I know when people read or hear "dark romance" they immediately think of stories like fifty shades or haunting adeline. But that's not what I mean by dark romance.
I like my heroes to be gentlemen and I need them to never cross certain lines. But boy do I wish we could have a drama where we have a hero who is morally ambiguous but would never harm a hair on the heroine's head. Klaus and Damon come to mind (from the originals and TVD.) The kind of men that will go to any extent to protect the ones they love. For me that's a dark hero. We sometimes come pretty close to getting such heroes but its like kdrama creators are afraid of going that way. Like byeon woo seok's character in strong girl nam soon. The makers could have easily gone that route but they didn't. Then there's Lee soo hyuk's character in the show born again and tomorrow. Notice how these are not simply pookie characters putting up a hard front. These are genuinely morally ambigous characters. If someone has read the trilogy the forbidden games by L.J Smith, they'd understand what I mean. Or the cruel Prince series by Holly black.
This is the kind if vibe im looking for. I tried watching the flower of evil but I haven't been able to get into it just yet for reasons that I cant state without spoiling the plot.
If anyone can recommend something like that I'd be grateful. I prefer non smutty no spice dramas. I can watch Jdramas, kdramas and Cdramas. But will absolutely not watch thai dramas as they are not to my taste as well as Taiwanese dramas.
Popular dramas that some may recommend that I have already seen are:
The maid's revenge (cdrama) I dropped it eventually
Mercy for none (looooooved it)
Bad guys (perfection)
Voice seasons 1 to 3 (this series is a beauty)
The tale of the nine taled fox (s1 was meh, s2 was good)
The devil judge
The island (i will never stop ranting about what amazon prime did to this drama. It's deserves a sequel, why would it end like this? Especially since we know its based on a manhwa and the story has so much more to explore)
I guess I'm looking for "villain gets the girl vibes".
The kdramas missing you had the potential to go that route but didn't. Head over heels while being amazing could have also done something that I once read in a series (nevermore by Kelly creagh) but its fine that they didn't.
If someone has recs please share them. Looking forward to your feedback!