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13.7 - Our Top KDramas, Actors, Scenes and Songs from 2025

Today, we take a quick break from Start-Up, the K Drama we're recapping and analyzing in Season 13 of K Drama Chat, to reflect on the best K Dramas of 2025. We share our top 5 shows, actors, actresses, scenes, and songs of the year—and we hear from YOU, our amazing listeners! We discuss:

  • The listener-favorite and TIME Magazine’s top K Drama of 2025: When Life Gives You Tangerines

  • Songs we loved in 2025

  • The top shows of our listeners. We hear from:

    • MrsDJQ

    • Irma

    • Christine

    • Malcolm

    • Shine

    • Sue

    • Ernabel

  • Our personal top 5 shows and honorable mentions

  • A special treat: audio clips from listeners sharing their top shows!

  • The actresses who blew us away in 2025

  • The standout male performances

  • The most memorable scenes from K Dramas we watched

  • K Dramas we’re looking forward to in 2026

  • Korean films from 2025 we recommend watching

  • A reminder to join us next week when we return to Start-Up and discuss Episode 7 and Stephanie Lee, the actress who plays Jeong Sa-ha

References


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K Drama Chat is a weekly podcast where we take one Korean (K) Drama each season and and recap and analyze each episode. K Drama Chat is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pandora.
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  1. EllenJanuary 2, 2026 at 10:21 AM

    Hi everybody! I listened to this GREAT episode as soon as I woke up today. I so loved listening to all your voices and comments. A few notes:

    1. Although I liked Joanna and Sung hee’s pick for favorite scene, I think they missed what might be my favorite K drama scene ever! I’ll be interested to see if anyone agrees with me.

    It’s when Gwan Sik hears Ae Sun’s cry somehow, on the boat as he’s sailing away. Leaving her becomes unbearable once he hears her cry, and he dives into the water and heroically swims through the choppy, cold open sea into her astonished arms. I cry every time I see it. And they soon find out that she’s already pregnant with their adored daughter.

    2. A note on Sung hee’s pick of the helicopter rescue scene from Trauma Code. Ju Ji Hoon won two Best Actor awards this year for this part. In an interview, he commented on this scene. He said he focused his whole performance on this “preposterous” scene, saying he wanted to convince the audience that “ If there was anyone who could actually pull this off, it would be this guy!”

    Sung hee, I hope you’ll give this show another chance, especially since they’re currently filming Seasons 2 and 3! Here’s what The Korea Herald has to say about its relevance.

    https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10416460

    3. I highly recommend both Love Scout and Resident Playbook for anyone who hasn’t watched them yet, and I was so pleased to see them on the other lists besides my own. And thanks to all of you, Our Unwritten Seoul has now jumped to the top of my watchlist.

    Thanks Joanna and Sung hee for your wonderful podcast, and Happy New Year everyone!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Joanna PinedaJanuary 2, 2026 at 11:27 AM

      Ellen, you selected fantastic scenes, for sure! It was so hard to pick a scene and name it my favorite. Yours are great. The "Yang Gwan Sik" cry scene was iconic, almost like it came out of a comic book in the way it was filmed.

      And I can't wait for another season of Trauma Code! That show was just pure fun. Ju Ji Hoon was over the top and wonderful!

      Delete

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