Directed by Park Hyun-jin, Netflix’s romantic comedy Love and lust introduced many western audiences to the world of Steamy K-drama shows – But it is far from the only one. Love and lust‘ BDSM spin on the classic romantic K-drama made it a somewhat shocking discovery for viewers unfamiliar with how quickly the genre has developed over the years. In the past, K-dramas have earned a reputation for their polished soap operas. While many Korean dramas still fit into this category, the narrative has evolved significantly, and even some of the most seemingly traditional K-dramas put their own unique spins on conventional romantic tropes.
Nowhere is this more true than in the steamiest Korean dramas streaming online today. Love and lust is just one of the many sexy, steamy or spicy K-dramas that subvert typical expectations about the genre. The steamiest K-dramas aren’t just about sex—they tackle intimacy, companionship, social taboos, love, and other topics in ways that less racy and steamy romantic K-dramas can’t.. For those looking for Korean dramas that break away from the usual fare, these shows and movies turn up the heat in the romance genre.
25
Forecasting love and weather
(2022)
Forecasting love and weather Is not the absolute steamiest K-drama out there, but it has quite a few steamy, and even a little more suggestive, scenes between its main couples. The series begins with a woman being cheated by the man she has been with for years, and the cheating is not left to the imagination.
She also hooks up with a complete stranger after the breakup, who she ends up working with when she becomes a team supervisor for the Korean Meteorological Association. The two decide to move forward with a relationship while attempting to hide it from everyone around them. The show is full of near-misses as members of the team almost catch them together. Their relationship is complicated when another co-worker stays with them while his wife is away, and they struggle to maintain a professional relationship.
The show has an interesting concept when examining relationships – comparing them to weather patterns – and while it has steamy moments, it’s not quite as steamy as the rest of the K-dramas here.
24
The lover
(2015) The K-drama debuted in 2015 and features more suspense and explicit scenes than many on the air today.
Although K-dramas have a reputation for being incredibly clean, and many fans believe that they have only recently started to include steamier scenes with couples, this is not always the case. The K-drama debuted in 2015 and features more suspense and explicit scenes than many on the air today. The lover is essentially an anthology series since it focuses on four different pairings. The show, however, follows couples who all live in the same apartment complex.
One pairing features a couple living together for years, but unmarried. Another features an older woman supporting her younger boyfriend as he pursues his dream. The third is a young couple who have just moved in together and have not revealed all their true selves to one another. The final pairing is particularly progressive for the time since it is the only one that is not heterosexual. A Korean man needs a roommate, and he specifically asks for a non-Korean because he thinks he won’t feel the need to bond with him. He ends up living with a Japanese man.
The series is full of raunchy humor, which is highly unusual in the K-drama landscape. It also contains more intimate scenes than usual. It made it a breath of fresh air when it premiered.
23
Kiss Sixth Sense
(2022)
Kiss Sixth Sense Started as a webroman before it was adapted into a webtoon, and later, a live-action K-drama. It’s a romantic comedy that leans more into fantasy than a K-drama might usually try to do.
Hong Ye-sool (Seo Ji-hye) is a young woman with a strange supernatural ability. She can see the future when someone kisses her. Although it may seem helpful on the surface, it makes her life more complicated when she accidentally ends up kissing her boss. The kiss lets you see their future together, including more intimate moments. Her visions make her focus on seeing what the future might be like, and she becomes interested in getting closer to her boss.
Of course, since this is a romantic K-drama, there are further complications when Hong Ye-Sul’s ex-boyfriend tries to re-enter her life.
22
It’s okay, it’s love
(2014)
It’s okay, it’s love is usually not one of those shows that comes up in conversation around steamy K-dramas. That’s because the series is more likely to come up in conversations about the portrayal of mental health in media instead. Both aspects of the show – A steamy romance and a mental health storyline – are the backbones of the series.
The show follows a man who is a best-selling novelist and a radio DJ who also happens to have obsessive-compulsive disorder that stems from trauma in his childhood. When he crosses paths with a psychiatrist who has a negative view of love and a phobia of sex, they butt heads, but there is a spark between them. They slowly fall in love and experience a more intimate relationship than either of them had in the past.
The series, however, is not a simple romantic K-drama. It deals with a man framed for murder and features an examination of undiagnosed schizophrenia. The series won many awards and was also recognized with a plaque of appreciation from the Korean Society for Schizophrenia Research.
21
Love to hate you
(2023)
Love to hate you is on the lighter end of a K-drama rom-com spectrum, but it still features some serious subjects. The two main characters are on the wrong foot because they both have very specific and negative views on the opposite gender.
Yeo Mi-ran (Kim Ok-win) is a lawyer with a free spirit and a healthy sexual appetite. She, however, does not particularly like men in general and is ready to offer her own brand of social justice for women who have been harmed by them. Nam Kang-ho (Teo Yoo) is an actor who hires her law firm And happens to have an aversion to most women because of his own past experiences. Although the two start out as enemies, they also have a fantastic sexual tension for the audience.
20
King of the land
(2023)
It is important to note that K-dramas are not known for their steamy content. Even romance K-dramas are more likely to imply physical aspects of a relationship or to include charged moments of flirting instead of giving the audience any kind of mature scene. This is slowly changing in stories with any kind of romance on Korean TV, but it’s still much more likely for kissing scenes, like those in King of the landTo be considered the steamiest aspects of a K-drama as something more overtly sexual.
King of the land Doubles as a romantic comedy and an inheritance drama. The series follows the wealthy heir to a luxury hotel group and his interactions with one of the hotel employees whose smile he can’t stand. Of course, there is much more to their interactions than that, and the chemistry in the series is impressive.
19
Lovestruck in the City
(2020-2021)
Lovestruck in the City is closer to what audiences might think of as an American sitcom like Friends Or New girl. It follows a group of people in various stages of relationships as they live in a large city in South Korea. The format of the series is set similar to a documentary with the characters giving interviews about their relationships, and It has the flirtatious leanings of rom-coms like King of the land And Forecasting love and weather.
It doesn’t have as much steamy content as some of the other K-dramas here, but what it does feature is one of the best first kisses in K-dramas to date. Critics often compare the characters of Park Jae-won and Choi Kyeong-jun to the most famous will-they-or-won’t-they couple on television, Ross and Rachel from Friends.
18
Melting me softly
(2019)
Also called Melt me, Melting me softly is a blend of romance and science fiction. The two Main characters agree to participate in an experiment in which they will be frozen for 24 hours to see the effects. Unfortunately, something goes wrong with the experiment and the two end up frozen for 20 years. When they wake up, they not only have to catch up on two decades of events, but they also have to deal with their physical limitations to how much they can interact with others, which is, paradoxically, where the steam comes into play.
It’s the tension between the characters that leads to some of the show’s steamier moments. The two have to maintain lower heart rates and gradually increase their body temperatures to avoid any damage to their bodies. As their attraction to one another grows, it becomes almost impossible, leading to the two characters kissing under the stream of a cold shower to keep themselves out of danger at one point.
17
The forbidden marriage
(2022-2023)
A series set in a historical Korean era involving a marriage ban and a cam artist might not seem like it would include much heat, but surprisingly, it does.. Both a historical drama and a romantic comedy, the series follows a young woman who acts like a matchmaker, despite the fact that the king canceled the wedding. The king’s grief over the loss of his wife leads to the ban, but when the matchmaker tries to get out of prison by saying that she is possessed by the spirit of his deceased wife, things get complicated.
There is a clear attraction between the two despite the fact that the matchmaker denies it. She implies that the king is ugly at one point, leading him to remove his clothes in her presence to prove a point. The tension comes from whether he will discover the truth behind her lies, but along the way, there are many heated moments between the two.
16
Secret love affair
(2014)
It should be noted that Secret love affairOr Secret affair As it is also known, is not a romantic comedy. Many of the K-dramas known for their steamier moments are far more comedic than this series. Instead, it lies much closer to melodrama and it serves to provide a lot of social commentary on how Korean society views romantic relationships.
The series follows a woman in her 40s who allows everyone around her to believe that she has led a very fulfilling life. She is married and successful, but for her there is something missing. When she falls for a pianist in his 20s, she realizes that she is experiencing love for the first time. The story is of their affair and how it could very easily damage both of their lives, but throughout the story, moments that reflect how Korean society would see the couple, how society views love in general, and how society Measure success, are all interwoven. .
15
Something in the rain
(2018)
in something in the rain, 35-year-old Jin-ah is a successful single woman who begins to fall in love with her best friend’s younger brother when the latter returns from abroad after three years. It’s a twist on an old rom-com trope. The two slowly fall in love while getting to know each other and navigating their age gap, inevitably telling their respective families and others about their romance.
what makes Something in the rain A steamy Korean drama is the way to go It realistically tackles the South Korean taboo of younger males dating older females. This is something a handful of K-dramas have taken on since. This gives even the most classic rom-com scenes – like sneakily holding hands under the table or walking in the rain – a new lease on life.
14
Her private life
(2019)
Sung Deok-mi is an art gallery curator who is secretly an ardent fan of the K-pop idol, Cha Shi-an. In the age of fandom communities on social media, this K-drama definitely hits a pop culture sweet spot.
A steamy K-drama for fans who like K-pop, Her private life It starts when false rumors start about Sung Deok-Mi and Cha Shi-an dating. After wild idol fanatics threaten Sung Deok-mi, she pretends to be dating her boss Ryan Gold, a retired artist who manages the gallery. When the two are forced to keep up appearances at work and elsewhere, what starts out as make-believe eventually turns into a real romance. Besides being a steamy Korean drama, it also results in funny scenes like Ryan ignoring a deliveryman to passionately kiss Deok-Mi.
13
My secret romance
(2017)
The K-drama My secret romance Follows Cha Jin-wook and Lee Yoo-mi, who meet at a Gangwon-do resort, with the former working there as a bellhop under his father’s orders and the latter there for her mother’s wedding. The two hit it off and spend the night together.
Fast forward three years and Yoo-mi works as a nutritionist at Jin-wook’s company. The two’s new relationship gets off to a rocky start with Jin-wook being difficult for Yoo-mi, even antagonizing her, just to be near her. While outsiders may see him as a playboy, the truth is that he kept a male from their night together and just wants the opportunity to get to know her. When the two finally start to warm to each other again, it turns into a steamy Korean drama riddled with passion, and some of the usual romantic comedy misunderstandings, and love.
12
The world of the married
(2020)
A K-drama spin on the popular BBC One series, Dr. Foster, The world of the married Follows the life of successful psychiatrist Ji Sun-woo, who seems to be leading a perfect life with her husband, Lee Tae-oh, and their son, Lee Joon-young. What seems perfect, however, rarely really is.
Her world is turned upside down when she learns that Tae-oh is having an affair with young Yeo Tae-kyung – and her “friends” have been hiding it from her. While deciding one of the steamiest K-dramas, The world of marriage is also one of the more heartbreaking As some of the characters give in to their darkest thoughts. Tae-oh and Day-Kyung provide unforgettable intimate scenes that perfectly capture the excitement of forbidden lust, but the series also features more violence than the usual steamy series.
11
A witch’s romance
(2014)
This particular K-drama is actually a remake of a 2009 Taiwanese series, and although it only has 16 episodes, it has a great story. Ban Ji-yeon is a 39-year-old woman who gave up on love in the steamy Korean drama, A witch’s romance. However, her heart begins to melt when she meets 25-year-old Yoon Dong-ha, and the two embark on a December-May romance.
Another spicy K-drama that doesn’t shy away from South Korean social taboos about older women dating younger men, A witch’s romance Also deals with the effects of tragedy. While Ji-yeon’s war photographer husband disappeared before her wedding day, Dong-ha lost his girlfriend to a heart problem. The prevailing intimacy of the passionate scenes between the two betrays their growing feelings of love for one another.
10
It’s okay to not be okay
(2020)
It’s okay to not be okay is an emotional, romantic and steamy Korean drama that follows the lives of three people. Moon Gang-tae lives with and takes care of his autistic older brother, Moon Sang-tae. The brothers move around a lot after Sang-tae witnesses the murder of their mother when he was young. In each new city, Gang-tae works in the psychiatric hospital, and there he meets Ko Moon-young, a famous children’s author who has anti-social personality disorder.
Moon-young realizes that their pasts overlap and becomes romantically obsessed with Gang-tae. Together, Gang-tae, Moon-young, and Sang-tae unravel their shared past in one of the most poignant, complex, and emotional K-dramas in recent history. The series received a nomination for Best Television Movie or Miniseries at the International Emmy Awards.
9
Love and lust
(2022)
Jung Ji-woo and Jung Ji-hoo enter into a contractual relationship, two coworkers in the Netflix K-drama Love and lust. what makes Love and lust Unique even among the steamiest K-dramas is that it explores communication, respectful boundaries and romantic feelings in a relationship hinged on hardcore BDSM. Many of the steamier on-screen romances for incorporating BDSM into their stories have been criticized in the past for not including the importance of communication and boundaries.
It’s a steamy rom-com that lovingly plays with the most common tropes in K-drama. For example, Ji-hoo only brings up his secret interest in BDSM to Ji-woo after she accidentally discovers a collar he ordered at work. Nevertheless, Ji-woo turns out to be a quick learner, masterfully stepping into the stilettos of a domineering eager to please the man she’s beginning to fall in love with.
8
That’s it
(2021)
That’s it Follows two singles who have trouble being in relationships and are non-believers in love. It’s a common rom-com trope to see a player bond with someone who can’t get past the trauma of a broken heart but That’s it Makes it feel fresh.
Park Jae-eon is a known flirt who doesn’t want a committed relationship, and as for Yoo Na-bi, her terrible past has made her disillusioned with love. In a twist of fate, they decide to enter into a relationship with each other and to test commitment. As the two explore a semi-friends-with-benefits setup, they begin to fall in love and change their cynical outlook. The steamy K-drama is all about the tension of weighing whether the other feels the same way. Na-bi even has an intensely passionate dream about Jae-eon.
7
What is wrong with Secretary Kim?
(2018)
When Lee Jung-joon, a vice chairman of a major corporation, learns that his highly capable secretary Kim Mi-soo will be resigning after nine years, Jung-joon decides to do whatever it takes to make sure she stays by his side. in What is wrong with Secretary Kim? After all, she’s a great secretary, and he wouldn’t want to keep her by his side for any reason other than work, right?
His attempts to get her to stay include setting up a fireworks show just for her and giving her thoughtful gifts reminiscent of the time they enjoyed working together. However, this is no ordinary K-drama about falling in love with the boss. As he steals her leave at every turn, the two begin to fall in love and heal each other from their past shared traumatic experiences, resulting in some of the steamiest K-drama scenes.
6
Another Miss Oh
(2016)
The K-drama follows the story of Park Do-kyung, who was left at the altar by his fiance, Oh Hae-young. When Do-kyung later learns that she is to be married, he goes out of his way to ruin her wedding plans. However, it was soon revealed that The woman’s life he just ruined is not “his” Oh Hae-young, but another Miss Oh. Mistaken identity contributes to a comedy of errors that turns into a sweet and steamy story.
When Do-kyung gets close to the “other” Hae-young, the two begin to fall in love. However, after seeing Oh Hae-young with her ex-fiance the previous night, Do-kyung isn’t too happy to see her the next day, which eventually culminates in one of the steamiest kissing scenes in K-drama.