I didn’t set out to become a Song Kang fan. I found him through Sweet Home and Love Alarm, and after that I watched everything else specifically because he was in it. Now that Four Hands, Two Sonatas has wrapped, it felt like the right time to rank the five dramas of his I’ve seen, including the one I’d skip.
This list only covers what I’ve actually watched, so a few of his shows aren’t ranked here (I list them at the end). Most of his work streams on Netflix, which is exactly why people call him the “Son of Netflix.”
Song Kang at a glance
If you’re new to him, here’s the short version. Song Kang was born in 1994 in Suwon, and he debuted in 2017 with a supporting role in the tvN romantic comedy The Liar and His Lover. His big break came two years later, when he beat out roughly 900 people in an audition for the lead in Love Alarm. He’s been with the agency Namoo Actors since the very start of his career, and in 2021 he picked up a Baeksang Arts Awards nomination for Best New Actor.
From there, nearly every series he led ended up on Netflix, from teen romance to creature horror to fantasy rom-com. He enlisted for his mandatory military service in April 2024 and was discharged in October 2025, and Four Hands, Two Sonatas is his first drama since coming back.
My ranking at a glance
| Rank | Drama | Year | Where | Episodes | His role |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Love Alarm | 2019, 2021 | Netflix | 14 (2 seasons) | Hwang Sun-oh |
| 2 | Nevertheless | 2021 | JTBC, Netflix | 10 | Park Jae-eon |
| 3 | Sweet Home | 2020 to 2024 | Netflix | 3 seasons | Cha Hyun-su |
| 4 | Four Hands, Two Sonatas | 2026 | tvN, Netflix | 12 | Kang Bi-o |
| 5 | My Demon | 2023 to 2024 | SBS, Netflix | 16 | Jung Gu-won |
1. Love Alarm (2019, 2021)
Love Alarm is the drama I fell in love with Song Kang for, and I’ve watched it twice. I can’t fully explain why it stuck with me more than the others, but it did. He plays Hwang Sun-oh, a model and the popular guy at school, in a world where an app called Love Alarm rings when someone within 10 meters likes you.
What I loved most was how direct he is in love. No games, no slow hinting, he just tells her how he feels and means it. It’s rare to see a male lead that straightforward, and Song Kang makes it feel sweet instead of pushy.
A bit of background: the show is based on Chon Kye-young’s webtoon, originally published on Daum, and it was the first Korean drama Netflix picked up as an original series. Kim So-hyun plays Kim Jo-jo, the girl at the center of it, and Jung Ga-ram plays Lee Hye-young, Sun-oh’s childhood friend. Season 1 has eight episodes and season 2 has six, so the whole thing is an easy weekend binge. It also did well for Netflix: season 1 made Netflix’s list of the 10 most-loved Korean shows of 2019, and in 2021 Netflix ranked it sixth among its most-watched Korean dramas worldwide.
My one real complaint is the ending. It’s sad, and it didn’t go the way I was rooting for. I’m not alone there, either, since season 2 got noticeably more mixed reviews than the first. I’ll keep the details in the spoiler section at the bottom.
2. Nevertheless (2021)
Song Kang and Han So-hee together are so sexy in this drama. He plays Park Jae-eon, a sculpture student who’s charming and impossible to pin down, and she plays Yoo Na-bi, a fellow sculpture student who’s sworn off love and falls for him anyway. The chemistry between them is the whole show.
The emotional push and pull is what hooked me at first. Somewhere past the middle, though, it started to feel like a little too much, one more round of back-and-forth than the story needed. Even with that, this is the drama where Song Kang shows what he’s best at, and it’s the one I’d hand to someone new to him (more on that below).
Nevertheless aired on JTBC from June to August 2021, and every episode dropped on Netflix right after broadcast. It’s based on Jung Seo’s Naver webtoon, and it runs 10 episodes of about 70 minutes each. Heads up if you’re watching with family: it’s one of the more adult K-dramas out there, and there was talk at the time of rating some episodes 19+ in Korea. The story clearly traveled, too. Netflix released a Japanese remake, Nevertheless: The Shapes of Love, starring Ryusei Yokohama, in December 2024.
3. Sweet Home (2020 to 2024)
Sweet Home is where I first noticed him. He plays Cha Hyun-su, a withdrawn teenager who moves into a run-down apartment building just as people start turning into monsters. It’s a creature horror series, so it’s violent and dark, a completely different world from his romance work.
I loved seeing him carry a show as the main character, and he did a decent job with a much heavier role. The most recent season felt kind of weak to me, but none of that was his fault.
The series is adapted from the Naver webtoon by Kim Carnby and Hwang Young-chan, and it was a big deal for Netflix at the time. According to Netflix, season 1 was the first Korean series to crack its Global Top 10 list for non-English TV. Season 1 came out in December 2020, season 2 in December 2023, and the third and final season in July 2024, so if you start now, you can watch the whole story through to the end. The role also brought him some of his first big recognition: in 2021 he won Character of the Year at the Seoul International Drama Awards and an Excellence Award at the Asia Contents Awards for Sweet Home.
4. Four Hands, Two Sonatas (2026)
This is his first drama since finishing his military service, and you can see how much his acting has grown. He plays Kang Bi-o, a perfectionist pianist, and the most interesting part is watching him slowly realize he can’t beat a natural genius just by playing everything correctly. The Episode 5 competition scene in Prague, where he keeps playing as his fingers bleed onto the keys, is the one I keep coming back to.
It’s mellow and slow, much more about friendship and family than romance. If you’re coming for the Song Kang of Love Alarm and Nevertheless, know that going in. The show premiered on tvN and Netflix on August 29, 2026, runs 12 episodes, and co-stars Lee Jun-young and Jang Gyuri. I wrote a full review, plus posts on the cast, the music, and the ending, if you want to go deeper.
5. My Demon (2023 to 2024)
He came out looking very handsome in My Demon, and for me that’s about where it ends. He plays Jung Gu-won, a 200-year-old demon who loses his powers and ends up in a contract marriage with Do Do-hee, a chaebol heiress and CEO played by Kim Yoo-jung. There’s also a Joseon-era storyline running underneath, with both leads playing past-life versions of themselves. The storyline felt typical and weak, so this is the one I’d skip unless you’re watching purely for him.
To be fair, plenty of people liked it more than I did. My Demon aired on SBS from November 2023 to January 2024 over 16 episodes, reached number two on Netflix’s global non-English TV chart, and won Song Kang and Kim Yoo-jung the Best Couple award at the 2023 SBS Drama Awards. Both of them also took home Top Excellence awards that night.
Where should you start?
I’d start with Nevertheless. It’s aimed at a slightly older audience, it’s focused on romance, and romance is where Song Kang is strongest. Sweet Home is good too, but I don’t think it shows you why people love him right off the bat.
It’s a little funny to look back on. I found him through a monster show and a high school romance, and five dramas later, I’m the person who watches something just because his name is on it.
The ones I haven’t watched
For completeness, here’s the rest of his drama work, which I haven’t seen, so I’m not ranking it. His debut was The Liar and His Lover (2017), followed by Man in the Kitchen (2017 to 2018) and When the Devil Calls Your Name (2019). In 2021 he starred in Navillera as a young ballet dancer who gets an unlikely student, a retired mailman in his seventies played by Park In-hwan. In 2022, he played a weather forecaster in Forecasting Love and Weather opposite Park Min-young.
⚠️ Spoilers below
Love Alarm: by the end of season two, Jojo ends up with Hye-young, Sun-oh’s best friend, not with Sun-oh. After two seasons of rooting for him, that’s why I call it a sad ending, even though I still rewatched the whole thing.
Nevertheless: one fun fact for webtoon readers is that the drama changes the ending. In the original webtoon, Na-bi and Jae-eon break up, but the drama gives them a reunion.