My favourite foreign dramas

1. Kachorra - Possibly my surprise favourite, as Natalia Oreiro was BIG in the Czech Republic. For a family friendly telenovela, it is full of amazingly dark comedy melodrama. More than just the goofy fashion, the characters are also well conceived and developed, as well as the theme song. 

2. Sweet Fugitive - The Portuguese soft remake of Kachorra is one hell of a ride, where the titular anti villainess is trying to survive in a place full of people more corrupt than her.

3. The Roses of Dublin - This beautiful drama focuses on the gorgeous scenery of Ireland itself. 

4. Hotel Elfie and Girlfriends (tie) - These two manic German dramas are about women trying to survive in a corrupt workplace. 

5. The Island of Dreams - This German drama focuses on a fictional island where tourists come and go with ease. 

6 Tida Wanorn 1-3 and Reboot (tied) - Apart from its annoyingly catchy theme song, it’s a fairly decently rounded story about a brave girl abandoned by her own screwed up family in the jungles of a generic Southeast Asian country. 

7. Prince of The Wolves - Prince of The Wolves is a rather edgy Jungle Book retelling, not about Mowgli, but about Du Zhe Ming. Zhe Ming is a brave young man who grew up with what are supposedly wolves (which are actually played by sled dogs if anyone looks at them closely) in the tropical forests of Central India (played in ironic fashion by Taiwan of all Asian countries!), after being rescued by them in his real family’s doomed camping trip to India (as in the country) itself. 

8. Fathiyah 1 and 2 (tied) - Despite the lack of good quality CGI, It’s a pretty entertainingly funny story about a girl who went missing when she was a baby, only to grow up wild and tough because she was being raised by both elephants and macaques in the jungles of southwestern Sumatra! 

9. My Mowgli Boy - This really loose homage to the Jungle Book seems to be about a half wild young man named Mo Ge Li, who reluctantly moves into the city. 

10. Bicho Do Mato (Reboot) - This Brazilian Telenovela contains a pretty good (although flawed) conservation message and has characters who are much better developed than in the original. The pretty blonde hick protagonist is just as brave as the family of indigenous Pantanal locals who raised him, and that’s okay.

11. Yago: Pure Passion - Yago: Pure Passion is about a tough and rude blonde young man raised by his Guarani foster dad, deep in the subtropical jungles of northeast Argentina. 

12. Uga Uga - Tatuapu is the story’s tough but sympathetic blonde antihero protagonist, whose rich birth family is just as screwed up as that of Fathiyah’s in the Tarzan Girl show. As a little three year old kid, he saw his parents being questionably assassinated by a bunch of (incredibly) mad Native Amazonian warriors, who otherwise had to regret mistaking them for actual agricultural loggers.  

13. Teach Me To Live - Claudine (aka ‘Asai’) is the missing wild heiress protagonist of this manic Argentine show, which is filled with hijinks galore. After surviving a horrid plane crash in the troubled (although otherwise brave) Angolan exclave of Cabinda as a baby, she was brought up and raised by chimps within the jungles of its Mayombe ecoregion. 

14. Verano Azul - Verano Azul is a beloved Spanish drama about a fictional beach and its residents. 

15. Beach Boys - A J-drama about a bunch of guys who have a long holiday in the Ryukyu islands. 

16. Tarzan Girl - Tarzan Girl is a meh show about Fathiyah, a teenaged wild girl raised by elephants and macaques in southernmost Sumatra. In order to find her kidnapped dad, she reluctantly comes to Jakarta in the island of Java, where hijinks ensue. 

17. Pure Passion - This is a middling Mexican take on Yago: Brown Passion, which is about a rough young man named Leo Hernandez, who grew up with Mayan natives in the jungles of Chiapas in the far southeast of Mexico. 

18. Jacaranda - This is an otherwise okay albeit rarely seen show about a blonde character who happens to be an adventurous tomboy. 

19. Star Maiden - This Made in Singapore Star Wars cash in is about a pink haired rebel princess trying to survive in a galactic conflict between the invaders and their colonised kin.  

20. I’m Your Magic - Sofie is the otherwise bubbly teenaged witch protagonist of this boring Sally the Witch and Princess Comet cash in from Indonesia. 

21. Dia Anakku - Dia Anakku is an even more manic Indonesian spin on Teach Me To Live. It’s about a wild young adult named Kinar, who happens to be raised by Sumatran Orangutans in Bukit Lawang after horridly having plane crashed there as a baby.