12 Best Korean Films and Series on Netflix During COVID-19 Lockdown

During this COVID-19 pandemic, staying at home is a must. And, it became a prerequisite already to find television shows and movies to watch on streaming websites such as Netflix.

Here are the 12 Best Korean films and series that you can watch on Netflix.

1. 'The Host' (2006) - Before Parasite, director Bong Joon-ho and actor Song Kang-Ho teamed up for The Host. The film is a genre-bending action-adventure-horror about a giant mutant sea monster that is unleashed upon an unsuspecting Seoul. With plenty of social commentary and great creature effects better than in most Hollywood films released today, The Host is perfect if you are looking for an unconventional watch. It has been described as being “on par with Jaws”.
2. 'Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds' (2017) - Kim Yong-Hwa's epic fantasy action film was adapted from a popular Korean web-comic. It features an all-star cast and is the fourth highest-grossing film of all-time in South Korea. Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds follows a firefighter who heroically dies in the line of duty and is taken to the afterlife, where he must undergo seven separate trials to evaluate his life on Earth. His journey is helped by three guardians.
3. 'Along with the Gods: The Last 49 Days' (2018) - Netflix also has the previously mentioned film’s sequel, and which is as good. The second half of the fantasy action film series picks up mere minutes after the first and follows the same trio of guardians as they help another soul through its afterlife trials. However, as viewers learn during the first film, there is more at stake for everyone involved, including the chance for reincarnation.
4. 'Forgotten' (2017) - This mystery thriller from Jang Hang-jun has quite a few twists and turns. Forgotten follows a young man named Jin-Seok, who moves into a new house with his family. However, after his brother disappears for 19 days, then reappears having lost his memories, Jin-Seok starts to believe this person might actually be someone else entirely.
5. 'Steel Rain' (2017) - This is an action-thriller from Yang Woo-suk. Steel Rain tells the story of a North Korean secret service agent who fails to stop two top military officers from going rogue and starting a coup against the Supreme Leader (known as ‘No 1’ throughout the film). He heads to South Korea with the injured No 1 in an attempt to keep him alive and teams up with a bureaucratic aide to prevent a Korean war from breaking out.
6. 'Vagabond' (2019) - The K-drama Vagabond aired in South Korea in 2019 and has 16 episodes. It follows the tale of a stuntman whose nephew dies in a mysterious plane crash while on the way to Morocco. Looking to find out the truth about the accident, he embarks on an investigation that leads him to uncover a bigger cover-up. The spy-meets-thriller-meets-romance stars Lee Seung-gi and Bae Suzy as the main leads.
7. 'Crash Landing On You' (2019) - The series Crash Landing On You was the second-highest-rated drama in Korean television history. It has 16 episodes on Netflix. Son Ye-jin and Hyun Bin play star-crossed lovers in the series, which follows what happens after a South Korean heiress goes on a paragliding ride and accidentally gets blown off course and lands in North Korea.
8. 'Descendants of the Sun' (2016) - This popular K-drama series first aired in South Korea in 2016 and easily won over fans throughout Asia. It's a love story about a doctor who saves lives and a special forces captain who carries out missions while the country is at war. Since the captain's missions are dangerous and top-secret, this presents a predicament in their budding relationship. An interesting aside: the two leads married in real life after the series aired, but filed for divorce in 2019.
9. 'Kingdom' (2019-present) - Netflix’s first original Korean series Kingdom currently has two seasons, each with six episodes. However, unlike with other typical K-series, the instalments are much shorter, with some running at a little more than half an hour. The show is set during the Joseon dynasty, with the first season focused on the story of the Crown Prince Lee Chang, who stumbles upon a life-threatening political conspiracy while also investigating the spread of a mysterious plague that seems to bring people back to life as zombies.
10. 'When the Camellia Blooms' (2019) - When the Camellia Blooms was a hit when it aired in Korea and has 20 episodes, each a little over an hour long. The rom-com follows a single mother who moves to a small town to start her life over again. She meets and falls in love with a do-good police officer, but small-town gossip, social stigma and a plotline involving a serial killer all make things a bit more complicated.
11. 'Misaeng' (2014) - The hit comedy series became a cultural phenomenon after airing in South Korea in 2014 and also spawned Chinese and Japanese remakes. It follows the story of a young man in his twenties with nothing more than a General Education Development certificate, who gets an internship at an office only to discover the harsh reality of working in the corporate world. Fun fact: it was the first Korean drama to film on location in Jordan.
12. 'Because This Is My First Life' (2017) - The bittersweet rom-com series follows two roommates in their thirties, who become housemates for financial reasons and eventually enter into a marriage out of convenience to appease their families. However, they soon find unexpected complications in their arrangement. The storyline keeps you hooked, but fans cite the chemistry between leads Lee Min Ki and Jung So Min as another reason why they enjoy the show.

References:

https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/television/the-12-best-korean-films-and-series-on-netflix-from-the-host-to-kingdom-1.1016867#11

3rd Year

Simple celebration of three years ...

1. Had a brunch of taho, bread with omelette, champorado and kakanin ...
2. Took a picture of Ikkyo sitting pretty on the stairs while waiting for his taho ...
   
3. Did the laundry ...
4. Saw woods for cabinet dividers ...
5. Fixed the mirror inside our room ...
6. Appreciated the beauty of nature among the clouds ...
   
7. Then it rained hard while we were inside the taxi on the way to SM ...
8. Bought fruitas drinks, hotdog sandwich and popcorn ...
9. Watched "Transformers 4: Age of Extinction" at SM Cinema 2 ...
10. Dinner at Volante ...
    
11. Walked and passed by the "Night Market" (which I fondly call "HM or Harrison Mall") and bought two jackets at a very "affordable" (i.e., cheap) price, 100 & 150 and yet, the jackets are still in good and wearable condition and comfortable to fit ...
    
12. Went home and took a picture of the full moon ...
    

12 Members of EGOT Club

Twelve people have won all four major annual American entertainment awards: the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. Doing so may be abbreviated EGOT, or sometimes GATE ("A" for "Academy"). These awards honor outstanding achievements in, respectively, television, music (or other audio recording), film, and theater. Winning all four awards has been referred to as winning the Grand Slam of Show Business. The acronym EGOT was coined by actor Philip Michael Thomas.

1. Richard Rodgers -

   

   http://richardrodgerstheatre.com/about.php

   (28 June 1902 – 30 December 1979) Richard Rodgers was the first person to win what are considered the top show business awards in television, recording, movies and Broadway—an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony—now known collectively as an EGOT. He has also won a Pulitzer Prize, making him one of two people (Marvin Hamlisch is the other) to receive each award.
2. Helen Hayes -

   

   http://www.helenhayes.com/shopping/library.html

   (10 October 1900 – 17 March 1993) Helen Hayes was an American actress whose career spanned almost 80 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of twelve people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award (an EGOT). Hayes also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor, from President Ronald Reagan in 1986. In 1988, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. The annual Helen Hayes Awards, which have recognized excellence in professional theatre in the greater Washington, D.C. area since 1984, are her namesake. In 1955 the former Fulton Theatre on 46th Street in New York City's Broadway Theater District was renamed the Helen Hayes Theatre. When that venue was torn down in 1982, the nearby Little Theatre was renamed in her honor.
3. Rita Moreno -

   

   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2280004/Marlon-Brando-left-suicidal-mess-Claims-actress-Rita-Moreno-carried-8-year-affair-actor-career-took-starring-role-West-Side-Story.html

   (born 11 December 1931) Rita Moreno is a Puerto Rican actress and singer. She is the only Hispanic and one of the few performers to have won all four major annual American entertainment awards, which include an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy and a Tony, and was the second Puerto Rican to win an Academy Award.
   
4. Sir John Gielgud -

   

   http://liambluett.com/tag/john-gielgud/

   (14 April 1904 – 21 May 2000) John Gielgud was an English actor and theatre director whose career spanned eight decades. The Independent described him as one of a great trinity of actors, together with Ralph Richardson and Laurence Olivier, that dominated the British stage for much of the 20th century. He was a member of the Terry family theatrical dynasty and gained his first paid acting work as a junior member of his cousin Phyllis Neilson-Terry's company in 1922. After study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art he worked in repertory theatre and in the West End before establishing himself at the Old Vic as an exponent of Shakespeare in 1929–31. Although largely indifferent to awards, Gielgud had the rare distinction of winning an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, and a Tony. He was famous from the start of his career for his voice and his mastery of Shakespearean verse. He broadcast more than a hundred radio and television dramas, between 1929 and 1994, and made commercial recordings of many plays, including ten of Shakespeare's. Among his honours, he was knighted in 1953 and the Gielgud Theatre was named for him. From 1977 to 1989, he was president of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
   
5. Audrey Hepburn -

   

   http://www.hdwallpaper4all.com/audrey-hepburn-full-hd-image.html/audrey-hepburn-full-hd-image-17

   (4 May 1929 – 20 January 1993) Audrey Hepburn was born Audrey Kathleen Ruston. She was a British actress and humanitarian. Recognised as a film and fashion icon, Hepburn was active during Hollywood's Golden Age. She was ranked by the American Film Institute as the third greatest female screen legend in the history of American cinema and has been placed in the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. She is also regarded by some to be the most naturally beautiful woman of all time. After appearing in several British films and starring in the 1951 Broadway play Gigi, Hepburn played the lead role in Roman Holiday (1953), for which she was the first actress to win an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award for a single performance. The same year, she won a Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Play for Ondine. She went on to star in a number of successful films, such as Sabrina (1954), The Nun's Story (1959), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Charade (1963), My Fair Lady (1964) and Wait Until Dark (1967), for which she received Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations. Hepburn remains one of few people who have won Academy, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Awards. She won a record three BAFTA Awards for Best British Actress in a Leading Role. She appeared in fewer films as her life went on, devoting much of her later life to UNICEF. Although contributing to the organisation since 1954, she worked in some of the most profoundly disadvantaged communities of Africa, South America and Asia between 1988 and 1992. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in December 1992. A month later, Hepburn died of appendiceal cancer at her home in Switzerland at the age of 63. She was not related to actress Katharine Hepburn.
6. Marvin Hamlisch -

   

   http://marvinhamlisch.us/biography/

   (2 June 1944 – 6 August 2012) Marvin Hamlisch was an American composer and conductor. He is one of only twelve people to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (also known as an EGOT). He is one of ten people to win three or more Oscars in one night and the only one other than a director or screenwriter to do so. He is one of only two people to have won those four prizes and a Pulitzer Prize (Richard Rodgers is the other). Hamlisch also won two Golden Globes.
   
7. Jonathan Tunick -

   

   http://www.playbill.com/features/article/95131-A-Life-in-the-Theatre-Orchestrator-Composer-and-Music-Director-Jonathan-Tunick

   (born 19 April 1938) Jonathan Tunick is an American orchestrator, musical director, and composer, one of twelve people to have won all four major American show business awards: the Tony Awards, Academy Awards, Emmy Awards and Grammy Awards. He is best known for his work with Stephen Sondheim, starting in 1970 with Company and continuing to the present day.
   
8. Mel Brooks -

   

   http://www.nndb.com/people/542/000022476/

   (born 28 June 1926) Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows. He became well known as part of the comedy duo with Carl Reiner, The 2000 Year Old Man. In middle age he became one of the most successful film directors of the 1970s, with many of his films being among the top ten money makers of the year that they were released. His most well known films include The Producers, The Twelve Chairs, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie, High Anxiety, History of the World, Part I, Spaceballs and Robin Hood: Men in Tights. More recently he has had a smash hit on Broadway with the musical adaptation of his first film, The Producers. He was married to the actress Anne Bancroft from 1964 until her death in 2005. Brooks is on the short list of entertainers who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony award. He received the 41st AFI Life Achievement Award in June 2013. Three of his films ranked in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 comedy films of all-time, all of which ranked in the top 20 of the list: Blazing Saddles at number 6, The Producers at number 11, and Young Frankenstein at number 13.
9. Mike Nichols -

   

   http://movienut14.blogspot.com/2011/02/visions-i-love-20-favorite-directors.html

   (born 6 November 1931) Mike Nichols was born Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky. He is a German-born American television, stage and film director, writer, producer and comedian. He began his career in the 1950s with the improv troupe, the Compass Players, predecessor of the Second City in Chicago and as one half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, along with Elaine May. May was also in the Compass. In 1968 he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film The Graduate. His other noteworthy films include Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Carnal Knowledge, Silkwood, Working Girl, Closer and the TV mini-series Angels in America. He also staged the original theatrical productions of Barefoot in the Park, Luv, The Odd Couple and Spamalot. Nichols is one of a small group of people who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award. His other honors include the Lincoln Center Gala Tribute in 1999, the National Medal of Arts in 2001,[1] the Kennedy Center Honors in 2003 and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2010.
   
10. Whoopi Goldberg -

    

    http://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/whoopi_goldberg/pictures/3634479/

    (born 13 November 1955) Whoopi Goldberg was born Caryn Elaine Johnson. She is an American comedian, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, author and talk show host. Although Goldberg made her film debut in the avant-garde ensemble film Citizen: I'm Not Losing My Mind, I'm Giving It Away (1982), her breakthrough role was playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South in the period drama film The Color Purple (1985). She played Oda Mae Brown – a wacky psychic helping a slain man (Patrick Swayze) save his lover (Demi Moore) – in the romantic fantasy film Ghost (1990), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Goldberg was the second black woman in the history of the Academy Awards to win an acting Oscar (the first being Hattie McDaniel, who won for Gone with the Wind in 1939). She was co-producer of the television game show Hollywood Squares from 1998 to 2004. She has been the moderator of the daytime television talk show The View since 2007. Goldberg has been nominated for 13 Emmy Awards for her work in television. She is one of the few entertainers who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award. In the 1990s, Goldberg was rumored to be the highest paid actress for her appearances in film.
    
11. Scott Rudin -

    

    http://www.philshowbiz.com/2014/03/03/hollywoods-real-power-brokers-photos/

    (born 14 July 1958) Scott Rudin is an American film producer and a theatrical producer. In 2012, Rudin became one of the few people who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award, and the first producer to do so.
12. Robert Lopez -

    

    http://www.masterworksbroadway.com/artist/robert-lopez

    (born February 23, 1975) Robert Lopez is a Filipino-American songwriter of musicals, best known for co-creating The Book of Mormon, Avenue Q, and for penning the songs featured in the Disney film Frozen. He is one of only twelve people who have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award, and the only person to win all four within a decade, hence, he is considered the youngest member of the EGOT club.

References:

List of people who have won Academy, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Awards
12 Members of the EGOT Winner’s Circle
EGOT Winners
Richard Rodgers
RICHARD RODGERS Honors and Awards
The Richard Rodgers Theatre
Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes Biography
The Official Site of Helen Hayes First Lady of the American Theater
Rita Moreno
'Marlon Brando left me a suicidal mess': New Rita Moreno memoir reveals how affair with 'sensual' actor - who made her have an abortion - drove her to the point of madness
John Gielgud
John Gielgud was born in 1904 in South Kensington, London.
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn's Official Site
Marvin Hamlisch
Marvin Hamlisch June 2nd, 1944 – Aug 6th, 2012
Jonathan Tunick
Jonathan Tunick Masterworks Broadway
A Life in the Theatre: Orchestrator, Composer and Music Director Jonathan Tunick
Mel Brooks
10 Things Everyone Should Know About Mel Brooks
The Official Site of Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks AKA Melvin Kaminsky
Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols (Director)
Visions I Love: 20 Favorite Directors 
Whoopi Goldberg
THE ONE-WOMAN SHOW
Celebrities » Whoopi Goldberg
Scott Rudin
New York's Worst Bosses: Scott Rudin
Hollywood’s Real Power Brokers (Photos)
Robert Lopez
Fil-Am Robert Lopez wins Oscar for 'Let It Go'
Frozen Composer Robert Lopez Is Crowned the 12th Member of the EGOT Club! Check Out His Grand Prize 
Oscars: Robert Lopez breaks an EGOT record with best song win
Oscars: Philippines Celebrates Robert Lopez's 'Let It Go' Win
Robert Lopez Masterworks Broadway

32nd Birthday

1. Drank Avocado smoothie.
2. Checked emails.
3. Bathe Ikkyo, our heterochromic Siberian Husky.
4. Take out brunch at Barneys Burger.
5. Take out milk tea at Milk Tea Republique.
6. Watched "Ilo Ilo" movie at Cinematheque Baguio.
7. Early dinner at the mezzanine of Yellow Cab Session.

   

   Yellow Cab Pizza and Charlie Chan Pasta

8. Gave extra food to two economically challenged visually-impaired persons. (thumbs up, "its better to give than to receive")
9. Light candles and offer prayers at the Baguio Cathedral candle prayer area.
10. Waited in front of Sky Zone while it was raining.

    

    Sky Zone

11. Attended 6PM anticipated mass at Baguio Cathedral. (Homily words from the priest which was unforgettable: "You must always be awake because you do not know when God will tell you 'this is your last supper'")
12. Went back home and cleaned up the mess of Ikkyo (for the nth time).

-filler-