Top quality Korean dramas have been having something of a moment in recent years, with Netflix's Squid Game (2021) captivating audiences through the earlier stages of the pandemic, and Parasite (2019) winning the Oscar for Best Picture.
If these critical successes have given you a taste for what is called "K-drama", you might want to try the acclaimed 'Crash Landing On You' (2019) - a South Korean series that follows the story of a wealthy Korean heiress (Se-ri) who crash lands in North Korea while paragliding.
She is found by an attractive soldier in the North's "Korean Peoples Army" (Jeong-hyeok) who hides Se-ri from the wider military and a litany of other people who want her dead or captured.
The show has received widespread praise for its use of North Korean defectors as advisors, so that outsiders could gain a glimpse into the lives of the authoritarian Communist state's citizens - who frequently face food shortages, state violence, and internment in work camps.
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If that compelling bit of real-life political intrigue and drama is not enough to hook you, the show's two romantic leads fell in love and began seeing each other during the course of the series - mirroring their characters' own tumultuous love story.
'Crash' and its compelling cast of fresh talent became an obsession for many across Korea, China, and Japan during the initial coronavirus lockdowns as its combination of high drama, romance, and real-world storytelling appealed to audiences who had been forced to remain indoors.
'Crash Landing on You' had a long run of 15 episodes, lasting an hour each, though TV rumours abound that the smash-hit has not been renewed for a second season. This Korean language series is available to stream globally on Netflix.
