Karma
Promotional poster
Hangul	악연
Lit.	Ill-fated Relationship
RR	Agyeon
MR	Agyŏn
Genre	Crime thriller
Based on	Karma by Choi Hee-seon
Written by	Lee Il-hyung
Directed by	Lee Il-hyung
Starring	Park Hae-soo Shin Min-a Lee Hee-joon Kim Sung-kyun Lee Kwang-soo Gong Seung-yeon
Music by	Hwang Sang-jun[1]
Opening theme	"We Met By Chance" by Hwang Sang-jun
Country of origin	South Korea
Original language	Korean
No. of episodes	6
Production
Executive producers	Yoon Jong-bin[2] Park Ho-sik[2] Jang Se-jeong[2]
Producer	Yang Jung-eun[2]
Cinematography	Yoo Eok[2] Jo Wang-seop[2]
Editors	Kim Sang-beom[2] Kim Ho-bin[2]
Running time	47–61 minutes
Production companies	Moonlight Film [ko] Baram Pictures [ko] Kakao Entertainment
Original release
Network	Netflix
Release	April 4, 2025 (2025-04-04)

Karma (Korean: 악연) is a 2025 South Koreancrime thriller television series written and directed byLee Il-hyung, and starringPark Hae-soo,Shin Min-a,Lee Hee-joon,Kim Sung-kyun,Lee Kwang-soo, andGong Seung-yeon. Based on theKakao webtoon of the same name by Choi Hee-seon, the series is about people who are entangled in an unexpected ill-fated relationship and destroy each other while pursuing their own desires. It was released onNetflix on April 4, 2025.

Park Jae-young has heavy debts with a loan shark. He hires Korean Chinese coworker Jang Gil-ryong to kill his father, Park Dong-sik, in hopes of getting the life insurance payout. Gil-ryong murders Dong-sik, but has to dispose the body elsewhere instead of staging a hit-and-run.

Traditional medicine doctor Han Sang-hun and girlfriend Lee Yu-jeong are driving home after a romantic getaway, when Sang-hun hits Dong-sik's body with his car. Sang-hun believes he killed Dong-sik, and he almost kills Kim Beom-jun, a nearby witness. Sang-hun has Beom-jun help him bury Dong-sik in the mountainside and pays Beom-jun for his silence.

Dong-sik's body is found by a hiker, but Jae-yeong fails to get the insurance payout as the investigation is ongoing. Gil-ryong threatens Jae-yeong with violence, demanding payment immediately as he needs to flee the country since he was seen at the scene of the crime and killed a police officer who was following him.

Sang-hun checks his car's dashcam and discovers that Beom-jun staged the accident. He informs Yu-jeong, who turns out to be working a con with Beom-jun. Yu-jeong and Beom-jun kidnap Sang-hun, and Sang-hun kills Yu-jeong before Beom-jun kills Sang-hun. The murders are photographed by the employees of private detective Hwang Cheol-mok, who had been hired by Sang-hun's wife to find evidence of his infidelity. Cheol-mok reports the murders and a manhunt starts for Beom-jun.

Beom-jun has also been working with Gil-ryong, his friend from prison. Beom-jun helped Gil-ryong murder Dong-sik in return for part of the payout, and took the body away for the con with Sang-hun.

Jae-yeong arranges to meet Gil-ryong, intending to murder him. Beom-jun follows them, but realizes at a police checkpoint that he is wanted for murder. Jae-yeong takes Gil-ryong to an abandoned building and attacks him, but Gil-ryong overpowers him. Beom-jun arrives and decides to take Jae-yeong's identity. Beom-jun kills Gil-ryong and Jae-yeong and sets the building on fire.

A severely burned Beom-jun is brought to the hospital, where he claims to be Jae-yeong and tells the police that he was kidnapped. He is tended to by Dr. Lee Ju-yeon, who was gang raped by Jae-yeong and other boys when they were teenagers. Ju-yeon follows Beom-jun when he leaves the hospital, intending to kill him, but her fiancé Dr. Yoon stops her by asking her not to throw her life away. Beom-jun later remembers Ju-yeon from school; he was friends with Yu-jeong, who hated Ju-yeon, and he suggested that Yu-jeong arrange the gang rape.

The police realize that Beom-jun's statement doesn't match the crime scene. Beom-jun tries to flee, but is picked up by the loan shark who's looking for Jae-yeong. Yoon is the surgeon working for the loan shark to harvest organs, and he starts work on Beom-jun, ignoring his claims of mistaken identity.

Cheol-mok visits Ju-yeon to tell her an update about Jae-yeong, but Ju-yeon decides she does not need to know, as she has let go of the past.

• Park Hae-soo^[3] as Kim Beom-jun
• Shin Min-a^[3] as Lee Ju-yeon
• Lee Hee-joon^[3] as Park Jae-yeong
• Kim Sung-kyun^[3] as Jang Gil-ryong
• Lee Kwang-soo^[3] as Han Sang-hun
• Gong Seung-yeon^[3] as Lee Yu-jeong

• Kim Nam-gil^[4] as Yoon Jeong-min
• Park Ho-san as Hwang Cheol-mok
• Park Bo-yeon as Sang-hoon's wife^[5]

In July 2023, it was reported that theKakao WebtoonIll-fated Relationship by Choi Hee-seon, which was serialized in 2019, would be made into a drama with six episodes and is directed and written byLee Il-hyung, who helmedA Violent Prosecutor (2016) andRemember (2022). Moonlight Film, Baram Pictures, andKakao Entertainment managed the production.^[6]

In August 2023,Star News reported that bothShin Min-a andPark Hae-soo would be starring in the series.^[7] In response to the report, both agencies of Shin and Park stated that they were positively reviewing the offer.^[8] A month later,Netflix confirmed theensemble cast of thecrime thriller series with Park, Shin,Lee Hee-joon,Kim Sung-kyun,Lee Kwang-soo, andGong Seung-yeon.^[9]

Karma was released exclusively on Netflix on April 4, 2025.^[10]

Karma received positive reviews from critics. Onreview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, the first season has an approval rating of 83% based on 6 reviews, with an average rating of 7.2/10.^[11]

Joel Keller ofDecider wrote: "Karma has the potential to be a fine series with intertwining plots, but it could also be an exercise in frustration, depending on how long those plots take to develop."^[12]

• Karma onNetflix
• Karma atIMDb 
• Karma atHanCinema

• 2025 South Korean television series debuts
• Korean-language television shows
• Netflix television dramas
• South Korean crime television series
• South Korean thriller television series
• Television series by Kakao Entertainment

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• CS1 Korean-language sources (ko)
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