There is something about first love that it has always been romanticised about in movies and dramas.
South Korean movie A Millionaire’s First Love (2006) for instance, is a story about how a millionaire gives up his inheritance for his dying first love.
At the same time, these fiction stories show that not everyone ends up with their first love.
Bollywood film Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003) tells the story of Naina Kapur (played by Preity Zinta) who falls in love for the first time with Aman Mathur (Shah Rukh Khan).
Sorry to spoil it to you but Naina ends up marrying her best friend, Rohit (Saif Ali Khan).
In reality, perhaps half of people out there carry a lot of baggage from their previous relationship when it comes to their new romances.
That being said, dramas and movies love to capture the warm, fuzzy feeling of being in relationship for the first time. From the first time holding hands to the first kiss, it is just the perfect plot buildup for any romance story.
If you are looking for Korean dramas about first love, here are 10 of them to watch:
1.My First First Love (2019)
The drama follows the story of Yun Tae-o (Ji Soo) who has been best friends with Han Song-yi (Jung Chae-yeon) since they were in elementary school.
Despite his growing feelings toward her, Tae-o pursues a relationship with another woman.
At the same time, Song-yi has feelings for her childhood best friend.
However, she develops a relationship with another man.
Things get messy and complicated when Song-yi moves into Tae-o’s house together with three other friends.
The five of them now must learn how to live in the same house while relying on each other during difficult time.
2.I’ll Go to You When the Weather is Nice (2020)
A man’s simple life running a bookstore and blogging in the rural area gets interrupted in a good way when his first love returns from the big city.
Hye-won (Park Min-young) gets tired of her life in Seoul and decides to move back to her hometown Bookhyun village.
There, she reconnects with her old classmates including Eun-seob (Seo Kang-joon).
Hye-won has never known that Eun-seob has been harbouring feelings toward her since high school.
As they spend time with each other, Hye-won slowly opens up with Eun-seob and subsequently falls in love.
3.Come & Hug Me (2018)
Let’s say you meet this girl and fall in love with her. When the girl reciprocates your feelings, you feel that heaven must be on your side.
Suddenly, the same heavenly feeling turns to hell when your psychopathic serial killer father kills the girl’s parents, turning your first love into an orphan.
This dramatic turn of events could only happen in Korean dramas.
Do-jin (Jang Ki-yong) and Jae-yi (Jin Ki-joo) were high school sweethearts. Unfortunately, their romance was cut short when Do-jin’s father killed Jae-yi’s parents.
From there, they both went into their separate ways.
Fast forward to present time, Do-jin is now a police detective as his way to atone for his father’s cruel actions.
In the meantime, Jae-yi becomes an actress. Ever since her parents’ deaths, she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.
What happen when Do-jin and Jae-yi reunite again? Will the old flame reignite?
4.She was Pretty (2015)
Growing up, Kim Hye-jin was the pretty girl from a rich family. Meanwhile, Ji Sung-joon was the unattractive, chubby boy with low self-esteem.
Sung-joon then moves to the US but Hye-jin and Sung-joon keep in touch as friends.
Even though they never actually confess their feelings, they both consider each other as their first loves.
After they became adults, Sung-joon moves back to South Korea. The two decide to meet again.
However, Sung-joon does not recognise Hye-jin. She has become ‘ugly’ by Korean standards with her curly hair and dark skin.
Sung-joon on the other hand grows up to be a handsome and successful editor.
After Sung-joon couldn’t recognise her, Hye-jin becomes despondent and ashamed. She instead asks her attractive best friend Ha-ri to be ‘Hye-jin’ in front of Sung-joon.
And you guess it, that is when the drama and conflicts begin.
5.Love Rain (2012)
The truth is, not everyone marries their first love and this drama shows it.
Set in the seventies and the present day, Love Rain (2012) is a love story which spans over two generations with Jang Keun-suk and Im Yoon-ah playing dual roles.
Seo In-ha and Kim Yoon-hee fall in love with each other during their university days in the seventies.
However, circumstances led the two to go their separate ways.
Fast forward to 2012, In-ha’s son Seo Joon coincidentally bumps into Yoon-hee’s daughter Jung Ha-na.
Despite their differences, the two gradually falls in love with each other.
Meanwhile, In-ha reunites with Yoon-hee and they decide to rekindle their old loves.
They announce that they are getting married, unaware that their children are dating each other.
6.When My Love Blooms (2020)
Speaking of reuniting with your first love, here is another K-drama based on this type of plot.
Han Jae-hyun and Yoon Ji-soo first met when they were still university students and fall in love with each other.
Twenty years later, the two reunite. Jae-hyun is now a successful businessman while Ji-soo is struggling with motherhood and putting food on the table.
Despite how much has changed in their lives, Jae-hyun and Ji-soo both realise that the feelings between them have not changed at all.
7.More Than Friends (2020)
At 18 years old, Woo-yeon (Shin Ye-eun) and her friend Lee Soo (Ong Seung-wu) are having the time of their lives.
They had dreams and ambitions as well as crushes on each other.
And they continue to fall in and out of love for each other for the next 10 years without having a proper chance to confess their feelings.
If you enjoyed American film When Harry Met Sally… (1989), you might love this drama.
8.My First Love (2018)
This romance fantasy Korean drama is based on the webtoon by the same title.
It follows the story of a man who cannot forget his first love.
When he is given the chance to return to 10 years in the past, he takes it in order to pursue his unrequited love.
The drama marks rock band CNBLUE bassist Lee Jung-shin’s first lead role in a drama.
If you are in need of a quick fix of K-drama, this one is for you because it has only 10 episodes.
9.Moments of 18 (2019)
A lot of things can happen when you are 18; school life, overbearing parents, great friends as well as first love.
The plot of Moments of 18 (2019) follows Choi Joon-woo who was forced to transfer to a new school as a punishment for something he did not commit.
In the new school, he becomes the subject of prejudice of his new classmates.
Thankfully, his school life improves when he becomes friend with Yoo Soo-bin (Kim Hyang-gi) who is the top student in class.
Soo-bin herself has her own issues with her life being controlled by her helicopter mother.
Besides the fuzzy feeling of first love, the drama is also a coming-of-age story of a group of high school students.
10.My ID is Gangnam Beauty (2018)
Raise your hand if you met your first love during your college days. Unlike dating as an adult where you have to juggle between working and your love life, dating in campus is more carefree.
During your college days, you have your boyfriend waiting for you after class or even better, taking the same class as you.
Based on the webtoon of the same name, this drama centers on the life of a college student Kang Mi-rae (Im Soo-hyang) who did plastic surgery after being bullied for her appearance.
Her plans did not go as well as she planned because after the surgery, she is ridiculed for her ‘artificial’ look and Mi-rae is still insecure of herself.
The one who helps her to regain her self-esteem is her classmate Do Kyung-seok (Cha Eun-woo) who happens to be her schoolmate in middle school.
Kyung-seok knows how Mi-rae looked before her surgery and it never changed the way he sees her.
This is because, miraculously, the male lead of this drama is unfazed by the superficial world so he never cares about physical appearances.
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