Features: ‘My Lovely Sam Soon’, ‘Reply 1988’, ‘Hwarang’, ‘Descendants of the Sun’, ‘Crash Landing on You’, ‘Squid Game’, ‘All of Us Are Dead’, and more hits A still featuring the main cast of 'Hwarang: The Poet Warrior Youth.' The drama revived the flower-boy image and is an iconic historical youth romantic K-drama that merits all the glory it has gotten thus far. Photo: courtesy of KBS2.
With the debut of KBS (Korean Broadcasting System), the first Korean public broadcaster, K-dramas ushered in a new era. Up until the early 1960s, when television distribution was still limited and military control of show content was strictly enforced, dramas were nothing like the beloved family entertainment they are now. The first South Korean television drama ever to air was in 1962 and more started popping up once the government removed the prohibition on broadcasters receiving revenue from advertisements in 1969.
Thanks to those like , K-dramas became more and more varied as the 1980s came to an end. When new TV networks emerged and governmental censorship and limits were relaxed in the 1990s, broadcasters began investing money in drama productions. K-dramas started to be sold overseas, once South Korea’s cultural industry was liberalized and the military dictatorship ended.
officially began with this. Here’s an inventory of 25 distinguished K-dramas that sparked the cultural phenomenon. Still hailed as one of the highest-rated K-dramas ever made, is a pa.