Ranking the best revenge K-dramas
Revenge has never been sweeter than in these K-dramas. Conventional justice just isn’t enough when the people involved in the crimes are practically untouchable by the law.
If you’re craving a successful revenge plot, here are the best K-dramas about revenge. You’ll cry in pain and then laugh once you’ve seen the right people suffer. For the most part, it’s not going to be fun and games but it will be satisfying once you see these protagonists methodically pull off revenge at the exact right moment.
10. Flex x Cop
For the most part, Flex x Cop has been a comedy K-drama. And yet, despite all the laughter, this is a series about I-soo, who was solving the truth behind his mother’s murder. Since he couldn’t solve it on his own, he decided to enter the police force.
This revenge K-drama will not plunge you into immediate darkness. I-soo has been determined to get justice for his mother since the start, but he does his best to solve other crimes along the way.
9. Juvenile Justice
Judge Sim Eun-seok is portrayed as a judge who hates juvenile offenders. They may be kids, but many of their crimes have long-lasting consequences. Some of these minors are not even remorseful about their crimes, but Judge Sim is determined to bring justice to these offenders to the fullest extent of the law.
Does legal justice still count as revenge? In case you haven’t tuned in yet, juvenile court is very personal for Judge Sim. It’s her own brand of revenge for someone she lost many years ago.
8. Reborn Rich
Hyun-woo was a loyal secretary killed by the powerful conglomerate he worked for, but lucky for him, Reborn Rich is a regressor K-drama, and he reincarnates in the body of the youngest son, Do-joon. He remembers his past vividly, and he plots the downfall of the Soonyang family bit by bit.
7. Queenmaker
How much power does social media have in shaping perceptions? Queenmaker shows just how powerful affluent families can be so long as they have a competent media manager. Do-hee worked as the Eunsung Group’s general manager for strategic planning. Do-hee was willing to get her hands dirty, until a tragic incident involving an employee whom she unjustly fired turned her life upside down.
Do-hee teams up with Kyung-sook, a human rights lawyer and her formal rival, to take down the Eunsung Group. Their plan is to make Kyung-sook the next mayor of Seoul. With Do-hee’s experience in manipulating public opinion, revenge shouldn’t be too difficult, right?
6. The Auditors
Never mess with people who know their way around numbers. Interestingly enough, The Auditors was able to make the workplace K-drama genre just as interesting as any other revenge K-drama.
In this series, Auditor Shin Cha-il and his team fight corruption and embezzlement in JU Construction. This doesn’t sound like revenge until you realize why he chose to be a dignified auditor in the first place.
5. Marry My Husband
Is it really revenge if the people who’ve wronged you don’t know that they killed you in your past life? If you watched Marry My Husband, then your answer would be a resounding yes. Jiwon was terminally ill, but her husband Minhwan decided to cheat on her with her best friend, Sumin. Jiwon catches them in bed, but in a fit of rage, Minhwan pushes Jiwon, and she hits her head on a coffee table.
It’s gross, and you’ll want to take revenge for Jiwon yourself. You don’t need to do that, though, because Jiwon reincarnates ten years in the past. In this timeline, she vows to live her best life by making sure Sumin and Minhwan end up together instead. The best revenge is really to live happily and stay unbothered.
4. Red Swan
This K-drama is criminally underrated. Red Swan is the perfect mix of political intrigue, billionaire family drama, and suspense. Wan-soo married into the family controlling the Hwain Group, which went well until her father-in-law was assassinated. Do-yoon, investigating the murder of a friend, becomes her bodyguard. Both of them look for answers through the string of crimes.
It’s easy to point fingers when it comes to who ordered the murders. Despite that, it’s the greed of the members of the Hwain Group that led to the killings. They believed themselves to be above the law and weren’t brought to justice until Wan-soo decided to take matters into her own hands.
3. Vincenzo
Vincenzo is so iconic, he just had to make a cameo in another K-drama, and everyone else understood the reference. Vincenzo was adopted in Italy by Don Cassano, the head of the Cassano family. Vincenzo became a lawyer for the Cassano family but left for South Korea once his adoptive father died.
Expect comedic mafia moments in this drama. Unlike many others on this list, Vincenzo isn’t absent of laughter. It’s not every day you’d see a former man of crime help abused employees of mega-corporations in Korea or expose dirty political secrets.
2. Taxi Driver
Taxi Driver took real-life criminal cases in South Korea and gave the victims justice through its stories. In Taxi Driver, Kim Do-gi takes revenge calls and enacts vigilante justice for the sake of victims.
Through the seasons, several harrowing cases were covered, like the Salt Farm Slavery case and the Burning Sun Scandal. The only difference here is that the perpetrators got exactly what they deserved.
1. The Glory
The Glory is the ending we all wish we’d have for victims of school violence. The downfall of the bullies was swift and merciless but well-deserved. Not a lot of people will dedicate much effort to revenge, but Dong-eun made her life revolve around it.
Despite getting bullied, tortured, and abandoned, she still graduated to become a teacher. Getting ahead in life wasn’t enough—some scars just couldn’t heal until Dong-eun gave her bullies a taste of their own medicine. These bullies, up until the end, were unrepentant—they were too entitled to care about who they hurt. Yeon-jin, the main bully, only regrets that she didn’t kill Dong-eun instead.
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