K-Drama Remakes of Popular American TV Shows

Korean television has spent the last decade quietly remaking some of the biggest American shows on the planet. Suits, Entourage, The Good Wife, Designated Survivor, Criminal Minds, Little Women, and Jane the Virgin all got Korean versions, with most of them airing on KBS, tvN, or JTBC and pulling solid ratings. The interesting part is how Korean writers adapt the source material for Korean culture, network rules, and Korean network attention spans. Here is a look at the most notable K-drama remakes of American TV shows and what each one changed.

Suits (2018)

USA Network's Suits ran for nine seasons in the United States. KBS picked up the rights and produced a Korean remake in 2018 with Jang Dong-gun stepping into the Harvey Specter role as Choi Kang-seok, and Park Hyung-sik as Go Yeon-woo, the brilliant but unlicensed associate. The Korean version compressed the original Pearson Hardman Litt corporate intrigue into 16 episodes, kept the central mentor and mentee dynamic, and replaced the Manhattan office politics with the more deferential hierarchy of a Seoul law firm. It earned an average viewership rating of 10.7 percent, which is strong for a network drama, and remains one of the most commercially successful Korean remakes of an American series.

Designated Survivor: 60 Days (2019)

tvN took ABC's political thriller and tightened it down to a 16 episode mini series called Designated Survivor: 60 Days. Ji Jin-hee plays Park Mu-jin, the Environment Minister who becomes acting president after a terror attack at the National Assembly kills the president and most of his cabinet. The Korean version focuses on the 60 day constitutional gap before a new president must be chosen, which is a real provision in Korean law. Reviewers praised the adaptation for being more politically grounded and emotionally restrained than the original, with a 4.5 percent national viewership rating and strong streaming numbers in Korea and abroad.

The Good Wife (2016)

CBS's The Good Wife got a Korean adaptation on tvN in 2016, with Jeon Do-yeon (one of the most acclaimed Korean actresses) in the lead role. The Korean version follows a wife who returns to her legal career after a 13 year hiatus when her prosecutor husband gets arrested in a high profile corruption scandal. The themes of male power, female reinvention, and legal politics translated well to Korea's chaebol heavy social structure, and Jeon's performance earned multiple Best Actress nominations. The drama is considered one of the most polished Korean remakes of a US legal series.

Entourage (2016)

tvN tried Entourage with Seo Kang-joon as the rising actor and supporting cast playing his manager and friends. The Korean version moved the action from Hollywood to Seoul and the Gangnam entertainment district, but the show struggled to land. It ended with under one percent viewership ratings, partly because the original's bro humor and Hollywood inside baseball did not transfer cleanly to Korean cultural expectations. The remake is mostly remembered as a cautionary tale for how directly Korean networks should adapt American comedies.

Criminal Minds (2017)

tvN's Korean Criminal Minds ran in 2017 with Lee Joon-gi and Moon Chae-won as profilers on a new fictional National Criminal Investigation team. The show kept the case of the week structure of the original but added a long arc serial killer plot that ran across the season. It was a moderate success and helped establish Lee Joon-gi as a leading man in dark, serious thrillers.

Little Women (2022)

tvN's Little Women in 2022 used the title of the American novel and miniseries but completely reimagined it as a modern Korean suspense drama. Three poor sisters get tangled up with the wealthiest family in the country and a massive embezzlement scheme. Kim Go-eun, Nam Ji-hyun, and Park Ji-hu star as the sisters. The Korean version turned the original's domestic drama into a sharp class commentary thriller and became a streaming hit on Netflix internationally.

Woori the Virgin (2022)

The CW's Jane the Virgin got a Korean adaptation called Woori the Virgin on SBS in 2022. The setup is the same: Oh Woori, a woman saving her virginity until marriage, gets accidentally inseminated during a routine medical procedure. The pregnancy belongs to Raphael, the CEO of a major cosmetics company. The Korean version dialed back the telenovela meta humor of the original and leaned into family melodrama, which is more familiar territory for SBS viewers.

The pattern across all of these

Korean remakes tend to do three things consistently. First, they compress the source material into a tight 16 to 20 episode run. American series often run 100 plus episodes across multiple seasons, while Korean dramas are designed as one season events. Second, they translate the cultural specifics into Korean context: Hollywood becomes Gangnam entertainment, US prosecutor scandals become Korean political scandals, American medical malpractice becomes Korean clinic mistakes. Third, they cast established Korean leads who bring their own audience, which keeps ratings respectable even when the adaptation itself wobbles. The remakes that work best tend to be the legal and political thrillers, where the procedural structure of the original maps cleanly onto Korean institutional drama tropes. The ones that struggle, like Entourage, run into cultural translation issues that no amount of casting can fix.