Lead | Kim Ha-neul as Jung Da-jung |
| Writer | Ahn Eun-bin, Choi Yi-ryool, Kim Do-Yeon |
| Episodes | 16 Episodes |
| Release | September 21 – November 10, 2020 |
| Genre | Fantasy, Melodrama |
| Language | Korean |
| Country | South Korea |
STORYLINE
Hong Dae-young and Jung Da-jung are childhood sweethearts who become teenage parents to fraternal twins when they get pregnant during high school. They decide to push through with the pregnancy and just do their best to raise their children well. Life has not been easy. Their finances are always tight and it was hard raising two kids when they were just barely out of childhood themselves but they were happy in the beginning.
As the years went by, the couple fell into a routine and as their twins grew up their marriage began to suffer little by little. Their children barely acknowledge their presence except to ask for pocket money, Dae-young loses his job, and Da-Jung suddenly wants a divorce. Wishing that he could go back in time, Dae-young wakes up in the body of his eighteen-year-old self but retains his thirty-seven-year-old memory. He gets to live the life he missed, observe his family and get to know his kids better. Through this glitch, he gets this once-in-a-lifetime chance to fix his life and his family’s.
08. Once Again 2020
| Title | Once Again |
| Male Lead | Cheon Ho-jin as Song Young-dal |
| Female Lead | Cha Hwa-Yeon as Jang Ok-boon |
| Writer | Yang Hee-seung, Ahn Ah-reum |
| Episodes | 100 Episodes |
| Release | March 28 – September 13, 2020 |
| Genre | Family Drama, Melodrama |
| Language | Korean |
| Country | South Korea |
STORYLINE
Once Again is a family drama about an elderly couple who have three out of four children from failed marriages. Their first child, Joon-sun, and second child Ga-hee are both divorcees who live with them. Their third child, Song Na-hee is a pediatrician who is also married to an internist doctor. They are both working in the same hospital and they are on the brink of a divorce due to their personality differences.
This is one of the many Korean family dramas about marriage that explores the nuances of divorce in Korean culture. Marriage is considered one of the most important events in a person’s life while divorce is still considered a huge pitfall in South Korea’s largely conservative nation.
09. The World of the Married 2020
| Title | The World of the Married |
| Male Lead | Park Hae-joon as Lee Tae-oh |
| Female Lead | Kim Hee-ae as Ji Sun-woo |
| Writer | Mike Bartlett, Joo Hyun |
| Episodes | 16 Episodes |
| Release | March 27 – May 16, 2020 |
| Genre | Melodrama, Romance, Family, Thriller |
| Language | Korean |
| Country | South Korea |
STORYLINE
The World of the Married is the 2020 South Korean adaptation of the BBC One television drama series, Doctor Foster: A Woman Scorned. It was aired in a two-part series from September 2015 until October 2017. The story revolves around Ji Sun-woo, a successful doctor and associate director at the Family Love Hospital in Gosan, South Korea. She is married to Lee Tae-oh, an aspiring director. They have one son who is in high school.
Sun-woo is very happy and content with her life thinking that everything is perfect. At her husband’s birthday party, she finds out that he is having an affair with another woman named Yeo Da-Kyung. Her world crumbles around her, even more, when she finds out that everybody in their group of friends knows about the affair.
Out of all the Korean Dramas about marriage on this list, this one has the most spellbinding story. I barely slept when I started this. I finished it in about a day and a half. It was that good.
10. Love ft. Marriage and Divorce 2021
| Title | Love ft. Marriage and Divorce |
| Male Lead | Sung Hoon as Pan Sa-Hyun, Lee Tae-Kon as Shin Yu-Shin, Park Hae-Ryun as Jeon No-Min |
| Female Lead | Lee Ga-Ryeong as Boo Hye-Ryung, Park Joo-Mi as Sa Pi-Young, Jeon Soo-Kyeong as Lee Si-Eun |
| Writer | Phoebe |
| Episodes | 3 Seasons with 16 Episodes each |
| Release | January 23, 2021, to May 1, 2022 |
| Genre | Melodrama |
| Language | Korean |
| Country | South Korea |
STORYLINE
Love Featuring Marriage and Divorce is an ongoing series that features three women in different stages of their lives and their tumultuous marriages.
Boo Hye-Ryung is in her thirties and works as a radio deejay. She tries to balance her marriage with her husband who is a judge. They have been married for five years and have no plans of having children.
Sa Pi-Young is a radio program producer in her forties who is married to a neuropsychiatrist who runs his own practice. Pi-Young is competent at her job, a doting mother, and a good wife to her romantic husband.
Lee Si-Eun is the main writer of the radio show who has been married to her professor husband for thirty years. She has endured many hardships in life and in her marriage. She has taken good care of her child and has been a good partner to her husband.
This is one of the many Korean dramas about marriage that is so popular that they have three seasons exploring the subject.
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