South Korea · Drama · 2016
The Legend of the Blue Sea
Binge Brief
- Aired on SBS TV from 16 November 2016 to 25 January 2017, every Wednesday and Thursday at 22:00 KST.
- 20 episodes of about 70 minutes each, plus a special broadcast on 29 December 2016.
- Episode 19 set the series high of 21.0% nationwide (Nielsen Korea); the 20-episode average was 17.6%.
- Reported budget: US$19 million, with production by Culture Depot and Studio Dragon.
- Lee Min-ho won the Top Excellence Award, Actor in a Genre and Fantasy Drama, at the 24th SBS Drama Awards on 31 December 2016.
- The soundtrack ran to 11 vocal parts, opening with Lyn's "Love Story" as Part 1.
Synopsis
The Legend of the Blue Sea is a 2016 kdrama from SBS about a mermaid who follows a con artist from Spain to Seoul, and about the Joseon-era love story the two of them seem to be living through a second time. The series runs on two timelines. In the present, Heo Joon-jae makes his living from scams that depend on his wits and his looks. Centuries earlier, a nobleman's son named Kim Dam-ryeong is pulled out of the sea by a mermaid called Se-hwa.
The modern story opens on a holiday. Joon-jae spends the money from his latest job on a trip to Spain, and there a strange woman with no idea of human manners breaks into his hotel room. She is a mermaid with great physical strength and the power to read and erase a person's memories. When he flies home she follows by sea, and after three months of travelling she reaches Seoul, wandering the streets for days before she runs into him again.
Joon-jae does not work alone. His mentor Jo Nam-doo trained him in the trade, and Tae-oh, a genius hacker, handles the technical side of their cons. Behind the crew sits Joon-jae's broken family: his father Heo Il-joong, a property agent who divorced Joon-jae's mother and remarried after his business took off; his mother Mo Yoo-ran, now a housekeeper for the Cha family; and a stepbrother, Heo Chi-hyun, who stayed at the father's side after Joon-jae left home. Cha Shi-ah, a university junior of Joon-jae's who works as a conservation science researcher, is pulled into their orbit too.
The Joseon story is told alongside. Se-hwa saves Dam-ryeong from drowning, the two grow close, and an arranged marriage forces them apart. A corrupt nobleman, Yang Seung-gil, wants the mermaid caught. In the present, objects from the past and shared dreams lead Joon-jae to suspect that he and the mermaid, Shim Cheong, are those two people reborn. The threat has returned with them. His stepmother Kang Seo-hee is scheming for the family money and hires Ma Dae-young, a murderer on the run, while the detective Hong Dong-pyo is investigating both Dae-young's crimes and Joon-jae's scams.
So the tone swings. One half of this Korean drama is fish-out-of-water comedy about a mermaid learning to live as a human in a big city; the other half is a revenge and inheritance thriller with a curse hanging over it. SBS broadcast it in a late-evening slot in 20 episodes, and the question the romance keeps asking is whether the couple can end their story differently this time.
The Legend of the Blue Sea cast and characters
Lee Min-ho plays Heo Joon-jae and, in the Joseon scenes, Kim Dam-ryeong. Jun Ji-hyun, listed as Gianna Jun on Netflix, plays Shim Cheong and her earlier self Se-hwa. Their younger selves go to Jeon Jin-seo (the child Joon-jae) and Park Jin-young of GOT7, who was cast in September 2016 as the teenage version of Lee Min-ho's character; Kal So-won and Shin Eun-soo play Se-hwa as a child and as a teenager.
Lee Hee-joon doubles as Jo Nam-doo and Park Moo, Shin Won-ho is Tae-oh and Shin Hye-sun is Cha Shi-ah. Sung Dong-il carries the villain across both eras as Ma Dae-young and Yang Seung-gil. Hwang Shin-hye is Kang Seo-hee, with Choi Jung-woo, Na Young-hee and Lee Ji-hoon completing the Heo household. Moon So-ri plays Ahn Jin-joo, Shi-ah's sister-in-law, Park Hae-soo plays Hong Dong-pyo, and Shin Rin-ah plays Seo Yoo-na.
The guest list is long. Kim Sung-ryung appears in episodes 1 to 3 as Jang Jin-ok, head of Myeongdong Capital, Krystal Jung is a flight attendant in episode 1, Cha Tae-hyun turns up as a Han River con man in episode 4, and Jo Jung-suk plays Yoo Jung-hoon in episodes 7 and 8.
Why it still gets watched
Ratings are the plainest evidence. The Legend of the Blue Sea held first place in its timeslot through the whole run and went above 20% nationwide twice, in episodes 17 and 19. It was also exported to every major region, Southeast Asia, the Americas and Europe among them, which is part of why it still sits on streaming menus outside Korea.
Reviewers singled out Jun Ji-hyun; one called her brilliant as the otherworldly goofball. The songs have kept their own audience as well. Yoon Mi-rae's "A World That Is You" and Sung Si-kyung's "Somewhere Someday" peaked at No. 10 and No. 11 on the Gaon chart.
The Legend of the Blue Sea cast
Filming locations
- Goesan, North Chungcheong Province: filming began here on 19 August 2016.
- Palau: the cast and crew travelled there to shoot the underwater scenes.
- Spain: shooting started on 11 September 2016 and moved through Girona, A Coruña, Ribadeo, Lugo, Tossa de Mar, Canet de Mar, Begur, Sitges and Barcelona.
- Jeju Province: also listed among the Korean locations.
Visual design and costumes
Director Jin Hyuk framed the series around Korea's own mermaid folklore rather than a Western one, and described his aim as a love story that felt warm, sad and beautiful, suited to a winter broadcast slot. Getting the underwater footage he wanted took real time in the water: lead actress Jun Ji-hyun spent individual shoots submerged for four to five hours at a stretch, according to co-star Sung Dong-il, who said she never complained despite the physical strain. Jun herself said the finished underwater scenes came out more mysterious looking than she expected while filming them.
Themes and messages
The series sets a Joseon-era mermaid legend against a present-day con artist story to ask whether two people fated to lose each other once can choose a different ending the second time. Director Jin Hyuk described his goal as a love story that was warm, sad and beautiful, built around a mermaid who has to make sense of modern Seoul while carrying memories, real or erased, from a life centuries earlier. Reviewers were less convinced by the originality of that premise: a Korea Herald piece written after the finale said several of its key elements read as recycled from screenwriter Park Ji-eun's earlier work, even as the show closed with a top-rated, happy ending.
Interesting facts
- The story starts from a tale in Eou yadam by Yu Mong-in, described as Korea's first collection of unofficial historical tales, in which a fisherman catches a mermaid and lets her go.
- The first script reading was held on 8 October 2016. It covered the first four episodes and lasted three hours.
- Composer Ryo Yoshimata scored the series, and his pieces "Sound Of Ocean", "Memories" and "The Last Time" were released on the soundtrack.
- A special episode aired on 29 December 2016, between episodes 13 and 14, and drew 11.2% nationwide.
Episodes
| Ep | Title | Air date | Status | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | In 1598, the nobleman Kim Dam-ryeong frees a captured mermaid back into the sea, and centuries later the conman Heo Joon-jae stands on that same shoreline without knowing the connection. | 16 Nov 2016 | Aired | 16.4% |
| 2 | Joon-jae shelters the mermaid in his hotel room while Jang Jin-ok, the woman he just scammed, sends men to hunt him down across Spain. | 17 Nov 2016 | Aired | 15.1% |
| 3 | Stripped of his memory after a fall from a cliff, Joon-jae makes it back to Seoul carrying a jade bracelet and a single pearl, while the mermaid begins her own long journey across the ocean to find him. | 23 Nov 2016 | Aired | 15.7% |
| 4 | A spark of recognition pulls Joon-jae toward a woman fleeing security at an aquarium, and he takes her home even as a killer who has been missing for three months strikes next door. | 24 Nov 2016 | Aired | 17.1% |
| 5 | Living under the same roof, Joon-jae names the mermaid Shim Cheong and gives her one day to explain what happened in Spain, while his stepbrother Chi-hyun grows suspicious of his mother's secretive phone calls. | 30 Nov 2016 | Aired | 16.8% |
| 6 | A traffic accident leaves Shim Cheong critically injured, and Joon-jae's panic at her hospital bedside makes clear how much she already means to him. | 1 Dec 2016 | Aired | 18.9% |
| 7 | Joon-jae admits he loves Shim Cheong even as he struggles with jealousy over a man from her past, while detective Hong closes in on the fugitive Dae-young during a murder investigation. | 7 Dec 2016 | Aired | 17.4% |
| 8 | Jung-hoon's advice to use jealousy on Joon-jae backfires into an unexpectedly serious moment, just as Dae-young answers a phone that was never his to take. | 8 Dec 2016 | Aired | 17.4% |
| 9 | Wounded after a violent confrontation with Dae-young, Joon-jae confesses his feelings before losing consciousness, and Shim Cheong refuses to leave his side. | 14 Dec 2016 | Aired | 16.6% |
| 10 | An old painting shows Joon-jae a man who looks exactly like him, and the resemblance leaves him questioning who Kim Dam-ryeong really was. | 15 Dec 2016 | Aired | 17.5% |
| 11 | Learning that Joon-jae has been conning her all along, Shim Cheong disappears, and his search for her turns increasingly desperate. | 21 Dec 2016 | Aired | 16.7% |
| 12 | Detective Hong arrests Joon-jae just as Shim Cheong realizes they are both in danger and races to find him. | 22 Dec 2016 | Aired | 17.3% |
| 13 | Shim Cheong overhears Joon-jae say the name Se-hwa in his sleep and demands to know who she is, while Shi-ah tries to win favor with the family that raised him. | 28 Dec 2016 | Aired | 16.0% |
| 14 | With Professor Jin's help, Joon-jae learns he is tied to Dam-ryeong's fate and resolves to protect Shim Cheong no matter what it costs him. | 4 Jan 2017 | Aired | 17.8% |
| 15 | Told that Shim Cheong's heart will stop without his love, Joon-jae finally shares the dreams that revealed she is a mermaid. | 5 Jan 2017 | Aired | 18.3% |
| 16 | An emotional reunion with his mother Yoo-ran at Shim Cheong's birthday party gives Joon-jae the answer to why Dae-young has been hunting him. | 11 Jan 2017 | Aired | 18.9% |
| 17 | Erasing Dae-young's memory to protect herself, Shim Cheong glimpses the final moments shared by Dam-ryeong and Se-hwa centuries earlier. | 12 Jan 2017 | Aired | 20.8% |
| 18 | Il-joong's death gives detective Hong grounds to search Seo-hee for evidence, while Chi-hyun pressures Nam-doo to switch sides. | 18 Jan 2017 | Aired | 18.3% |
| 19 | Shim Cheong takes a bullet meant for Joon-jae and falls into a coma, sending him into despair just as Dae-young, his memory gone, turns to Professor Jin for help. | 19 Jan 2017 | Aired | 21.0% |
| 20 | Shim Cheong erases Joon-jae's memory of her and returns to the sea, leaving behind only a single pearl before three years pass and their story finds its way back to each other. | 25 Jan 2017 | Aired | 17.9% |
Soundtrack
| Track | Artist |
|---|---|
| Love Story, Part 1 | Lyn |
| A World That Is You, Part 2 | Yoon Mi-rae |
| Lean on You, Part 3 | Jung-yup (Brown Eyed Soul) |
| Shy Boy, Part 4 | Ha Hyun-woo (Guckkasten) |
| Somewhere Someday, Part 5 | Sung Si-kyung |
| Wind Flower, Part 6 | Lee Sun-hee |
| Fool, Part 7 | Ken (VIXX) |
| Why Would I Do Like This, Part 8 | Coffee Boy |
| Day By Day, Part 9 | Park Yoon-ha |
| If Only, Part 10 | Se-jeong (Gugudan) |
| Love Road, Part 11 | Min Chae |
Awards
| Year | Ceremony | Category | Recipient | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 24th SBS Drama Awards | Grand Prize (Daesang) | Jun Ji-hyun | Nominated |
| 2016 | 24th SBS Drama Awards | Grand Prize (Daesang) | Lee Min-ho | Nominated |
| 2016 | 24th SBS Drama Awards | Top Excellence Award, Actor in a Genre and Fantasy Drama | Lee Min-ho | Won |
| 2016 | 24th SBS Drama Awards | Top Excellence Award, Actress in a Genre and Fantasy Drama | Jun Ji-hyun | Nominated |
| 2016 | 24th SBS Drama Awards | Excellence Award, Actor in a Fantasy Drama | Lee Hee-joon | Nominated |
| 2016 | 24th SBS Drama Awards | Excellence Award, Actress in a Fantasy Drama | Shin Hye-sun | Nominated |
| 2016 | 24th SBS Drama Awards | Excellence Award, Actress in a Fantasy Drama | Hwang Shin-hye | Nominated |
| 2016 | 24th SBS Drama Awards | Special Award, Actor in a Fantasy Drama | Sung Dong-il | Won |
| 2016 | 24th SBS Drama Awards | Special Award, Actor in a Fantasy Drama | Lee Ji-hoon | Nominated |
| 2016 | 24th SBS Drama Awards | Special Award, Actress in a Fantasy Drama | Oh Yeon-ah | Nominated |
| 2016 | 24th SBS Drama Awards | K-Wave Star Award | Lee Min-ho | Nominated |
| 2016 | 24th SBS Drama Awards | K-Wave Star Award | Jun Ji-hyun | Nominated |
| 2016 | 24th SBS Drama Awards | Best Couple Award | Lee Min-ho and Jun Ji-hyun | Won |
| 2016 | 24th SBS Drama Awards | Top 10 Stars Award | Lee Min-ho | Won |
| 2016 | 24th SBS Drama Awards | Top 10 Stars Award | Jun Ji-hyun | Won |
| 2017 | 9th Melon Music Awards | Best OST | Sung Si-kyung, "Somewhere Someday" | Nominated |
Frequently asked questions
What is The Legend of the Blue Sea about?
The Legend of the Blue Sea follows Heo Joon-jae, a con artist in present-day Seoul, and a mermaid who follows him home from Spain, while a parallel Joseon-era story shows the nobleman's son Kim Dam-ryeong and the mermaid Se-hwa whose love the two of them appear to repeat.
Who is in The Legend of the Blue Sea cast?
The Legend of the Blue Sea stars Lee Min-ho as Heo Joon-jae and Kim Dam-ryeong and Jun Ji-hyun as Shim Cheong and Se-hwa, with Lee Hee-joon, Shin Hye-sun, Shin Won-ho, Sung Dong-il, Hwang Shin-hye, Moon So-ri and Park Hae-soo in supporting roles.
Where can I watch The Legend of the Blue Sea?
The Legend of the Blue Sea is listed on Rakuten Viki with English subtitles. Netflix also has a title page for it (title 81012551), but on 24 September 2026 that page said it was not available to watch in the United States, so check your own region before you plan to watch it there.
How many episodes does The Legend of the Blue Sea have?
The Legend of the Blue Sea has 20 episodes of about 70 minutes, which aired on SBS from 16 November 2016 to 25 January 2017, plus one special broadcast on 29 December 2016.
What happens in The Legend of the Blue Sea ending?
Spoiler: near the end of The Legend of the Blue Sea, Shim Cheong takes the gunfire meant for Joon-jae, then erases every memory of herself except Yoo-na's and spends three years recovering in the ocean. When she returns to Seoul, Joon-jae recognises her through recordings of their time together, and the old curse is broken.
Is The Legend of the Blue Sea based on a real legend?
The Legend of the Blue Sea is fiction, but it was inspired by a Joseon legend recorded in Eou yadam by Yu Mong-in, a tale about a fisherman who captures a mermaid and releases her.
Who sings The Legend of the Blue Sea OST?
The Legend of the Blue Sea OST has 11 vocal parts. Lyn sings Part 1, "Love Story"; Yoon Mi-rae sings "A World That Is You", Sung Si-kyung "Somewhere Someday" and Lee Sun-hee "Wind Flower".