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After taking a close look at the mythical beasts and folklore creatures within Kdramas, we now focus our attention on a non-human character type — vampires — that has gained a ton of traction in recent years.
First, let’s understand the origin of vampires. Historically emerging from European folklore stories, vampires are traditionally described as undead beings that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighborhoods they inhabited when they were alive. But it wasn’t until the successful 1897 novel Dracula that really provided the basis of the modern vampire characteristics, such as the gaunt and pale faces, sharp fangs, and the dramatic cape.
Though vampires have appeared in Korean dramas as early as 2006, they didn’t take off as a mainstream character archetype until a bit later. Inspired by the global sensation of the Twilight saga, the series that really set off the vampire craze for Kdrama fans is the well-received Vampire Prosecutor series that even went on to have a season two.
Part of the success of vampires in Kdramas is the fact that they haven’t been entirely siloed to the predictable storyline of forbidden love story with humans. Rather, they tend to be given a profession — prosecutor, detective, doctor — and use their abilities to perform tasks and accomplish a mission that their human counterparts are less capable of. With that said, let’s take a look at the increasing number of vampire themed dramas.
Freeze (2006)
This is a melodrama about love and jealousy. A human meets a female vampire and gets turned into a vampire himself with her blood when she saves his life. 350 years later, he receives a will from a human woman that he used to love asking him to take care of her daughter. They meet up and love is rekindled, melting away his frozen emotions and feelings. Meanwhile, jealousy is brooding within the female vampire as well as a dark serial murder case closing in on them.
Vampire Idol (2011)
This is a melodramatic youth comedy about a naive vampire crown prince and his three loyal bodyguards who become stranded on earth when they crash land their spaceship on their way to see their favorite Kpop idol girl group in a concert. Luckily, they end up getting to room at SD entertainment thanks to their earth-side vampire contact’s cover as the girl group’s senior manager. The vampires have to learn to navigate strange new earth customs all while finding love and training to be the next Kpop idol stars.
Vampire Prosecutor (2011-2012)
Our hero prosecutor ends up as a vampire after being bitten by a stranger serial killer. Being a righteous man, he rejects the life of a vampire and survives by only drinking the blood of dead people sold on the black market. Meanwhile, he uses his newfound powers to solve crime cases and prosecute those who are powerful enough to be above the law. He has the uncanny ability to tell where the victims of his cases died, and how they died, based on their blood’s smell and taste. But the deeper he digs into the cases, the more he realizes that there’s a bigger mystery around the serial killer and why he was bitten in the first place.
Blood (2015)
Infected with the VBT-01 virus passed onto him from his parents, our hero is a vampire who ironically blends into the human world as a doctor and saves lives. Despite his cold temperatures and lack of emotional range, he is desperate to become more human and yearns for a closeness with people. Enter the heroine, who is another doctor at the same hospital. Though they don’t start off on the right foot, he ends up falling in love with her after discovering that she’s the little girl he saved years ago. Meanwhile, they must stop the villain who’s trying to replicate the virus and use it for their evil purposes.
Orange Marmalade (2015)
Orange Marmalade is a teen musical drama with a lot of sweetness and suspense wrapped in the classic setting of perpetual conflict between vampires and humans. Though vampires no longer need human blood to survive, they’re still discriminated against in modern society. As such, our heroine, a vampire in disguise, try her best at blending in. But she gets noticed by the most popular (human) boy in school and their forbidden love story kicks into high gear, while delivering a profound moral that what is perceived to be bad can in reality, be good.
Scholar Who Walks the Night (2015)
This is one of the first dramas to marry the ancient Joseon culture of the East with the blood-sucking vampires of the West to create a dreamy sageuk vampire story. The plot is centered around freeing the country and its people from the controls of a merciless vampire Gwi. The drawn-out battle with Gwi requires the combined efforts of many: a scholar who got turned into a vampire but manages to hold onto his human heart, a bookseller with a shocking birth secret, and a Crown Prince with strong determination to save his people.
Vampire Detective (2016)
This vampire drama is a bit lacking in originality as it follows the overarching plot line of the Vampire Prosecutor series like a carbon copy. Only the hero’s day job is slightly changed from being a prosecutor to a private detective. He investigates his client’s cases while leveraging his special powers, and works his way towards solving the mysteries of why he became a vampire.
While vampire dramas are on the rise in recent years, they still follow a few predictable themes: forbidden love, conflicts with human world, and glorified Sherlock Holmes with a largely dark and serious undertone. It’d be great to see exploration towards lighthearted rom-coms that portray vampires in a more harmless way, or even as human allies, full of comic relief and silliness.
How do you want to see vampires evolve in Korean dramas? Be sure to share your thoughts in the comments section below. Be sure to check here for a look at the sci-fi aliens and robos of Kdrama.
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