Top 10 Cdrama Recommendations, And What To Watch Next

Christmas Day, 2023. My birthday, and this list typed out in one sitting because that was the year C-dramas took over my evenings. Saathi had learned to stop asking when I was coming to bed. Forty minutes into “one more episode” is why.

Three years and forty-odd dramas later, this is still the page I send to anyone who asks where to start. The original ten are all here, in no particular order, just as I first wrote them. Around them I have added the questions people actually ask me. Which one first? Which one if you only watch K-dramas? Which one when you have no time? Which one when you need everybody to be okay at the end?

Start here if you are new to C-dramas

Modern, low stakes, impossible to get wrong.

Hidden Love (2023, 25 episodes, Netflix)

A slow, sweet exploration of the process of falling in love. Low stakes. Lovely acting. I started this show with no expectations and it remains one of my favorite Chinese dramas ever. Full review here.

Go Ahead (2020, 46 episodes)

A beautiful, beautiful show on found family. Absolutely loved the father-children dynamics in the show as well as the peer interaction. Well cast, well acted show.

When I Fly Towards You (2023, 24 episodes, Netflix)

Sweet, sweet story of a maturing relationship starting in school. Zhou Yiran is a find!

Historical, if that is your lane.

Blossom (2024, 34 episodes). To me, the cdrama of the year. The pacing is tight, the writing sharp, the visuals earn the word spectacular. Some shows you admire. This one I simply loved. Start it.
Flourished Peony (2025, 32 episodes). Mu Dan escapes a terrible marriage, beats the odds to establish a business and, in the process builds a tribe of women supporting women. A refreshing addition to the pantheon of historical shows.
The Prisoner of Beauty (2025, 36 episodes). Takes the enemies-to-lovers trope and runs it cleanly across thirty-six episodes. Two leads who, against every instinct of the genre, actually talk to each other.

Xianxia, the immortals-and-cultivation fantasy lane, I have not gone down yet. If you have, tell me where to start.

If you only watch K-dramas

I came to C-dramas from K-dramas. Kdrama, Saranghae was December 2022. This list was December 2023. There is an adjustment: forty episodes where a K-drama gives you sixteen, a different rhythm, subtitles that take a week to stop noticing. And then one day you are crying over a porcelain maker in a dynasty you cannot yet name and there is no going back.

Start with Hidden Love. If the school-to-adult arc of Twenty Five Twenty One or Our Beloved Summer stayed with you, Hidden Love and Reborn will feel like home. If Business Proposal is your comfort food, Dine with Love. If Rookie Historian sent you down the historical road, go straight to Blossom. My K-drama top ten is here if you want the map in the other direction.

If you loved Hidden Love, watch next

The First Frost (2025, 32 episodes, Netflix). Same author, same universe, the brother’s story. It opens in greys and blacks and warms toward cream and light as it goes. A step below Hidden Love for me, and still beautiful.
Reborn (2025, 23 episodes). Opens like a school romance and slowly turns into something else. Not a binge watch. Best consumed a little daily. The happy ending arrives in its sweet time.
When I Fly Towards You (2023, 24 episodes). Same comfort register, same sweetness.
Lighter and Princess (2022, 36 episodes). College through adulthood, coding, entrepreneurship and, a second-chance romance. See below.

Found family

Go Ahead is the one everybody names, and rightly. Three of the original ten belong here too.

Alliance (2023, 36 episodes)

Lovely exploration of relationships. Men-women, women-women and family dynamics. Well cast. Well acted.

Meet Yourself (2023, 40 episodes)

A lovely show on what it means to take a detour into a slower paced way of life. This show explores what it means to be human and why we thirst for connection. Again, a well written, well acted show.

A River Runs Through It (2021, 36 episodes)

A slice of life drama that explores relationships, friendship and, love beautifully. One of my favorite shows from that year.

Age gap, and the older-woman version

Find Yourself (2020, 41 episodes, Netflix)

A story that explores age gap in relationships with an older female lead and a younger intern at work. Fantastic casting and acting all around.

Hidden Love is the other direction. A five year gap that could be creepy and groomery but, it is not. The story is the love.

Workplace romance

Lighter And Princess (2022, 36 episodes)

A story that spans a block of time from college through being an adult. It has coding, entrepreneurship and a solid story. Most of all, the leads are a revelation. Absolutely fantastic casting and writing.

Flight to You (2022, 39 episodes). Aviation as the backdrop, and a show that skillfully navigates women in the workplace, misogyny and flawed human relationships. I loved it.
Find Yourself (2020). Office, intern, older boss. See above.
Flourished Peony (2025). Mu Dan building a business when a woman was not supposed to. Historical, but the workplace is the point.

Short. Under 25 episodes.

Dine with Love (2022, 16 episodes)

Fun show featuring lots of food. Goofy leads and well paced.

Our Secret (2021, 24 episodes)

A high school show that absolutely aces that genre. Lovely cast and well written story.

Reset (2022, 15 episodes). A thriller built on a time loop. Short, and it does not waste a single episode. A nine out of ten for sheer grip.
Will Love in Spring (2024, 21 episodes). Slow, and it means to be. Grief, death, aging, disability and, loneliness, crafted into pure cinema. It will remain with you long after you have logged off.
Reborn (2025, 23 episodes). See above.
When I Fly Towards You (2023, 24 episodes). See above.
Later I Laughed (2024, 24 episodes). A leisurely slice of life set in Shanghai that opens with a heroine who will make you want to shake her. Offbeat, narrated, and it works. Refreshing in a season crowded with romances and historicals.

School and first love

Our Secret (2021), When I Fly Towards You (2023), A River Runs Through It (2021). The three I keep sending people to.
My Calorie Boy (2022, 30 episodes). Saddled with a title that undersells it. Beneath the goofy name is one of the better high-school cdramas going. If the three above stayed with you, this one belongs on your list.
Reborn (2025). A school romance set in the early 2000s that becomes a coming of age story.

Women at the center

The Tale of Rose (2024, 38 episodes). Follows Rosie over two decades and watches her woman tribe grow and mature. A slice of life, a coming of age, a deep look at the microcosm of relationships of all kinds. Highly recommended.
Are You The One (2024, 40 episodes). A bandit, a quietly competent porcelain maker and an empress all make choices. Well written, well paced, well cast, and underrated. A commentary on the agency women have in their lives.
The Rise of Ning (2024, 40 episodes). Runs forty episodes and almost never sags. That alone makes it rare. Family drama rather than palace intrigue: sibling rivalry, parent child dynamics, and a heroine who plays the long game.
Flourished Peony (2025) and Later I Laughed (2024). See above. Later I Laughed ends with the woman walking past every man lined up for her heart.

Everybody is okay at the end

For the nights you cannot take one more tragic ending. Hidden Love. Reborn. When I Fly Towards You. Go Ahead. Dine with Love. Our Secret. The First Frost, once you get past the greys. The stakes stay low and the endings are kind. Nobody needs to be brave to press play.

The ones I would not rewatch

A list is only useful if it also says what did not work. Best Choice Ever (2024) starts so well that the ending feels like a betrayal. Good writing, good casting, undone at the finish line. Love’s Ambition (2025) had everything it needed and then declined to use it. Wonderful wardrobe, weak premise. A one time watch. And Begin Again (2020, 35 episodes) I did love, philosophical and whimsical and set in Macau, but it asks for patience. Save it for when you have some.

By year

2025: Blossom (Dec 2024, close enough), The First Frost, Flourished Peony, The Prisoner of Beauty, Reborn, Love’s Ambition.
2024: The Tale of Rose, Will Love in Spring, Are You The One, The Rise of Ning, Later I Laughed, Best Choice Ever.
2023: Hidden Love, When I Fly Towards You, Meet Yourself, Alliance.
2022 and earlier, still perfect: Go Ahead, Find Yourself, Begin Again, Our Secret, A River Runs Through It, Lighter and Princess, Reset, Dine with Love, Flight to You, My Calorie Boy.
2026: Pursuit of Jade is the one everyone is talking about. I have not written it up yet.

Where to watch

Hidden Love and The First Frost are on Netflix in the US as I write this, and Netflix keeps adding (Flourished Peony, The Prisoner of Beauty, Pursuit of Jade have all shown up there in some regions). Rakuten Viki carries most of the rest: Meet Yourself, Begin Again, Reset, Will Love in Spring, Blossom, Later I Laughed, Flight to You. WeTV and iQIYI are the official apps for the newest releases, and YouTube has full official runs of more shows than you would expect. Availability moves by region. Check JustWatch before you commit an evening.

Two questions I get every time

Which one first, if I only watch K-dramas? Hidden Love. Twenty five episodes, on Netflix, no great conflict, and it remains one of my favorite Chinese dramas ever. If it does not take, try Blossom and come back to me.

Which ones are low angst, safe to watch with amma in the room? Hidden Love, Reborn, When I Fly Towards You, Dine with Love, Our Secret. Sweet, slow, and nobody screams at the screen. Well, I did at Reborn, but that is the writer earning it.

My novel A Star Keeps Its Distance lives in this same world of fandom, longing, and second chances. Signed copies ship from my desk in Exton.

Top 10 Cdrama Recommendations