The Legend of the Blue Sea

Lore & Background

The series centers on the love story of Shim Cheong (Jun Ji-hyun), a mermaid, and Heo Joon-jae (Lee Min-ho), a witty con-artist. Their tale is juxtaposed with the parallel story of their Joseon-era incarnations: the mermaid Se-hwa and town head Kim Dam-ryeong. In the Joseon era, Dam-ryeong names the mermaid Se-hwa after his deceased younger sister; they fall in love but are separated by an arranged marriage and later by Dam-ryeong's death from a harpoon while saving Se-hwa. Se-hwa then stabs herself with the same harpoon, and Dam-ryeong's jadeite bracelet is lost to the ocean.

Reader's Guide

In the modern-day, Heo Joon-jae becomes a con-artist after his parents' divorce. While vacationing in Spain, he meets a mysterious woman with a jadeite bracelet who is later revealed to be a mermaid. She follows him to Seoul, and they grow close. Through dreams and artifacts—including the jadeite bracelet, a vase with a mermaid kissing a man, and a portrait of Kim Dam-ryeong with the inscription 'everything is repeating itself'—Joon-jae learns they are reincarnations of Dam-ryeong and Se-hwa. The series explores themes of rebirth, fate, and unrequited love, with conflicts arising from Joon-jae's step-mother's schemes and a fugitive's attempts to murder them. The mermaid's heart will harden and stop unless Joon-jae loves her.

Did You Know?

• The series is inspired by a classic Joseon legend from Korea's first collection of unofficial historical tales.
• The mermaid's tears turn into rare sea pearls.
• The jadeite bracelet gifted by Kim Dam-ryeong to Se-hwa is lost to the ocean and later reappears in the modern-day storyline.
• The series achieved a peak audience rating of 21.0%.

Roots in a Joseon Folktale

The Legend of the Blue Sea draws its emotional core from a classic Joseon-era legend preserved in what is recognized as Korea's first collection of unofficial historical tales. That original story follows a fisherman who catches a mermaid and then sets her free — a brief encounter that carries the weight of fate and longing. The 2016–2017 SBS drama expands that simple premise into a sweeping romance between a charismatic con-artist and a mermaid who crosses the ocean to find him. Broadcast every Wednesday and Thursday at 22:00 KST from November 16, 2016, through January 25, 2017, the series paired Jun Ji-hyun and Lee Min-ho in the lead roles. Its storytelling ambition paid off in the ratings: the show peaked at 21.0 percent, a figure that underscored how deeply Korean audiences connected with a narrative that wove centuries of myth into a present-day love story. By anchoring its modern plot in a centuries-old folktale, the series gave its characters a sense of destiny that stretched far beyond a single lifetime.

Two Lives, One Destiny

The series structures its narrative around two parallel love stories that mirror each other across centuries. In the present day, the mermaid Shim Cheong, played by Jun Ji-hyun, and the quick-witted con-artist Heo Joon-jae, played by Lee Min-ho, navigate a relationship defined by memory loss, pursuit, and the pull of something larger than either of them. Running alongside their story is the Joseon-era tale of Se-hwa, a young mermaid, and Kim Dam-ryeong, a town official, whose bond is repeatedly severed by duty, social expectation, and villainy. The show's thematic spine — rebirth, fate, and unrequited love — is made literal when Dam-ryeong, haunted by prophetic dreams of the same tragedy repeating, commissions a time capsule containing his portrait and a warning to his future self: "everything is repeating itself," and he must shield Se-hwa's reincarnation from the dangers posed by the reborn enemies of his era. This device binds the two timelines together and transforms a simple romance into a multigenerational saga of loyalty and loss.

The Joseon Tragedy of Se-hwa and Dam-ryeong

As children, a mermaid pulls the nobleman's son Kim Dam-ryeong from a near-drowning, and the two grow up inseparable. Dam-ryeong names her Se-hwa — "a bright, shining child" — in memory of his late younger sister. Their love is ultimately broken by an arranged marriage; Se-hwa, not yet old enough to transform her tail into human legs, is forced to abandon him. On his wedding night, Dam-ryeong flees to the sea, and a heartbroken Se-hwa rescues him but erases every memory of their bond so he will never search for her again. Years later, as a widowed official, he frees her from a cave where villagers have trapped her after a storm. The nobleman Yang Seung-gil, who had intended to exploit her, conspires with his concubine Hong Nan to discredit Dam-ryeong, spreading rumors that he is bewitched by a wicked mermaid. They torture Se-hwa to extract her tears, which crystallize into rare sea pearls. In the series' most devastating sequence, Dam-ryeong is impaled by a harpoon thrown by Yang's son while shielding Se-hwa. She drives the weapon deeper and stabs herself; both drown, and the jadeite bracelet he had given her slips from her wrist and vanishes into the deep.

The Con Artist of Seoul

Heo Joon-jae's path to becoming a con-artist is shaped by family fracture. After his parents' divorce, his father Heo Il-joong takes custody and later adopts a stepson, Chi-hyun, while Joon-jae's mother, Mo Yoo-ran, struggles as a housekeeper. Searching for his mother, the young Joon-jae falls in with mentor Jo Nam-doo and a computer-hacking prodigy named Tae-oh, learning to leverage his looks, sharp wit, and a talent for hypnotism to pull off elaborate scams. His college classmate Cha Shi-ah pursues his affections, but his heart is elsewhere. During a vacation in Spain, he encounters a strange woman who breaks into his hotel room. After police take her in as a theft suspect, Joon-jae retrieves her, drawn by a jadeite bracelet on her arm that his mentor confirms is genuine and of extraordinary value. When gunmen hired by a wealthy businesswoman he has swindled close in, the pair flee to a cliff and leap into the sea. There, the woman reveals herself as a mermaid; she kisses him, erasing his memory of her, but vows to follow him to Seoul. Three months of ocean travel later, she wanders the city until the two finally cross paths again.

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