Love The Silent Sea? Watch These Mind-Bending Korean Sci-Fi Dramas Next
If you joined Captain Han on his perilous journey to the moon in The Silent Sea, perhaps it’s a curiosity for the vast unknown that brought you here. Luckily, there are more South Korean sci-fi series out there to satisfy your appetite. Some offer the opportunity to explore space and time, as well as new lands, and others that hit a little closer to home, depicting worlds with advanced technology that affects everyday lives and relationships. There’s Love Alarm, which features an app that lets you know if someone nearby has a crush on you; or Signal, a crime-drama that weaves together the past and present in a fight against corruption.
Ahead, we’ve rounded up a list of South Korean sci-fi shows that will send you on journeys filled with suspense, romance and, of course, adventure.
Glitch
What’s a girl to do when her boyfriend goes missing? Stumble upon a wild conspiracy involving aliens, what else? This comedy-thriller follows Ji-hyo (Jeon Yeo-been), who tries to get to the bottom of why her boyfriend suddenly disappeared. Cracking the case requires teaming up with a UFO enthusiast, and the two soon find themselves caught up in a mysterious plot.
Tomorrow
In this series based on the webtoon of the same name, struggling job seeker Choi Joon-woong (Rowoon) finally lands a gig — but it’s one that comes with life-or-death stakes. After an accident leaves him half-human, half-spirit, he finds work with a team of grim reapers in the underworld who convince the hopeless that life is worth living.
Memories of the Alhambra
Set in Spain, Memories of Alhambra imagines a world where the present day mingles with the past — with a futuristic twist. Successful tech CEO Yoo Jin-woo (Hyun Bin) receives a call in the middle of the night offering him an investment opportunity that takes him to Hostal Bonita in Granada. Once there, he meets owner Jung Hee-joo (Park Shin-hye), the older sister of the mysterious caller, who has since disappeared. Between cobblestone streets and late night tapas spots, Jin-woo tests out his investment, an augmented reality game so vivid, it blurs the lines between fantasy and reality. Memories of Alhambra screenwriter Song Jae-jung revealed in 2019 a surprising fact (fitting for a show that’s full of twists): The show was inspired by the Pokémon Go! mobile game.
Time to Hunt
In near-future South Korea, the won has become obsolete. Life looks bleak, and best friends/frequent robbers Jun-seok (Lee Je-hoon), Jang-ho (Ahn Jae-hong) and Ki-hoon (Choi Woo-shik) struggle to get by. Their last heist landed Jun-seok in jail, and the economy has now rendered their cash useless. As they dream of retirement in a tropical paradise, Jun-seok suggests that the friends do one last job. They recruit an old friend, Sang-soo (Hellbound’s Park Jung-min), who works at an illegal gambling house, to help them rob it. Their plan succeeds, but their celebrations are cut short when the gambling house hires Han (Park Hae-soo), an almost otherworldly contract killer, who starts a deadly cat-and-mouse game with the thieves for payback. At its core, Time to Hunt is an ode to friendship — the ones you'd take a bullet for and who’re there for you when no one else is.
Space Sweepers
Space Sweepers is a glossy, high-octane ride, featuring a scrappy crew consisting of Tae-ho (Song Joong-ki), Captain Jang (Mr. Sunshine’s Kim Tae-ri), Tiger Park (Jin Seon-kyu) and Robot Bubs (Yoo Hae-jin). They spend their days scouring the galaxy on the junk collector Victory, scouring for debris to flip for cash. When the group finds Dorothy (Park Ye-rin), a young stowaway, who we learn is a robot once used as a weapon of mass destruction, Tae-ho quickly makes plans to sell her to a terrorist group for $2 million. Meanwhile, the film’s antagonist, James Sullivan (Richard Armitage), a CEO who dreams of colonizing Mars, has a hidden agenda that might complicate things for the Victory crew. Space Sweepers reminds us of the pervasiveness of wealth inequality: Even in an imagined future with countless technological advancements, like spaceships and talking robots, the 99% still struggle to make a living.
Signal
As a child, criminal profiler Park Hae-young (Lee Je-Hoon) witnesses a kidnapping: His first crush, Kim Yoon-jung (Lee Young-eun) is led away under an umbrella one rainy afternoon by a well-dressed woman in red heels. The police, however, nab a male suspect, and the young Hae-young tries to convince them otherwise. But with the nation watching and media coverage mounting, the police call it a closed case, even though Yoon-jung has yet to be found. Now all grown up, Hae-young finds a walkie-talkie that connects the past and present. On the other end is Detective Lee Jae-han (Cho Jin-woong), who was reported missing while investigating a case. With the help of Detective Cha Soo-hyun (Juvenile Justice’s Kim Hye-soo), Hae-young and Jae-han work together to solve Yoon-jung’s case, as well as other cold cases, while navigating the delicate balance of altering the past, present and future. The series includes fictionalized real-life cold cases that reveal the country's sometimes corrupt and lagging political and legal system.
Love Alarm
The fear of unrequited love keeps countless potential couples from telling one another how they feel. But what if that issue was resolved through an app? Enter Love Alarm, the app that alerts people if anyone within 10 yards has a crush on them. Kim Jojo (Kim So-hyun) is an orphaned high school student struggling to balance school with her volatile home life, living with her unkind aunt and cousin, and work. Things take a turn when the handsome Hwang Sun-oh (Song Kang) transfers to Jojo’s school — and, of course, his love alarm pings incessantly — and takes a liking to her. But best friend, Lee Hye-yeong (Jung Ga-ram), king of intense stares and forlorn looks, has pined for Jojo for years. Things get complicated when Sun-oh makes a move on Jojo, and she reciprocates his feelings. As it tells a familiar story of teen angst and first love, Love Alarm also offers a cautionary tale about the downsides of invasive technology, especially when it can affect the self-esteem and mental health of young people.
Sisyphus
In Greek myth, Sisyphus was the king who cheated death twice, and the gods, being notoriously vengeful, punished him by making him roll a boulder up a hill. At the top of the hill, the boulder always rolled back down, keeping Sisyphus in an eternal loop of futile effort doomed to failure.
In the present day, CEO and engineering genius Han Tae-sul (Cho Seung-woo) is a sort of Korean Sherlock Holmes. (He does things like saving a falling plane with duct tape, magnets and impressive deductive reasoning.) Without thinking through the consequences of his genius, he invents a time-traveling device that creates a dystopian future of war and doom. Gang Seo-hae (Park Shin-hye) comes from the future to save Tae-sul and the world. Sisyphus: The Myth explores the consequences of time travel and how, despite living in an age where technology rules, acts of human kindness, compassion and empathy truly hold the most power.
