Did you know that there are Chinese dramas that came from Korean dramas?
Korean dramas have been making a huge impact on the global entertainment industry for those series that can make you cry and laugh at the same time! You may not be fully aware but you may have already binge-watched on many of them. You probably know how it feels to keep on watching until as far as you could go and suddenly realizing you’ve been glued to the screen all night.
Among the most-watched Chinese dramas are Meteor Garden, Love 020, A Love So Beautiful, and so on! Many successful C-dramas are actually adaptations of some well-loved KdDramas. Here are some of those.
1. Full House (2004)
Full House (2004) starring the famous Korean singer Rain and actress Song Hye Kyo indeed dominated Asia’s telenovelas during the 2000s. This drama had various adaptations from different Asian countries and recently had a Chinese adaptation called Midsummer is Full of Love (2020).
2. Coffee Prince (2007)
Aside from Full House, every drama lover must have watched Coffee Prince way back in 2007. The latest Chinese remake, Prince Coffee Lab (2018) is one of the many adaptations of this drama because people just can’t get over with it. Having a story about cross-dressing in order to survive and suddenly falling in love with a guy indeed touched all of our hearts!
3. Sungkyunkwan Scandal (2010)
Starring our favorite oppas Song Joong Ki, Park Yoo Chun, and Yoo Ah Jin with female lead Park Min Young, this drama recently released a Chinese adaption, In a Class of Her Own (2020). It is another hidden-identity-themed drama that made our hearts go crazy and also helped empower women at the same time! If you are looking for a drama about the twists and turns of old dynasties forbidding girls to study, then this is the one for you.
4. Queen In Hyun’s Man (2012)
Based on this popular Korean drama, the Chinese version tells the same story of a love that happens between two people from different eras. Having to travel back and forth from the Joseon era and the modern era, how will the couple survive? Watch Love Through a Millennium (2015) to see how this one of a kind love story develops!
5. I Hear Your Voice (2013)
Do you love supernatural-themed dramas with a little mix of suspense? The Korean parent story skyrocketed the K-drama industry because of the ever famous Lee Jung Suk! The Chinese adaption, No Secrets (2019), on the other hand, focused more on the romance between the two.
6. Incomplete Life (2014)
This workplace drama showcases the stressfulness in the corporate world and how the relationships between the co-workers turn into a family. The Chinese remake, The Ordinary Glory (2020), will let you look into the life of the people behind the success of a firm having tons of ups and downs for the company.
7. She Was Pretty (2015)
This hit Korean drama featuring Park Seo Jun, Super Junior-M’s Choi Shi Won, and Hwang Jung Eum is perfect for childhood love stories! Seeing that your childhood crush became an incredibly handsome guy, the girl faced difficulties since she felt that she was ugly. Watch the Chinese version, Pretty Li Hui Zhen (2017), starring our favorite Dilraba Dilmurat and Peter Sheng.
8. Kill Me, Heal Me (2015)
This Rom-Com Melodrama tackling mental disorders is popular in Korea and still trends every now and then because of some scenes where the male lead becomes a girl. The Chinese adaptation, Seven of Me (2017), is about the life of a person who has seven different personalities and happened to meet a 1st-year medical intern who is trying to figure out ways to cure him.
9. Who Are You: School 2015 (2015)
Chinese remake, When We Were Young (2017) is about the life of the twins that were separated when they were young. Hoping to be together again, the older sister wanted to look for her younger sibling trying to see if her life is great. One twist of fate leads them to switch identities while one suffers from amnesia and the other is using her sister’s identity to solve the mysteries of the sudden disappearance of her sister and amnesia.
10. Age of Youth (2016)
When children start to go to college and need to go away from their families, they start to learn things on their own and face these challenges by themselves. Tackling gender norms, eating disorders, PTSD, and many more social issues, this drama is a must when you love to watch dramas about the youth. The Chinese version, Youth (2018), is also about the life of five college students that shared a house together and faced their adult life together.
We can never deny how great the influence of Korean dramas is on our lives. It is so great that there are a lot of countries that adopt the stories and recreate those in their own language. This is just the beginning of the list and there are more Chinese remakes to come, so stay tuned!
