Cover These K-dramas about multigenerational trauma are tender, emotional and gripping but they're also impressively healing. (Photo: IMDB)
These K-dramas about multigenerational trauma are tender, emotional and gripping but they're also impressively healing. (Photo: IMDB)
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From bittersweet family sagas to moving tales of inherited pain, these K-dramas dive deep into trauma that lasts
In K-dramas, trauma doesn’t just belong to brooding heroes and misunderstood heroines. It stretches back generations, stitched into family histories like a well-worn hanbok. If When Life Gives You Tangerines had you craving stories about complicated mothers-in-law, stern grandmothers and trauma festering over decades, these K-dramas deliver emotional catharsis by the truckload.
Here’s a list of multigenerational K-dramas that tackle inherited pain, lost dreams and the messy beauty of family, with just the right amount of romance.
1. ‘Our Blues’ (2022)
Set against the picturesque backdrop of Jeju Island, Our Blues unspools the interconnected lives of villagers, each grappling with wounds that go back years. Through the heartfelt stories of mothers and their children, estranged friends and old flames, Jeong Eun-hee (Lee Jung-eun), Lee Dong-seok (Lee Byung-hun) and Min Seon-ah (Shin Min-a) show how love and regret shape every generation. The ensemble cast breathes authenticity into each chapter, reminding us that sometimes healing means revisiting old pains.
Also read: 8 slice-of-life K-dramas with no villains—just love, growth and healing
2. ‘My Liberation Notes’ (2022)
This slow-burn masterpiece focuses on three siblings, Yeom Mi-jeong (Kim Ji-won), Yeom Chang-hee (Lee Min-ki) and Yeom Ki-jeong (Lee El), suffocated by their uneventful lives and the unspoken burdens passed down by their stoic parents. Their quiet yearning is palpable, and as both search for “liberation” from emotional stagnation, My Liberation Notes becomes a haunting reflection on how family can shape and sometimes stifle identity.
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3. ‘Juvenile Justice’ (2022)
While Juvenile Justice centres on a stern judge known for her disdain for juvenile offenders, the deeper layers of the drama peel back systemic failures, parenting gaps and societal neglect that get passed from one generation to the next. Judge Shim Eun-seok’s (Kim Hye-soo) own complicated relationship with her past adds an emotional undercurrent to her courtroom battles, showing how cycles of hurt can begin frighteningly early.
Also read: 9 iconic K-drama mothers you can relate to
4. ‘Mother’ (2018)
Adapted from the acclaimed Japanese drama, Mother follows substitute teacher Kang Soo-jin (Lee Bo-young), who impulsively “kidnaps” her abused student to save her. As Soo-jin confronts her own fraught relationship with her biological mother, the show paints a devastating yet tender portrait of how maternal love, whether chosen or biological, can break and heal across generations.
See more: 12 inspiring K-drama monologues that capture life perfectly
5. ‘Chocolate’ (2019)
Chocolate weaves together the lives of neurosurgeon Lee Kang (Yoon Kye-sang ) and chef Moon Cha-young (Ha Ji-won), whose childhood connection turns into a second chance at healing. Set partly in a hospice, the drama explores not just personal pain, but the regrets and generational grief that patients carry to their final days. It’s one of those beautiful K-dramas with a slow, aching story about forgiveness, memory and letting go.
6. ‘Life Is Beautiful’ (2010)
Above ‘Life Is Beautiful’ (Photo: IMDB)
‘Life Is Beautiful’ (Photo: IMDB)
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This family weekend drama broke ground by tenderly portraying a multigenerational family grappling with acceptance, identity and reconciliation. Set on Jeju Island, Life Is Beautiful delves into the everyday joys and heartaches of family life, focusing on secrets that strain—but never completely sever—the ties that bind.
7. ‘My Mister’ (2018)
It may seem like a run-of-the-mill programme about a weary office worker and a struggling young woman, but My Mister is also a quiet epic of generational hurt. Park Dong-hoon’s (Lee Sun-kyun) strained relationship with his brothers and his ageing mother shows how the scars of hardship and disappointment ripple outward, and how even broken people can find ways to carry one another forward.
8. ‘Reply 1988’ (2015)
A love letter to late ’80s Seoul, Reply 1988 may seem like a simple coming-of-age story, but it’s rich with multigenerational layers. The parents’ sacrifices, the kids’ obliviousness and the bittersweet passage of time reveal how every era leaves its own imprint of hopes and regrets—often in the spaces between what families say and what they leave unsaid. This show may be 10 years old, but it remains a blueprint for many modern K-dramas.
9. ‘Hi Bye, Mama!’ (2020)
After dying in a tragic accident, Cha Yu-ri (Kim Tae-hee) is given a 49-day chance to return to her family, but everything has changed, and moving on isn’t as simple as coming back. Hi Bye, Mama! is a tearjerker that explores grief from every angle: the sorrow of parents losing a child, a child growing up without a mother and a woman learning to let go of the life she had dreamed of. It’s a heartfelt portrait of love persisting beyond generations, not to mention beyond life itself.
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