K-dramas to watch if you like ‘100 Days of Deception’, from ‘Mr Sunshine’ to ‘Gyeongseong Creature’ and ‘Pachinko’

Set in Hanseong (present-day Seoul) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, tvN’s critically acclaimed K-drama Mr Sunshine follows Korea through a fraught chapter as Japan seizes control of Joseon. The story centres on Go Ae-sin (Kim Tae-ri), an aristocrat’s granddaughter who takes up arms with the Righteous Army, concealing her role as a sniper, and Eugene Choi (Lee Byung-hun), a man born into slavery who escapes to America as a child and returns years later as a US Marine captain. Their paths cross as the country’s struggle for sovereignty intensifies, forcing Eugene to reconsider his complicated relationship with the homeland he left behind.

Also caught up in events are Gu Dong-mae (Yoo Yeon-seok), a butcher’s son who flees to Japan and returns as the fearsome Ishida Sho; Kim Hui-seong (Byun Yo-han), a Japan-educated nobleman betrothed to Ae-sin; and Kudo Hina (Kim Min-jung), the sharp-witted owner of the Glory Hotel. Like 100 Days of Deception, Mr Sunshine pairs a period romance with covert resistance, making it a natural pick for viewers drawn to historical K-dramas about Korea’s fight for independence.

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While Mr Sunshine captures the period right before Japan’s annexation of Korea and 100 Days of Deception unfolds at the height of Japan’s colonial rule, Gyeongseong Creature, the Netflix historical horror thriller, is set in the final months of the Japanese occupation. The story kicks off when the Japanese police commissioner threatens to confiscate everything Jang Tae-sang (Park Seo-joon), the shrewd owner of the House of Golden Treasure pawnshop, has worked for unless Tae-sang locates the commissioner’s missing mistress.

Tae-sang then teams up with Yoon Chae-ok (Han So-hee) and her father, Yoon Jung-won (Jo Han-chul). Known as todugun, the father-daughter duo specialise in finding missing people and whose own hunt for Chae-ok’s mother has stretched over a decade. Their investigation leads them to Ongseong Hospital, where the military is carrying out secret human experiments in pursuit of a biological weapon. Blending wartime conspiracy and creature horror with an unexpected love story, Gyeongseong Creature paints a darker picture of life under occupation, with a second season that carries Tae-sang and Chae-ok’s story forward to contemporary Seoul.

Based on Min Jin Lee’s bestselling novel, Apple TV+’s Pachinko is a historical drama that traces a Korean family across four generations as they navigate love and displacement across Korea, Japan and America. The story begins in the early 20th century with Sun-ja (Kim Min-ha), a young woman raised in a modest boarding house in Busan, whose life changes when she meets Koh Hansu (Lee Min-ho), a wealthy fish broker with ties to Japan. Their clandestine romance takes a devastating turn when Sun-ja falls pregnant, and Hansu reveals that he already has a wife and daughters in Osaka, but still intends to keep her as his mistress.

Refusing, Sun-ja faces the prospect of raising a child outside marriage until Baek Isak (Noh Sang-hyun), a Christian minister staying at her family’s boarding house, offers to marry her and take her to Osaka. Her acceptance sets her family on a path from colonised Korea to Japan and beyond, with Oscar-winning actress Youn Yuh-jung portraying Sun-ja in later life. The dialogue moves between Korean, Japanese and English, while the series moves between eras to explore the cost of migration and the experiences of Koreans living in Japan during and after colonial rule.

Chicago Typewriter uses reincarnation to tie a contemporary romance to Korea’s independence movement. Han Se-joo (Yoo Ah-in) is a bestselling novelist struggling with writer’s block. When a mysterious antique typewriter enters his life, he meets Yoo Jin-oh (Go Kyung-pyo), a ghostwriter with a curious proposal, and Jeon Seol (Im Soo-jung), a veterinarian whose devotion to his books turns to outspoken criticism after a rude first meeting.

Their growing connection leads them back to the 1930s, where their previous incarnations took part in the fight against Japanese rule. As the trio pieces together their shared history, the pull between Se-joo and Seol deepens, and buried loyalties and personal sacrifices come to light.

Set in the 1920s, Netflix’s Song of the Bandits takes the fight against Japanese imperial rule beyond Korea’s borders to Gando, a contested border region in what is now northeastern China where many Koreans sought refuge. Among those who make the journey is Lee Yoon (Kim Nam-gil), a formerly enslaved man who deserts the Japanese army and his former master, Lee Gwang-il (Lee Hyun-wook), to seek out Choi Choong-soo (Yoo Jae-myung), whose family was killed in a massacre Yoon had a hand in. Choong-soo refuses to take his revenge and urges him to atone by protecting Gando’s Korean settlers, and Yoon takes up the task, leading a band of outcast bandits in their defence.

The conflict also draws in Nam Hee-shin (Seohyun), who hides her independence loyalties behind a job at the colonial government’s railway bureau. Engaged to Gwang-il, a Korean-born officer in the Japanese army who hunts the independence fighters among his own countrymen, she is caught between her secret mission and the life she must keep up in public.

From covert missions and creature horror to stories of migration, these five series show different sides of Korea’s experience under Japanese rule. Together, Mr Sunshine, Gyeongseong Creature, Pachinko, Chicago Typewriter and Song of the Bandits span more than a century of Korean history, and each finds its own story of courage and sacrifice within it.

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