By Jae-Ha Kim
Teen Vogue
December 5, 2025
This show was included in my Teen Vogue round-up of the best K-dramas of 2025:
The Manipulated is a film-to-series adaptation of the 2017 action film Fabricated City. Both share the same creative (Park Kwang-hyun) and leading man (Ji Chang-wook). And as with the film, the series explores how a wronged man gets vengeance. In this fast-paced series, a master manipulator sets up Tae-jung (Ji) for a crime he didn’t commit. After he is tricked into returning a lost phone to an unseen woman, his life becomes a nightmare. He is accused of sexually assaulting and killing a young woman, and all the evidence points to him and he has no way to prove his innocence. His girlfriend, a younger brother he dotes on, and the dream of opening his own garden nursery are replaced by a life sentence in prison.
The falsely-accused trope has been used often in K-dramas (and western shows, too). But that doesn’t lessen The Manipulated’s impact. Tae-jung is an ordinary hero forced into an unreal world, while his nemesis Yo-han (icily portrayed by EXO’s Doh Kyung-soo) thrives on controlling people’s lives. The Manipulated is at times gruesome, but it’s also the perfect combo of bingeworthy revenge and intense psychological warfare. (Hulu)
Airdates: Twelve 50-minute episodes aired on Disney+ from November 5 through December 3, 2025. (I watched this on Hulu.)
© 2025 JAE-HA KIM
DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.
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