What to Watch After Pursuit of Jade: Three K-Dramas That Hit the Same Note
If Fan Changyu's rise left you wanting more longing, duty, and painful becoming, start with these three follow-ups.
Pursuit of Jade works because its romance is never separate from survival. Fan Changyu (Tian Xiwei) begins as a village girl and has to grow inside war, separation, betrayal, and identity she did not ask to carry. Xie Zheng (Zhang Linghe) gives the slow-burn romance its pull, but love keeps running into duty as the terms change around them. If you finished that bittersweet ending and still want plot, ache, and earned resolve, these are the next three places to go.
1. Alchemy of Souls
Similar plot-dense fantasy-romance register. 2022, tvN / Netflix.
Start here if the part of Pursuit of Jade that stayed with you was the mix of longing, duty, betrayal, and identity. Alchemy of Souls is a 20-episode Hong Sisters drama set in the fictional kingdom of Daeho, where mages can swap souls and an assassin’s soul lands in a blind servant girl who becomes secret master to a disgraced noble’s son. That premise gives it more fantasy than Pursuit of Jade, but the appetite is similar: romance caught inside rules bigger than the people feeling it.
The match is not one-to-one. Pursuit of Jade is a Chinese costume drama about a village girl’s rise across war and separation, with fantasy only lightly in the mix. Alchemy of Souls leans harder into fated-mates feeling, magical danger, and mentor-pupil intimacy. Still, both are built for viewers who like romance under pressure. Love is not a soft escape. It becomes training, debt, risk, and the thing that makes betrayal hurt.
Pick this when you want the same plot-dense forward motion, but with more magic and a cleaner tragic bite.
Read the Alchemy of Souls review →
2. Descendants of the Sun
Similar duty-romance and bittersweet ending. 2016, KBS2 / Netflix.
Choose Descendants of the Sun if Pursuit of Jade worked for you because Fan Changyu and Xie Zheng never get a romance untouched by duty. Kim Eun-sook’s 16-episode drama follows a Special Warfare captain and a surgeon who meet over a UN deployment to a fictional war-torn country. Different period, different world, same pressure point: love has to compete with work that can ask for everything.
This is the closest pick for the romance-longing and duty side of Pursuit of Jade. The pacing stays plot-dense, the emotional weather moves through dread and tenderness, and the ending lands in bittersweet territory instead of pretending sacrifice is easy. If you liked watching Fan Changyu keep becoming someone stronger while the life around her kept raising the cost, this gives you a modern version of that feeling.
It is also a good follow-up if you want less court intrigue and more direct ethical pressure. The question becomes simpler and harder: can two people choose each other when the world keeps giving them reasons to step away?
Read the Descendants of the Sun review →
3. Itaewon Class
Different mood register, same awakening and duty drive. 2020, JTBC / Netflix.
Pick Itaewon Class when you want the fire that sits underneath Pursuit of Jade, not the same romance shape. Gwang-jin’s 16-episode drama follows a wronged high schooler who builds a single Itaewon pub into a rival of the Jangga food empire over 15 years. The taste tags move toward revenge, awakening, duty, and found family, so this is the variety slot in the list.
That difference matters. After 40 episodes of Fan Changyu fighting through war, separation, betrayal, and identity, you may not want another bittersweet period romance right away. You may want a story where the hurt becomes work, the work becomes a name, and the name becomes a life no one can easily take back. Itaewon Class gives you that cathartic lane without losing the plot-dense momentum.
It is less tender than Pursuit of Jade, and the romance engine is not the main match. The match is awakening. Both follow someone becoming visible after the world has already decided where they belong.
Read the Itaewon Class review →
What you actually want next
If you wanted more fated longing, duty, betrayal, and a fantasy edge, pick Alchemy of Souls. If you wanted the romance-under-orders feeling and another bittersweet finish, pick Descendants of the Sun. If you wanted the rise, the anger, and the feeling of a life being built out of damage, pick Itaewon Class. Or browse by mood at quizfandom.com/find-your-next-kdrama.