Shows Like The Penguin — K-Dramas & C-Dramas With the Same Villain Protagonist Energy

The most direct Penguin equivalent in K-drama. A loyal conglomerate employee is betrayed and murdered by the family he served, then reincarnated as their youngest son with full memory of the future. Reborn Rich has Oz Cobb's essential dynamic — a man of lower standing navigating an aristocratic power structure that views him as disposable — with the added satisfaction of pre-knowledge. The boardroom is Gotham with suits instead of costumes.

A Korean-Italian mob consigliere returns to Seoul and ends up fighting a corrupt mega-corporation using exactly the methods that corporation uses on everyone else. Vincenzo has The Penguin's moral argument at its core: in a world this corrupt, the most honest actor is sometimes the criminal. Song Joong-ki brings the same dangerous charm as Colin Farrell — a man who enjoys the work a little too much.

A man adopted into a powerful family as a child has spent decades building a perfect cover while methodically setting up the conditions for their destruction. Money Flower has The Penguin's patience — Oz's rise through Gotham's power vacuum is built on knowing that the right moment only comes to people who prepared for it. The slowest, most satisfying burn in Korean drama.

A massive fantasy epic about the founding of a civilization — with a power vacuum at the center and multiple protagonists trying to fill it by any means necessary. Arthdal Chronicles has The Penguin's quality of a new political order being built from the ruins of the old one, with maximum carnage and minimum sentimentality about what that requires.

Three sisters from poverty stumble into the orbit of a supremely powerful political family and discover the secrets that hold their empire together. Little Women has The Penguin's sense that ordinary people who accidentally see behind the curtain either get absorbed by the machine or become its most dangerous enemies. The villain family is Gotham-caliber awful.

Elite families in a luxury residential enclave compete with the same ferocity as Gotham's crime families over the only resource that matters: positioning their children for success. Sky Castle has The Penguin's dark comedy DNA — these people are monstrous, and the show knows it, and can't stop watching them. The rot underneath the polish is the whole show.

A brilliant strategist, presumed dead after a massacre, returns to the imperial capital with a new identity and begins systematically dismantling the conspiracy that destroyed his family. Nirvana in Fire is the C-drama Penguin: the methodical, patient, intelligence-driven rise of someone the powerful thought they had eliminated. The chess match is extraordinary, and the satisfaction of every piece clicking into place is unmatched.