7 biggest K-Dramas of 2026 still to come: Ji Chang-wook and Son Ye-jin's romance, Song Kang's return and more

If you thought 2026 had already peaked for K-drama fans, think again. From a historical romance pairing Ji Chang-wook with Son Ye-jin to Song Kang's long-awaited comeback after military service, the back half of the year is stacked with premieres worth clearing your schedule for. Expect chaebol detectives, memory-loss mysteries, workplace love triangles, and a family drama that isn't afraid to get messy before it gets healing.

Here are seven upcoming K-dramas set to dominate conversation for the rest of 2026.

Netflix had confirmed one of the year's most anticipated K-Drama line-ups with the announcement of Scandals (working title), an all-star historical series led by Son Ye-jin, Ji Chang-wook and Nana.

Inspired by the 2003 film Untold Scandal, the series is set in the Joseon Dynasty, an era in which love was treated as a dangerous transgression. The story centres on a web of intrigue and power as its characters navigate a high-stakes game of love and deception that defies the rigid moral codes of their time.

Son Ye-jin stars as Lady Cho, an intelligent and magnetic woman who challenges societal norms by enlisting the charismatic Cho Won, played by Ji Chang-wook. Cho Won accepts the bet despite his scepticism toward true love — a decision that soon draws him into far higher stakes than he anticipated. Nana rounds out the leading trio as Hui Yeon, a widow constrained by societal expectation, whose growing attraction to Cho Won places her at the centre of an emotional push and pull between restraint and desire.

Divorced. Remarried. Ready for revenge. If that doesn't sell you on The Remarried Empress, nothing will.

Based on the wildly popular Naver Webtoon of the same name, this upcoming Disney+ series follows Empress Navier — a woman who did everything right, only to get blindsided when her husband, Emperor Sovieshu, casually asks for a divorce so he can marry his mistress. Cold. But Navier isn't the type to quietly exit stage left.

Enter Prince Heinrey of the Western Kingdom: charming, mysterious, and exactly the ally she needs to stage the most satisfying comeback in palace history. A strategic alliance quickly spirals into something far messier, as Navier fights to reclaim her throne while making her ex-husband watch every second of it.

Directed by Jo Soo-won and led by a stacked cast — Shin Min-a as Navier, Ju Ji-hoon as Sovieshu, Lee Jong-suk as Heinrey, and Lee Se-young rounding things out — this is royal drama with teeth: politics, betrayal, and a slow-burn romance built entirely on spite (in the best way).

The Remarried Empress premieres on Disney+ in the second half of 2026.

An elite prosecutor with total amnesia. A brooding ex-gang boxing coach with a suspicious number of secrets. One very small, very nosy village. What could possibly go wrong?

Our Sticky Love follows Ko Eun Sae, sharp, ambitious, allergic to nonsense, who loses every memory she has while chasing down a powerful crime syndicate. She wakes up in the middle of nowhere with no name, no job, and no idea who she is, only to be informed by a stranger that he's her boyfriend. And there's Jang Tae Ha: former boxer, current boxing coach, full-time liar with excellent intentions.

Tae Ha is her actual first love, a man with his own gang-adjacent past he's desperate to outrun, and he's decided that the fastest way to keep her safe is to fake an entire relationship. Nothing suspicious about that at all.

As Eun Sae pieces her past back together, she and Tae Ha have to figure out whether something real can survive the truth finally catching up to them.

Our Sticky Love drops on Netflix, on August 7.

Just when Jin I Su thought he'd survived the hardest part, police academy, actual discipline, being told "no" on a regular basis, his old nightmare walks back in.

After graduating from the academy and returning to Violent Crimes Unit 1 a slightly more competent detective, Jin I Su discovers his new team leader is none other than Ju Hye Ra: the so-called "devil instructor" who spent his academy days making his life miserable. Except now she's not just grading his performance, she's his direct boss. Reader, it's chaos.

Jin I Su is still very much himself: a playful, wildly rich third-generation chaebol heir who solves crimes using a combination of family money, elite connections, sharp instincts, and skills he mostly picked up while goofing off.

Ju Hye Ra, meanwhile, isn't messing around. A former ace of the National Police Agency's counter-terrorism unit, she volunteered for this job, which somehow makes her willingness to lead Jin I Su even more alarming.

Flex x Cop Season 2 is scheduled to premiere on August 7, 2026

Imagine going months without seeing another human, only to discover someone's been living your entire life better than you were. That's the nightmare fuel powering Mousetrap.

Je Mun Jae is a writer who's mastered the art of disappearing. Then his own fingerprint stops unlocking his phone. His one trusted friend vanishes without a trace. And Mun Jae is left holding absolutely no proof that he is, in fact, himself. Someone calling themselves "the Rat" has quietly taken his name, his identity, and his fortune, and is presumably enjoying it very much. Mun Jae, understandably furious, sets out to hunt the impostor down.

We meet No Ja: He's spent three years trying to track down Mun Jae over an unpaid debt, so when his target resurfaces asking for help instead of hiding from him, No Ja isn't exactly moved by sentiment — he's moved by the very real possibility of getting paid. Still, curiosity (and cash) is enough to pull him into the case.

Ryu Jun-yeol stars as Je Mun Jae, with Sul Kyung-gu as No Ja, in a pairing that turns "enemies forced to cooperate" into an art form.

Mousetrap drops on Netflix on August 28.

Set at the prestigious Korea Arts High School, Four Hands, Two Sonatas follows Kang Bi-o, a piano prodigy who's never been second place. Academics, technique, competitions, Bi-o wins them all, effortlessly enough to be tipped as a future contender for the world's three biggest piano competitions. It's the kind of flawless track record that practically begs to be disrupted.

There's Choi Jeong-yo: a fellow piano genius who's spent years underestimating his own talent, thanks to circumstances well outside his control. And of course, he clashes with Bi-o.

Rounding out the trio is Hong Jae-in, a viola major with famously sharp ears, who's grown close to Bi-o after his playing managed to meet her impossibly high standards.

Song Kang leads as Kang Bi-o, opposite Lee Jun-young as Choi Jeong-yo and Jang Gyu-ri as Hong Jae-in, in a coming-of-age drama built on musical rivalry, friendship, and the pressure of chasing greatness.

Four Hands, Two Sonatas is scheduled to premiere on August 29, 2026, on Netflix.

Some families make you want to change your last name and move to another country. Love On The Menu gets that, and dives straight into it anyway.

The story follows a family fractured by years of sacrifice, misunderstanding, and decisions everyone thought were made out of love, but which ended up doing more damage than good. Some walked away to protect the people they cared about. Others gave up love entirely to hold their family together. The result: deep wounds, longstanding conflict, and a whole lot of unresolved history, until an unexpected reunion forces everyone back to the same table.

At the center of it all is Han Kyu-rim, the sharp-tongued, emotionally transparent owner of a market side-dish shop who cannot hide a feeling if her life depended on it. We meet Kim Moo-jin, an Italian restaurant owner hiding a very inconvenient secret, despite being born into serious wealth, he deliberately dresses down and commutes like an ordinary employee just to avoid being recognized as the boss's son. The two form an odd, prickly bond that neither of them saw coming, all while old family wounds slowly resurface and demand to be dealt with.

Hani stars as Han Kyu-rim, opposite Ha Suk-jin as Kim Moo-jin, leading a sprawling, emotionally charged family drama that isn't afraid to sit in the mess before it gets to the healing.

The show is still ongoing, the best is yet to come, you can watch on Viki.

Every fan has fantasised about working alongside their idol. Almost none of them plan for the part where they accidentally become obsessed with someone else entirely.

Nam Da-reum lands her dream job at APPELLO, a fashion platform company tied to Lee Chan, the idol-turned-actor she's been devoted to for years. However, she spends most of her time clashing with Kang Ha-gi, the company's relentlessly strict, workaholic CEO, who has approximately no interest in being anyone's bias. Naturally, that's exactly the setup for things to get complicated.

As Da-reum gets pulled deeper into office life, she starts noticing the strange, loaded dynamic between Ha-gi and Chan, a bond she doesn't fully understand but somehow finds herself tangled up in anyway, along with a secret she's now determined to protect.

Kang Hoon stars as Kang Ha-gi, opposite Kim Hye-jun as Nam Da-reum and Cha Woo-min as Lee Chan, in a workplace rom-com that proves sometimes the "boss" ends up being a bigger plot twist than the bias ever was.