When looking for a badass female lead, K-drama audiences are hoping for a heroine who is both relatable and superhuman. While K-dramas are well known for their romance and drama, they're not devoid of strong female leads, meaning lead characters that can hold their own and won't back down. Various protagonists in K-dramas would make any grown adult shiver with their deadly stares. With so many K-dramas available, there are plenty of formidable female leads out there. Most defy the odds or general opinion of those who don't believe in them.

These women show that not all K-drama female leads have to be damsels in distress looking for their prince. In some of the best K-dramas, audiences meet dynamic and well-rounded characters, such as Kang Sae-Byeok from Squid Game and Nam On-Jo from All of Us Are Dead. The challenges that K-drama protagonists go through are not easy, since they mirror real-life societal issues. Audiences who want a badass female lead in a K-drama that sees their protagonists persevere through the toughest ordeals should check out what these K-dramas have to offer.

Go Ah-in

Agency (2023)

Go Ah-in (Lee Bo-young) has lived a life with the deck seemingly always stacked against her. She grew up in poverty but was determined to make something of herself. Without a degree from a prestigious university, however, it seems like working in advertising might just include more of the deck being in someone else’s favor.

Agency, however, sees her rise from the lowest rung to the top of the company. She is ambitious and determined, wanting to become the first female executive at the company. The series tracks her progress as she follows that dream.

The show was so popular in South Korea that it quadrupled viewership from the first to the last episode. That’s unheard of as viewership often declines when people lose interest after the first half of a series. The audience, however, wants to see someone as hardworking as Go Ah-in achieve her dreams.

Hwang Do-hee And Oh Seung-sook

Queenmaker (2023)

There are two badass female leads sharing the spotlight in this political K-drama. The series follows two women as one of them runs for mayor and the other runs their campaign. Aside from the interesting women at the center of the story, the show is also great for international audiences curious how the South Korean government works.

The woman running for mayor is Oh Seung-sook (Moon So-ri). She happens to be a human rights lawyer called the “rhino of justice,” so the audience knows right away that she’s serious about making a difference. Her life, however, is often unmoored. The woman running her campaign is Hwang Do-hee (Kim Hee-ae). She was in charge of the strategic planning office of a large conglomerate, but now, works as a fixer. She’s Korea’s version of Scandal’s Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington).

The two women often butt heads in the series because they have very different opinions about achieving their goals, and that’s what makes the show so engaging. Ultimately, they both want the same thing - to make Oh Seung-sook mayor so that she can help those who aren’t as powerful as they are.

Kang Mo-yeon

Descendants Of The Sun (2016)

Descendants of the Sun is both a medical drama and a war drama. A soldier meets a doctor, and while they care for one another, their dating is interrupted by his commitment to his work and his secret missions, so they part ways, only to meet again on the battlefield.

Kang Meo-yeon (Song Hye-kyo) is the doctor in question. When she realizes how different she is from the man she cares for, she accepts them going their separate ways. When she’s targeted by a superior at work not long after, she stands her ground and rebuffs his romantic advances. It costs her the job she loves as she’s assigned to a medical unit in a warzone. She diligently works her way through the warzone with her expertise.

Both characters eventually meet up and learn that they aren’t quite as different as they originally thought, which might be predictable for the audience, but it’s still an emotional storyline with impressive visuals. At the center of it all is the persistent Kang Mo-yeon, who strives to help whomever she can.

Moon Dong-eun

The Glory (2022)

The Glory places the spotlight on the long-lasting effects of school bullying, and it does that through the eyes of Moon Dong-eun (Song Hye-kyo). She grew up as a victim of school violence from her peers, and now, as a teacher herself, she seeks revenge against those who wronged her.

The psychological thriller is about revenge, but it also shows how much the main character has grown and changed as a result of the things that happened to her in her youth. Critics and audience alike praised Song Hye-kyo’s work in the series, calling it her best role to date.

The series as a whole was nominated for a ton of awards in South Korea and at greater Asian award shows. The Glory won six Asian Academy Creative Awards, three Baeksang Arts Awards, two Blue Dragon series awards, and won Best Picture at the Seol International Drama Awards.

Geum Seok-yeong

Doctor Lawyer (2022)

Doctor Lawyer follows two protagonists, one is a lawyer who used to be a surgeon and the other is a lawyer who specializes in medical crimes, specifically, a prosecutor of said crimes. It’s the latter who is the female lead of the show.

Geum Seok-yeong (Im Soo Hyang) is a woman who has experienced a lot of heartbreak in her life. One of those heartbreaks occurs when her boyfriend its to killing her brother in a case of medical malpractice. Though that isn’t the entire story, he doesn’t tell her everything, and she uses her grief as motivation to punish doctors who commit negligence in court.

Seok-yeong knows that there is so much outside of her control in her life, but she also knows there are still things she can do to combat the things outside of her control. That’s what makes her a badass. She uses what she can do to work around the things she cannot.

Jin Ha-kyung

Forecasting Love And Weather (2022)

Many K-drama fans don’t usually think of the characters in a romance or slice-of-life series as badass, but Jin Ha-kyung (Park Min-young) certainly falls into that category. Forecasting Love And Weather centers on the relationships formed among the employees responsible for tracking severe weather in South Korea just as Jin Ha-kyung becomes the director of the team. Director Jin constantly has things pile up on her and she finds a way to persevere.

She is a no-nonsense woman who takes her job very seriously, but she also makes sure that others do well in their roles. She understands the strengths and weaknesses of her team, deliberately placing certain tasks ahead of the ones who will excel in them, offering her apartment to two team who don’t have places to stay, and facing the man she thought she would marry every day at work after he cheated on her.

Cha Soo-hyun

Signal (2016-)

Most of the attention in Signal is paid to the two male leads of the series, but Cha Soo-hyun (Kim Hye-soo) shouldn’t be forgotten by the audience. She is the leader of the cold case squad in this detective drama that is inspired by the movie Frequency.

The story sees the two male leads connect over a walkie-talkie that somehow manages to bridge time itself as one of them is in 1989 and the other is in 2015. Together, they combine their knowledge of different cases and criminals to solve cold cases in the present. Cha Soo-hyun is the boss of the criminal profiler in the present, but the love interest of the detective in the past, helping to link the timelines together. She’s determined, smart, and focused on solving the unsolvable.

New interest prompted from the release on streaming sites has seen a new season of the show in development in 2024.

Yoon Ji-woo AKA Song Ji-woo AKA Oh Hye-jin

My Name (2021)

When a character has to take on multiple new identities to accomplish their goals and manages to not only infiltrate a gang of criminals, but also law enforcement, the audience knows they’re a badass. That’s exactly what Yoon Ji-woo (Han So-hee) does after the death of her father.

My Name follows a young woman who desperately seeks justice for the sudden death of her father after she witnesses him being shot by a mysterious figure she can’t make out. She wants to make sure that whoever is responsible pays for their crimes, but in order to investigate herself, she has to work for a gang leader and get onto the police force as a mole to figure out which group is really responsible. She faces plenty of physical fights, lies, and tragedies in her life to get her answers, but she always keeps going.

Goo Hae-ryung

Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung (2019)

While many of the badass female leads in K-dramas can be found in more action-oriented series, Goo Hae-ryung (Shin Se-kyung) is in the middle of a historical drama. She is the daughter of a noble family who becomes a historian. She takes her job seriously, but she also isn’t afraid to stand up to anyone, even those who don’t think a woman should take on the role of a royal historian.

Goo Hae-ryung, however, continues to learn, search for the truth, and stand up for herself and anyone else she sees persecuted.

The series follows two separate timelines of events about 20 years apart in the early 19th century. What connects those two is the royal court actually wanting to destroy records of events that happened 20 years earlier, and the women who become apprentices to the historical record keepers are intended to be the scapegoats. Goo Hae-ryung, however, continues to learn, search for the truth, and stand up for herself and anyone else she sees persecuted, no matter the consequences.

Yoon Sae-bom

Happiness (2021)

Happiness is an interesting take on a zombie K-drama, so it’s only right that it would feature some badass leads. The series not only gives a fresh take on the zombie subgenre, but it also features a story of isolation and an exploration of human nature, making the characters particularly interesting.

Female lead Yoon Sae-bom (Han Hyo-joo) is a member of a special law enforcement squad that is struggling to contain the spread of a contagion the military doesn’t entirely understand. When she’s scratched by someone infected, she finds she’s actually immune to it, and that leads her to become interested in learning more about it. She also lives in a new apartment with her fake husband who has had a crush on her since they were kids, and the two of them routinely try to save their neighbors as the building is sealed off during an outbreak.