Movement Control Order: Best Korean Dramas To Watch on Netflix

1. Whisper 

Shin Young-joo (Lee Bo-young) is a charismatic female section chief police officer who is passionate in her career. With her family facing financial difficulties, she has to undergo the agony and pay debts for her family. She speaks harsh, but has a heart of gold. Lee Dong-joon (Lee Sang-yoon) is a virtuous elite judge, brilliant-minded and warm-hearted, and has a willingness for weak people who need a listening ear. Both of them join alliances together to uncover defense industry corruption at Taebaek, the nation's biggest law firm, which turns out to be one of the top scandals ever. 

2. Two cops 

A single-minded, dedicated violent crimes detective who finds himself cohabiting his own body with the soul of a sleazy con artist; and falls in love with a feisty rookie reporter. 

3. Black 

Black is the story of a grim reaper who is forced to track down his fugitive partner. In the process, he uncovers the truth about a series of cold case murders from 20 years ago. Investigating the murders complicates the reaper's primary role of guiding the deceased to their respective afterlife, especially after he falls in love with a mortal woman - which leads him to break supernatural rules against involvement in human affairs. 

4. The girl who sees scents 

Choi Eun-seol (Shin Se-kyung) arrives home to find her parents murdered. When the murderer is distracted, she escapes but is hit by a car. Eun-seol's parents are later found with a barcode carved into their skin, the work of the "Barcode" serial killer. The lead detective on the case, Oh Jae-pyo (Jung In-gi) realizes that the now-comatose daughter Eun-seol is the sole surviving witness. On that same night, Choi Moo-gak (Park Yoo-chun) is at the hospital visiting his younger sister (Kim So-hyun), also named Choi Eun-seol, who's being treated for mild injuries after a bus accident. But when he returns to her bed, he finds her dead with her throat slit. 

Six months later, Eun-seol comes out of her coma. But she has no memories at all of her life before waking up at the hospital, and her left eye has turned green with no scientific explanation. She has also gained the unique ability to "see" smells as visible colors and shapes, and can even trace where people have been because their lingering scents are like a trail. To protect her, Jae-pyo adopts her and invents a new life for her, telling her that he's her real father and that her name is Oh Cho-rim. Three years and six months pass, and Cho-rim is a cheerful girl who's adjusted to her ability. She dreams of a becoming a comedian, and works as a gofer for a small, struggling theater company called Frog Troupe. 

On the other hand, Moo-gak had been so traumatized by his sister's death that after two months of no sleep and constant pain, he'd fainted and was clinically dead for ten days. When he woke up, he'd lost the sense of smell and taste, and is unable to feel pain. And unlike his previous warm personality, Moo-gak is now stoic, emotionless, and speaks in a monotone. He leaves his job at the aquarium to become a police officer, vowing to reopen the case and catch the killer. But to do so, he must first get promoted to detective, and has to prove himself to the head of the homicide unit Detective Kang Hyuk (Lee Won-jong) in ten days or to never ask for a promotion again. Cho-rim also needs a skit partner for her upcoming audition in ten days, and when she offers to help him with his cases in exchange, they decide to team up. After a model (Park Han-byul) turns up dead, seemingly another victim of the Barcode serial killer, Moo-gak joins the investigation headed by Lieutenant Yeom Mi (Yoon Jin-seo), and he hones in on two possible suspects: the model's boyfriend, chef Kwon Jae-hee (Namgoong Min) and her doctor (Song Jong-ho). 

5. Doctors 

Yoo Hye-jung (Park Shin-hye) was a headstrong girl in high school with a prickly, gangster personality. Due to her many childhood scars, Hye-jung keeps her heart closed towards other people. However, she changes after meeting her mentor Hong Ji-hong (Kim Rae-won), who plays a key role in transforming her life from a "hopeless" delinquent to a compassionate doctor. They part ways subsequently but meet again after 13 years, when Yoo Hye-jung had become a doctor. 

6. Goblin 

Kim Shin (Gong Yoo) a decorated military general from the Goryeo Dynasty is framed as a traitor and killed by his master, the young King. Years after his death, he is cursed by the almighty to stay immortal forever and endure the pain of seeing his loved ones die as a punishment to the beastly kills he committed in the wars to protect his country. He becomes an immortal goblin, helping people with his powers and being a kind man in-spite of his grieving past. The only way to put an end to his immortality is the Goblin's bride, whose aid in pulling out the sword will culminate his painful immortality. Ji Eun-Tak (Kim Go-eun) is a bubbly high school student who remains cheerful and hopeful despite her tragic life. She summons the goblin by chance and their fates begin to entwine. Goblin's nephew Yoo Deok-Hwa (Yook Sung-jae) leases the Goblin's house to a grim reaper (Lee Dong-wook) and the two end up living under the same roof. Sunny (Yoo In-na) is a charismatic young lady who runs a chicken shop in which Ji Eun-Tak works as a part timer. As the lives of Kim Shin, grim reaper, Ji Eun-Tak and Sunny interweave, a deeper story unfolds as they are not just strangers who met-by chance but people with deep-rooted relations. 

7. I hear your voice 

After overcoming poverty and a difficult childhood, Jang Hye-sung (Lee Bo-young) becomes a lawyer, specifically a public defender, but she is pragmatic, self-preserving and jaded. Her life changes when she encounters Park Soo-ha (Lee Jong-suk), a high school senior with the supernatural ability to read other people's thoughts by looking into their eyes. Soo-ha gained his mind-reading ability when witnessing his father getting murdered ten years previously. His father's death had initially been dismissed as a car accident until Hye-sung, then a high school girl (Kim So-hyun), gave a decisive testimony in court despite the killer's threats (Jung Woong-in). Soo-ha has been searching for her ever since. As Hye-sung works with Soo-ha and a cop-turned-lawyer Gwan-woo (Yoon Sang-hyun), she gradually lets go of her pursuit of money and glory. Together, this unlikely team uses unconventional methods to solve their cases, proving that while sometimes justice is blind to a fault, she can still hear your voice. 

8. Who are you 

Go Eun-byul and Lee Eun-bi (both played by Kim So-hyun) are identical twins, separated after one is adopted at the age of 5. Eun-bi lives at the Love House, an orphanage in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province, where the younger residents look up to her as a mother figure. However, she hides the fact that she is bullied at school by a gang of mean girls led by Kang So-young, while teachers turn a blind eye. On the other hand, Go Eun-byul is studying at Sekang High School, the most prestigious private high school in Seoul's Gangnam District. Eun-byul's best friend is Han Yi-an (Nam Joo-hyuk), the school's star swimmer and is in love with her since childhood. However, only Eun-byul is aware of the other's existence. Unlike the cheerful Eun-bi, Eun-byul is prickly and secretive. One day, on a school field trip to Tongyeong, Eun-byul mysteriously disappears. At the same time, Eun-bi is unjustly expelled from her school and jumps off a bridge in a suicide attempt. Ten days later, the injured and amnesiac Eun-bi is mistaken for her twin, Eun-byul, and her adoptive mother takes her home to Seoul, where she starts living as Eun-byul. However, her memory soon returns. 

Eun-bi faces many challenges as Kang So-young transfers to Sekang High School and tries to reveal her real identity, as well as using her Dad's authority to make Eun-bi transfer from the school. Luckily, Gong Tae-kwang (Yook Sung-jae), Eun-bi's classmate and the school troublemaker, protects her whenever So-young tries to bully her. Eun-bi also stands up to So-young and disproves her claims about her identity, as well as ruining her plans to have her transferred. Eun-bi tells Tae-kwang her real identity, and he eventually begins to develop feelings for her. Soon, the real Eun-byul is shown to be alive and was in hiding all this time in order to give happiness and love to her sister who never had it. The two meet each other and make up and reveal to everyone their real identities. Everyone is confused at first but come around and Eun-Byul friends decide to accept Eun-bi as their best friend too after spending times together. Han Yi-An is annoyed but he comes around as he has already fallen for Eun-bi. Eun-byul decides to enrol at a different college of her dreams and she departs whilst staying on good terms with everyone and Eun-bi stays at Sekang High School and is enjoying her new life. Even though she has feelings for both Tae-kwang and Yi-an she remains good friends with both of them in the end. 

9. Signal 

A mysterious walkie talkie allows a detective in the year 1986 to communicate with a cold case profiler from 2015; with the power of fore and hindsight the two not only solve crimes but prevent them from ever taking place. A criminal profiler Park Hae Young (Lee Je-hoon), solves a kidnapping case that ended up with a falsely accused who apparently disappeared after the crime, with a mysterious walkie-talkie he picks up. The success of this case triggers the formation of a long-term cold case team, led by Detective Cha Soo-Hyun (Kim Hye-soo), who has been searching her long-lost mentor Lee Jae-Han (Cho Jin-woong), for the past 15 years. With the help of Detective Lee Jae-Han, the person at the other end of the walkie-talkie, Park Hae-young solves many other cold cases that have remained unsolved for years, while helping Lee Jae-Han help solve some cases in the past. However, grave unintended sequences follow. Within the limited capabilities of the supernatural element, the three detectives put up a fight against time to solve crimes and save themselves from the unprecedented events that occur due to their actions. 

10. Tunnel 

The series was inspired by the Hwaseong serial murders. The Hwaseong serial murders (Korean: 화성 연쇄 살인 사건; Hanja: 華城連鎖殺人事件; RR: hwaseong yeonswae sarin sageon) were a series of rapes and murders that occurred in the city of Hwaseong between September 15, 1986 and April 3, 1991. In each case, a woman was found bound, gagged, raped and in most cases strangled to death with their own clothes. It sparked the largest criminal case in South Korea with over 2 million man-days spent on investigation and over 21,000 suspects investigated.

A suspect sketch was drawn based on the memory of the bus driver, Kang, and bus conductor, Uhm, who saw a man get on the bus shortly after the seventh murder on September 7, 1988. The characteristics of the suspect, which were described by the bus driver, were similar to the descriptions given by survivors who were sexually assaulted. According to the victims, the culprit at the time of the incident was a thin-framed man in his mid-20s, with a height of 165 to 170 centimeters, a short cut sporty-type hair, no double eyelids, and a sharp nose. In addition, he was described as having soft hands. Police also stated that the suspect had a "B" blood type, but in 2019, police acknowledged that this was likely inaccurate, because Lee has blood type "O".

On July 27, 1989, Yoon Sang-Yeo, a 22-year-old man, was arrested for the murder of the eighth victim, 14-year-old Park Sang-hee. Yoon admitted guilt during questioning and forensic tests of pubic hair samples found at the scene suggested similarities with his. This case was determined to be a copycat crime, and Yoon was sentenced to life in prison, but appealed the ruling at the time, alleging that police coerced him into giving false confessions through torture. His appeal was denied and he served 19.5 years in jail before being released on parole in 2009. In 2019, Lee Choon-jae confessed to the murder and Yoon filed for a re-trial to prove his innocence. 

The release of the film Memories of Murder in 2003, which was partially inspired by the serial murders, sparked renewed interest in the case. The murder of a female college student in Hwaseong in 2004 also sparked renewed interest and fears that a serial killer had returned. The serial murders made headlines again as the statute of limitations for the most recent victims was due to expire on April 2, 2006. At the time of the killings, there was a 15-year statute of limitations for first-degree murder. This was increased to 25 years in 2007, and finally lifted in 2015, but it was not retroactive. However, evidence and police records were kept due to the significance of the case. 

11. Bad guys 

Detective Oh Gu-tak will use any means necessary to catch criminals, and his ambiguous moral line often results in him getting suspended for excessive force. Gu-tak comes up with a plan to form a team of "bad guys" to work on cases and hunt down other criminals, and with the rising number of violent crimes in their district, ambitious police inspector Yoo Mi-young signs off on the arrangement. Gu-tak releases three convicts from jail to form his team: Lee Jung-moon is the youngest member of Mensa with a genius IQ of 165 and doctorate degrees in math and philosophy, but behind his boyish facade is a psychopath serial killer; Pak Un-Cheol is a mob boss who crushed his way to the top of the gangster chain in 25 days, and still remains top dog in prison; and Jung Tae-soo was once a hired hit man who never made a single mistake, but suddenly confessed and turned himself in one day. 

12. Voice 

Moo Jin-hyuk (Jang Hyuk) is a "mad dog" detective who becomes guilt-ridden after his wife was murdered while he was at work. Kang Kwon-joo (Lee Ha-na) is a tough policewoman who is gifted with perfect psycho-acoustics skills and went for voice profiling. She was working at the call center when a brutal murder case took place and in the process of investigating her father was killed. Three years later, Jin-hyuk and Kwon-joo team up as the "Golden Time team" and solve cases together, chasing after the serial killer who took their loved ones. 

13. He is psychometric 

After losing his parents in a fire, Lee Ahn (Park Jin-young) acquires the power of psychometry, the ability to read a person or an object's past through physical contact, and he decides to use it to take bad people down. While he does not know how to control his power yet, he meets Yoon Jae-in (Shin Ye-eun) who tries her best to hide her painful secrets. Together with his foster guardian, prosecutor Kang Sung-mo (Kim Kwon), and the latter's colleague, investigator Eun Ji-soo (Kim Da-som), they team up to solve an elusive case that has been haunting the lives of Ahn, Sung-mo, and Jae-in. 

14. Lets eat 

Four single people: happily divorced paralegal Lee Soo-kyung (Lee Soo-kyung), mysterious gourmand Goo Dae-young (Yoon Doo-joon), design student and former rich girl Yoon Jin-yi (Yoon So-hee), and petty lawyer Kim Hak-moon (Shim Hyung-tak). Who enjoy living alone, except for that pesky problem that dining out is not designed for one. At Jin-yi's request, she, Soo-kyung and Dae-young start eating out together and thus get involved in each other's lives. 

15. Lets eat 2 

The series is about Goo Dae-young (Yoon Doo-joon), an insurance salesman, moving to the small town Sejong from the big city Seoul. He meets a Baek Soo-ji (Seo Hyun-jin), who is his next door neighbour. They befriend each other quickly and make a contract while Soo-ji chases the love of her life, Lee Sang-woo (Kwon Yul) 

16. The K2 

Kim Je-ha is a former mercenary soldier for the PMC Blackstone. While in Iraq, he gets framed for the murder of his lover Raniya, a civilian. As a result, he runs away and becomes a fugitive. He returns to South Korea and by chance, gets offered to work as a bodyguard by Choi Yoo-jin, the owner of JSS Security Company and wife of the presidential candidate, Jang Se-joon. He accepts the job in exchange for resources that he needs in order to get his revenge on another presidential candidate, Park Kwan-soo, who previously ordered the killing of his lover. In the meantime, Je-ha gets assigned to guard Go An-na, the hidden daughter of Jang Se-joon, whose life is always threatened because of Yoo-jin, her stepmother. An-na, who has been reclused and lonely all her life, starts relying on Je-ha, who shows concern for her and protects her at all costs. They slowly fall in love with each other, which makes Je-ha torn between having to work with his ally, Yoo-jin, in order to get his revenge and protecting his new-found love, An-na, against his own ally. 

Bonus Movies 

17. Padman 

Inspired from the life of Arunachalam Muruganatham, the inventor of a low-cost sanitary pad manufacturing machine, Padman is based on a short story in Twinkle Khanna's book The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad. Akshay Kumar plays the role of Lakshmikant Chouhan, the character modelled on Muruganatham, a mechanic who lives in a village in Madhya Pradesh. Soon after his wedding to Gayatri (played by Radhika Apte), he notices how she is ostracised from the house during menstruation. She uses a dirty rug to clean the menstrual blood which makes Lakshmi apprehensive of the health hazards it could cause to his wife. Gayatri is averse to the idea of using a sanitary pad because of its high cost, which prompts her husband to come up with a low cost sanitary napkin of his own. His efforts backfire as his single minded agenda to invent a pad only makes the entire village dub him as a madman. Thus starts his journey to evolve from a madman to a Padman. 

18. Special 26 

The story of the film opens on 18 March 1987, where a walk-in CBI interview is taking place, held by Ajay Singh (Akshay Kumar) and P. K. Sharma (Anupam Kher). The film then goes into flashback. Ajay Singh (Akshay Kumar) calls a local police station to obtain more manpower for a CBI raid. He speaks to SI Ranveer Singh (Jimmy Sheirgill) who agrees to send the required number of support officers. Ajay, with accomplices P. K. Sharma (Anupam Kher), Joginder (Rajesh Sharma), and Iqbal (Kishor Kadam), meet the support officers and conduct the raid. 

Following the successful raid at a minister's house, it's revealed that Ajay and Sharma are fake CBI officers, along with their two accomplices. They then move to different parts of the country where they belong to and merge into their everyday lifestyles. Ajay's love interest, Priya (Kajal Aggarwal), an about-to-be-married teacher, is introduced here. The crew meets again in Chandigarh at the behest of Sharma for his daughter's wedding. Ranveer with his senior officer meet the minister of the earlier raid, who reveals that he doesn't want the news to appear in the public domain because he wants to protect his image. The senior officer suspends Ranveer with his colleague Shanti (Divya Dutta) for being irresponsible. 

CBI officer Waseem Khan (Manoj Bajpayee) lives with his wife (Neetu Singh) and child in New Delhi. He apprehends a criminal named Gupta, which gives an insight into his character. A disgraced Ranveer meets Khan, and they join hands to apprehend Ajay and his fellow criminals. Meanwhile, the next raid planned by Ajay is conducted on a traders' business in Bara Bazar in Kolkata posing as officers from the Income Tax Department. Following the more difficult but successful raid, Khan insists that this should be reported in the newspaper, despite nobody coming forward to report it themselves, as black money is involved. Upon seeing this in the newspaper, Ajay and Sharma decide to conduct their "big job," a final raid in Mumbai. 

After the second income tax raid, the story briefly focuses on Ajay and Priya, with the latter's marriage being planned. She insists to go with Ajay for the final job, but he tells her to meet him at the airport at 4 pm on the day. Meanwhile, Ranveer finds information about Sharma, and Khan orders wire-tapping his phone. When Sharma is talking to Ajay on the phone, Khan procures several details about them, including the names Joginder, Iqbal and 'Ajju' (Ajay's nickname). As a result, under Khan's orders, officers track the crew to Mumbai to a hotel where they're staying. They plan to raid and hence rob a big jewellery store. 

Ajay, followed by a CBI officer, goes to a newspaper to advertise for "50 dynamic graduates" with details of an interview. Khan embeds his officers among the candidates and they are selected. Khan finds out the details of the training process, which includes a mock raid. It is stated that, on the day, the candidates will be trained and then led out for the mock raid in the afternoon. However, no details about the raid have come to light. To find out more, Khan and Ranveer go to the hotel and force their way into Sharma's room. He divulges the information about the raid, following a threat of violence. He also mentions that Ajay is taking revenge on the CBI for not appointing him. Khan orders Sharma to ensure everything proceeds as normal. 

On the day of the raid, Khan takes charge of the jewellery store and replaces the goods with fake jewellery, with the originals being moved to a nearby workshop. He is given constant information about the activity of the crew and recruits. Ajay informs the recruits that he will come in a different vehicle to them. Sharma leaves with the recruits in a bus, but leaves the bus at police headquarters, saying that he will arrive with Ajay. He also states that nobody should leave the bus until they arrive and that he is going to verify the paperwork for the raid at the Police HQ. In reality, he goes to meet Ranveer Singh. With Ajay, a raid of the workshop is carried out. Ajay then goes and meets Priya, who is ready for departure at the Sahar International airport. 

Meanwhile, at the jewellery store, Khan is informed that the raid was conducted at the workshop and all jewellery in the workshop along with the jewellery that were moved were stolen. Khan works it all out for himself, realizing that Ranveer was part of the gang and he wasn't a real police officer and they were set up right from the beginning. Khan starts laughing loudly and applauds the entire robbery plan and execution. Later, Khan receives a money order for Rs. 100 that Ajay had taken from him with the message that he could not steal the honest earnings of an officer. The film ends with Khan being told over the phone that the CBI has information about the perpetrators. At the same time we see Ajay Singh and P. K. Sharma enjoying a cricket match happily at the Sharjah Cricket Association Stadium with their wives. 

19. Toilet 

In an Indian village, a group of women goes to a field, away from their village near Gorakhpur in the early hours of the day to defecate in the open, behind the cover of bushes. Keshav (Akshay Kumar) has to marry a black buffalo because his father (Panditji) is a very religious and superstitious priest, and he believes that his son's marriage to a black buffalo will help improve Keshav's fortune. 

Keshav meets Jaya (Bhumi Pednekar), an educated college going girl, falls in love with her and eventually convinces her to marry him. However, Keshav's father is of the view that Keshav's horoscope is such that he can and should only marry a girl who has two thumbs on her left hand. Since Jaya does not fulfill this requirement, Keshav has an artificial thumb made and gives it to Jaya who wears it as a ring on her thumb. Keshav's unsuspecting father agrees to their marriage. 

On her first morning in Keshav's house, Jaya reluctantly goes to a field to defecate, but comes back agitated without defecating and complains about it to Keshav. Despite Keshav's repeated attempts to convince Jaya to give up her stubbornness about needing a toilet, Jaya remains steadfast. He makes a couple of temporary adjustments to solve the problem, first taking her to a neighbour's house which has a portable toilet for a bedridden elderly woman, and later in a train that has a 10-minute stop at the village railway station, without actually constructing a toilet in his house, but after a while, one day she gets locked up in the toilet and train departs the station and agitated and frustrated Jaya leaves Keshav and moves back to her parents' house. 

After a futile attempt to convince his sarpanch and villagers to build toilets in the village, Keshav, with the help of Jaya, contacts the concerned regulatory authority and starts the construction of a toilet in his front yard. When the construction is finished, Keshav's father and the sarpanch arrange to demolish the toilet while Keshav is still asleep. But Keshav wakes up before the toilet is completely destroyed and protects it from complete demolition. 

Jaya now files for a divorce in the local court citing the unavailability of a toilet in her husband's house as the primary reason for seeking a divorce. Due to its unique nature, the case gets a lot of media attention. Politicians and the concerned government departments spring into action to hasten the process of constructing toilets in Keshav's village. But Keshav's father remains steadfast on his decision to not have a toilet in his house, until one day, his mother, while going out to defecate, falls on the doorstep, injures her hip and cries vehemently that she can't possibly walk to the fields to defecate, and that she must use the toilet that Keshav constructed in the front yard. After much reluctance, Keshav's father gives in and helps his mother to the toilet. He then realises that a toilet is indeed a critical requirement within a household. 

On the day of the hearing of the divorce case of Keshav and Jaya, the judge gets an official notice from the Chief Minister's office urging the judge to not grant their divorce as the construction of toilets in their village shall be started the very next day. The couple comes out together happily. Keshav's father apologises to Jaya for his stubbornness. In the end credits, villagers are shown lining up to use mobile toilets outside their village while the construction of toilets throughout the village goes on. 

Kredit to wikipedia