Disclaimer: this is a review, and as such it contains spoilers of the whole series. Please proceed to read at your own risk if you still plan on watching this show or if you haven’t finished it yet. You have been warned.
My Demon
(마이데몬 / Mai Demon)
MyDramaList rating: 6.5/10
Hi everyone! Thought I’d drop off another review before the end of the month and before I go on holiday next week! It’s been kind of a wild ride the past few weeks – even though I’ve officially graduated I immediately had to settle all kinds of things for my book translation project and it’s been very busy! Still, I’m glad that I can find the time to enjoy dramas in the meantime, and I really wanted to finish this one before taking some time off. So yeah, the twelfth show my Wheel of Fortune app picked out for me was a pretty recent one! I admit that I’m updating my list regularly with new shows, so it can happen that a new one slides in every now and then. I was excited to finally watch this, since it had been on my Netflix K-Drama list for a while, mainly because of the main leads. I’d heard varying responses, so I was eager to find out what it was about for myself. All in all, I found it enjoyable, but there were a couple of elements that didn’t really make sense to me, so I’m eager to discuss those. Let’s go!
My Demon is a Netflix K-Drama that consists of 16 episodes of about one hour and six minutes long. The story follows Jung Goo Won (played by Song Kang), a demon who’s been living for over 200 years. Throughout the years he’s been going around making deals with humans – he grants their wish if they agree to sign a contract that will send their souls to Hell ten years later. In his demon business there is no place for compassion; apart from the bad guys he strikes up deals with, Goo Won actively takes advantage of innocent people in the most tragic and desperate moments of their lives. When he’s not doing his demon work, he acts as the CEO of Sunwol Theatre, which specializes in performances of traditional sword dancing. The only two human companions he has by his side are his secretary Park Bok Gyu (played by Heo Jung Do), who remembers himself striking up a deal with Goo Won in a past life, and Jin Ga Young (played by Jo Hye Joo), nicknamed “Star Jin”, the main solo sword dancer of Sunwol Theatre. Goo Won saved Ga Young from her abusive father when she was still very young, and she got attached to him and stuck by his side, gradually developing romantic feelings for him.
On the other hand, we have Do Do Hee (played by Kim Yoo Jung). After her parents died in a car accident on the night of her eleventh birthday, Do Hee was adopted by Joo Cheon Sook, or “Madam Joo” (played by Kim Hae Sook), the CEO of the extensive Mirae Group. While initially distant, Madam Joo developed an affection for her newly adopted daughter that grew way deeper than what she felt towards her biological children. Although her oldest son Noh Seok Min (played by Kim Tae Hoon) is the rightful heir to Mirae Group, Madam Joo doesn’t make bones about the fact that she’d rather transfer everything to Do Hee after she passes. She’s even made Do Hee the CEO of Mirae Food and Beverages, giving her control over her own branch of the company. As expected, Do Hee is not treated very warmly by her adoptive siblings. Apart from Seok Min, there’s also Madam Joo’s daughter Noh Soo An (played by Lee Yoon Ji), who’s as aggravated by the idea of Do Hee succeeding the CEO as her brother is. The only person on Do Hee’s side is her adoptive cousin, Joo Seok Hoon – the son of Madam Joo’s brother. Seok Hoon (played by Lee Sang Yi) is the only one that seems to care about Do Hee, and he even seems to harbor romantic feelings for her. Do Hee’s only not family-related trustee is her stoic secretary, Shin Da Jung (played by Seo Jung Yeon).
When the story starts, Madam Joo is shown to continuously push Do Hee to go on blind dates – she seems eager to see her married before she succumbs to her deteriorating health. Do Hee ultimately agrees to go on a blind date, on the condition that Madam Joo goes for a health checkup.
Goo Won and Do Hee meet at a restaurant where Do Hee mistakes him for her blind date while he just happens to be there to enjoy some cake – his regular reward to himself after collecting another soul. They start out on crabby terms, but they keep crossing paths and ultimately Goo Won targets Do Hee as his next client when she calls for help after getting assaulted by a mysterious man in a mask. Things don’t go as planned, and somehow Goo Won’s powers – which are sealed by a cross-shaped tattoo on his arm – transfer to Do Hee. Now without his powers, he has no choice but to strike up a deal with Do Hee: until they find a way to return his powers to him, he will be Do Hee’s personal bodyguard.
Let me just start out by saying that this was a very extensive drama with a lot of characters and storylines. Just when I thought I was starting to understand what was going on, another storyline or piece of information was presented that either added more depth or revealed something entirely new. At some point it felt to me as if they kept adding new dramatic things that didn’t actually contribute to the main plot that much. Until the very last episode, new pieces of information were revealed to the point where I didn’t think they even mattered that much anymore. Furthermore, this show had a knack for creating very dramatic and shocking moments and then basically debunking or fixing them immediately afterwards, diminishing the effect as a result. This, in combination with some inconsistencies and things I would’ve liked to have clarified more, made it quite challenging to construct a review with all the elements in a coherent order. There’s a lot of things I want to discuss, so please bear with me.
Let’s start out with an overview of Madam Joo’s family, since it personally took me some time to understand how exactly everyone was related. First of all there is Madam Joo, Joo Cheon Sook, who was apparently married to someone with the family name “Noh”, since both her children, Seok Min and Soo An, share that name. Seok Min is married to Kim Se Ra (played by Jo Yeon Hee) and they have an adult son called Noh Do Kyung (played by Kang Seung Ho). Soo An’s husband is never revealed, but she has two young twin sons called Austin and Justin (played by Park Do Yoon and Kang Da On respectively). Madam Joo’s hippie brother and his wife have retreated to the countryside, and in their place their son Joo Seok Hoon has been appointed director of the financing department of Mirae Group.
From the get-go, it’s clear that Madam Joo is not very fond of her biological children. She seems quite detached and cold when she talks to them and only wants to keep Do Hee close. She even comments on how her children will probably throw a party once she passes away, which turns out to be some serious foreshadowing – when she passes away after a couple of episodes, her funeral definitely feels more like a party than a grieving ceremony. When Madam Joo’s final will is revealed, it states that Do Hee will inherit Mirae Group on the condition of getting married, revealing the reason why she was so adamant on Do Hee going on those blind dates. Her final will comes as a big shock for her biological children of course, and it sets in motion a dirty game of family politics. To what lengths are the rightful Mirae Group heirs willing to go to stop Do Hee from succeeding Madam Joo as the CEO? Do Hee initially puts up a good fight as she immediately asks Goo Won to marry her, to which he only agrees after witnessing for himself just how much danger she’s in. Having fulfilled Madam Joo’s condition, Do Hee doesn’t back down easily, and only ends up giving up her candidacy after Goo Won is stabbed by the masked killer, in order to protect him as well as herself.
Honestly, Do Hee really doesn’t have it easy. She holds her head incredibly high as the “fake” member of the family and she’s very mature for her age – which is understandable if you look at the environment and family she had to grow up in after losing her parents. Madam Joo is definitely her protector, and Do Hee knows she doesn’t have much to fear from the other family members as long as she is there to shield her, but that all changes when Madam Joo abruptly passes away. Madam Joo meant the world to Do Hee, as she was the one who saved her after her parents died and the only person who seemed to have good intentions towards her. This is also confirmed when Do Hee is faced with the suggestion that Madam Joo was just using her to redeem herself from her past wrongdoings; it was obvious to see how much even the suggestion of that truth hurt Do Hee. After being left alone in that hostile family, Do Hee is the only one who suspects foul play in Madam Joo’s death, but no one is willing to listen and her attempts to start an investigation are harshly interrupted. Moreover, Do Hee suddenly also starts getting targeted by a mysterious killer with a mask. Even with Goo Won as her bodyguard, her life is threatened time and time again – it seems obvious that someone wants her gone, and fast. It really made me feel for Do Hee from the start, because those events completely justified how hard it was for her to trust people. In fact, she’s more than right to distrust people, because it doesn’t take too long until it’s revealed that the masked killer is in contact with someone inside her family.
I have to admit I really admired Do Hee as a character. In-between everything, she kept persevering, she kept showing up at work, she kept holding her head high. When things got too serious, she was even willing to give up her candidacy for the new chairman position purely because she valued her own life and Goo Won’s more than going up against the petty family politics Seok Min was trying to pull. No matter what traumatic event she went through – and she went through a LOT – she always got back up and I really admired that in her character. She was a young woman who’d gotten used to being self-dependent, and she constantly had to fall back on that whenever she lost someone important to her. One part that really struck me was when she comforted herself after Goo Won had disappeared the first time by hugging herself and saying, “Come on Do Hee, you’ve been alone before, things have just gone back to how they used to be”. That’s basically how I comfort myself every time I create a special place for someone in my heart only to lose them. She was such a strong character, even after being struck down and paralyzed, there was no doubt that she was going to pick herself up again eventually. Her mental strength really impressed me.
I like to believe that her unyielding strength was also one of the things that made Goo Won fall for her. Before the whole fated destiny past life element came in, I really liked how gradually and naturally the bond between Do Hee and Goo Won developed. Goo Won is first introduced as this mysterious, mythical creature who has lived through centuries without ever developing an attachment to humans. However, there is still a part of him that isn’t completely detached, because he does keep Secretary Park and Ga Young around and he still has vague dreams about his mortal life before he became a demon. Although he claims to despise humans, he certainly enjoys some human-made treats every once in a while, as he has the habit of eating a delicious cake when he finishes a deal. He has a playful and mischievous side to him which doesn’t make him seem all that intimidating for a demon. By the way, I’m not entirely sure how to identify him exactly, because the words “demon” and “devil” were used interchangeably. His self-introduction went like, “I’m a demon. In other words, the Devil.” But in my perception, demons are different from devils, and it didn’t feel like he was the Devil (as in, Satan or whatever). There didn’t seem to be any others of his kind around doing demon business like him, either. He was basically acting as a missionary on Earth to get more people into Hell. I’ll just keep referring to him as a demon here rather than a/the devil, because I find it confusing 😅. Anyway, Goo Won (whose name, as pointed out by Do Hee, apparently means “salvation”) seems to be shrouded in mystery. He can’t remember who he used to be or how he became a demon, and he’s as frazzled by his fragmented dreams as anyone. Still, he seems to have gotten used to his powers and also likes using them, which makes losing them deeply upsetting for him. He also doesn’t understand how his powers could have transferred to Do Hee, which means that his knowledge of “everything demon” also has its limits. I don’t think he even thoroughly read the Demon manual himself, as he didn’t actually seem to care much for the book. Whenever Secretary Park wanted to use it he got angry at him for treating him like a utensil that needed a manual, and after it disappeared he barely put in effort to look for it, even though it gave the enemy a lot of useful information about him and (the limitations of) his powers. The first and foremost rule is that Goo Won cannot personally kill a human or bring a dead person back to life. If he does that, he will go up in flames or “spontaneous combustion”. After trying to figure out several ways of getting his powers back from Do Hee without getting too involved with her, he ends up giving in to her proposal of being her bodyguard and, eventually, husband. As they spend more and more time together and Goo Won keeps saving her and becomes her most trusted person after Madam Joo passes, the tension between them (which was already partially there from the beginning, on Do Hee’s side at least), deepens and Goo Won finally realizes his true feelings for her after she gives up her chairman candidacy for him. Since they’re already married when they officially become a couple, it’s all just lovey-dovey from there on out, until the next threat presents itself.
I will briefly remark on the addition of the past life destiny element in this story. I’ve used the term “destiny element” before to indicate a plot tool that fatefully ties two characters together in some way, either through a past life or childhood or other type of earlier encounter. In the case of My Demon, the writers created a backstory for Goo Won and tied his reason for becoming a demon to the tragic sacrifice of his true love. Back in the Joseon Period, Goo Won – then called Seo Yi Sun – was a Young Master with a noble background, and he fell in love with a low-class courtesan called Wol Shim. After he saw her dancing with swords by a stream one day, he was basically whipped and he approached her until she opened up to him. Because their respective statuses wouldn’t allow them to get married, they both turned to Catholicism, which promised a changed world where everyone would be equal. This reminded me of a part from Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung, where one of the historians was banished for secretly practicing Catholicism – it was unheard of at the time to practice Western religion. After some time, Yi Sun went to take a scholars’ examination and left Wol Shim behind, promising that they’d get married when he came back. Unfortunately, Wol Shim was selected as the sole Catholic to be sacrificed in order to stop their secret religious gatherings, and Yi Sun came back too late – she’d already been slain down. In a fit of uncontrolled rage he then slaughtered everyone who was gathered at the sacrifice, everyone who let her die and betrayed them, including himself in the end. Needless to say, Do Hee is Wol Shim’s reincarnation.
So yeah, they created an entire backstory to tie Goo Won and Do Hee’s past lives together, creating an additional reason for why his powers transferred to her: Yi Sun gave Wol Shim his necklace with a cross on it before he left (his tattoo is the exact image of that specific cross).
While the past life backstory was touching and all, I do have some remarks about it. For one, I found the timing in which it was presented in the story a bit odd. At the time that it was revealed, the main storyline was in full throttle and there were some serious developments in the Noh family politics. I believe either Do Kyung had just turned himself in and taken the blame for his dad’s deeds or he’d just killed himself – in any case I remember just being really invested in the main story at that point, and then when the past life flashback episode came in I just couldn’t really care about it all that much. I was like, “okay sure, this explains their special bond I guess, but honestly I just want to know what’s happening with Seok Min and Do Kyung right now!”
Secondly, I actually had already made peace with my own interpretation of why the tattoo transferred, so the added past life explanation didn’t really seem that necessary to me. I just thought that the reason Goo Won’s powers transferred to Do Hee in the first place was because he’d lost consciousness, and she was the first living presence that came near him – his powers must have just settled in the first living body they came in contact with. After all, that’s what happened when his powers returned as well: Do Hee was unconscious, Goo Won touched her while still being conscious, and his powers returned to him. I just assumed it had happened like that, that his powers just transferred to the nearest person after the original owner lost consciousness or passed away. God herself even told Goo Won that he’d only get his powers back once Do Hee would die, because then the powers would return to their original owner. I thought that was a simple enough theory to explain the mystery of the transferred tattoo. But through the past life backstory, they added a whole other layer to that connection, and tied it to the memory of that cross-necklace they’d interchanged as Yi Sun and Wol Shim. Like, I get that they wanted to include the story of how Goo Won became a demon, but honestly in the grand scale of everything that was going on, the whole added story of their shared past lives just didn’t seem that significant to me. Even after Do Hee remembered her own past life as Wol Shim and we got to see the exact same flashbacks from her perspective, the only added element was that he came into her life at a moment when she was about to take her own life. The fact that he “saved” her in the first place was significant to the extent that it needed its whole own past life episode, I guess. Sorry, I don’t mean to sound salty and I don’t want to diminish the emotional weight of the past life backstory, because it was very touching and tragic, but while I was watching I couldn’t help but feel like it wasn’t as important to reveal all that information at that specific timing, when the developments in the main storyline were way more pressing and interesting to me. I honestly wouldn’t have minded if it had remained ambiguous how exactly Goo Won became a demon, or that we’d only hear a summary of what went down that drove him to become one. Just like with Crash Landing on You, there didn’t really need to be a destiny element in it for me to justify the special bond between the two leads.
The only aspect from the past life story that impacted the present story was that it just made it all the more wry for Ga Young. She’d started sword dancing to draw Goo Won’s attention, as she’d seen him looking at the big painting of sword dancing maidens in the main hall of the theatre with a strange longing in his eyes. In her attempts to get him to notice her, she only ever kept reminding him of his first love, and consequently Do Hee. Ga Young really never stood a chance, which was kind of sad for her.
I actually really liked Ga Young’s character. She was the faithful companion who got attached to the person who saved her, who in turn never looked back at her. She developed a serious grudge against Do Hee, and even ended up misleading Seok Hoon by convincing him that Do Hee was in serious danger with Goo Won by her side. All she wanted was Do Hee gone so she could have Goo Won to herself again and she didn’t even care what would happen to Do Hee. Coming face to face with her own dark side, Ga Young eventually redeemed herself by making up with Do Hee and choosing her own path abroad, away from Goo Won. She may have been a bit crazy in the beginning, but I never thought of her as a bad person. On the contrary, I think it was very cool of her to stand behind her own decisions, saying, “This is who I am” and even admit that she’d do the same if she could go back in time because she was only ever following her own heart. Admittedly, not owning up to the damage you’ve done and just hiding behind your actions saying, “This is who I am” can be problematic, but in Ga Young’s case I didn’t feel any real spitefulness. I mean, the ending in which she saves a little girl from her abusive father and decides to stay in Korea just to be her personal “angel” was so wholesome. She really matured and became a better person in her own way throughout the story.
While Secretary Park is mainly a comical character in the show, I really liked him as Goo Won’s faithful assistant and sidekick. Despite his ties to Goo Won he was still his own person with his own life running the preparations for Ga Young’s shows etc., and I really liked how loyal and kind he was. He knew that what Goo Won was doing was very immoral, but he kept believing in his good nature and encouraged every little sign of compassion and kindness that grew in him after meeting Do Hee.
I think we can all agree I’m a ten amongst these threes that it was very obvious from the start that they were going to push the two secretaries together. The deal was basically sealed in the scene where Ms. Shin got drunk and started complimenting Bok Gyu on his character as he was trying to take her home. Their dynamic was quite endearing as well, they had a typical golden retriever versus black cat vibe going on. Bok Gyu was super excited and giddy, and while Da Jung felt the same, her stoic nature initially stood in the way of her giving in to it, especially with onlookers.
While I’m all for fun and games in K-Dramas, the fact that they kept going out of their way to hide that they were together from the Mirae F&B team did become a little excessive at some point. Like, I get that Ms. Shin valued her privacy, but she shouldn’t have had to pretend like they weren’t together. I didn’t even think the team would care about it that much if they found out, it wouldn’t be such a big deal and their attempts to hide it would have been completely unnecessary. And that’s exactly what happened. Although it was a big step of Ms. Shin to come clean to her co-workers and be like, “We’re dating!” and I applauded her for stepping out of her comfort zone, as I expected the team didn’t even blink an eye and was like, “So you’re finally confirming it, huh”. Like, I like comical filler scenes as long as they make sense, and this just became a bit too slapsticky for me in the end. Still, they were really sweet together. I especially loved the moment they shared when Ms. Shin had spoken from her heart to Do Hee after Goo Won disappeared the first time and she came out and Bok Gyu was waiting for her and she just looked at him so lovingly and leaned her head against his chest as if she was about to cry. That was a really sweet and intimate moment. I think the reason I liked seeing them like that was because it was the first time they shared a genuine moment and it wasn’t made comical by them having to hide or pretend they were arguing in order to avoid suspicion.
I’d like to add that I thought Ms. Shin was a very interesting character, especially as Do Hee’s secretary. She used to work for Madam Joo for a long time. In the beginning, back when I didn’t even trust Seok Hoon, I was also wondering whether Ms. Shin was to be trusted. I think that had to do with that time in the first episode when she didn’t insist on taking Do Hee home, and that’s when Do Hee first got assaulted by the masked killer, who had disguised himself as her designated driver. It was almost like Ms. Shin knew something was going to happen. In the beginning her stoic personality made it a bit hard to determine how she really felt about Do Hee, but it gradually became more obvious that she really cared about her wellbeing, and she ended up worrying about her and taking care of her a lot. I think Ms. Shin and Do Hee were a really nice and fun team together, although they continuously kept their relationship professional. The part where they got drunk together and then got all embarrassed facing each other at work the next day was really amusing.
Within Do Hee’s team at Mirae F&B, there were three colleagues who were basically a comic relief trio throughout the story, and they were always the people that Ms. Shin and Bok Gyu were trying to avoid. The trio consists of Han Min Soo (Park Jin Woo), Lee Han Sung (Hong Jin Ki) and Choi Jung Mi (Lee Ji Won). I liked how Ms. Choi had this thing with her tarot cards that allowed her to become useful to both Do Hee and Goo Won at some point when they wanted insight in their future. They were always together, the three of them, going on team dinners and hanging out – apparently none of them had a social life with people outside of work, lol. It was also funny how they were basically the people responsible for promoting the product placement. The product placement in this show was again very obvious, there was this type of drink in different primary colors that everyone in the office was always drinking and that they were allegedly producing at Mirae F&B, and there was the Kopiko chocolate snack. Whenever a character in the show drank or ate some of these things, it was always followed by a sentence like, “Wow, that really wakes me up!” or “Wow, I feel so refreshed/energized now!” which was kind of typical. Anyways, it was nice to have some uncomplicated side characters that kept popping up in-between all the drama.
I’ve gone through the Sunwol and Mirae Group side characters now, so I’d like to go back to the Noh family for a bit. Honestly, when the family members were initially introduced in the first episode during the family photoshoot with Madam Joo, I found it very chaotic and hard to follow who was who and how everyone was related. It actually took me a couple of episodes to figure out that Do Kyung was Seok Min’s son, and not some other younger brother. This was because none of them seemed particularly familial or even genuinely friendly with one another. Seok Min and Do Kyung didn’t act like a father and son at all, in my opinion. What gave me a much clearer introduction to the family members and a glimpse into their true colors was a sequence at the end of the second episode. Shots of Ga Young dancing with her swords were interchanged with short sequences of each family member, including Seok Hoon, expressing a certain darkness, either through their expression or otherwise. This is why I didn’t even dare to trust Seok Hoon in the beginning, I felt like everyone had some ulterior motive or unspoken secret that set them against Do Hee. Seok Hoon could’ve just as well pretended to be on Do Hee’s side to get to the chairman position as well, who knew! We’ve seen this kind of betrayal before, for example in Café Minamdang🤷🏻♀️. Anyways, despite my initial distrust, Seok Hoon turned out to be the greatest oppa to Do Hee. I was opposed to a potential romance between them from the start simply because I felt like he was way too old for her (there’s an 8-year difference between the two actors). Honestly, the marriage proposal kind of threw me off (ngl, that whole scene with him and Goo Won both reaching out their hand to Do Hee on the balcony was kind of cringy 😅), but I did like that he didn’t give up in terms of showing how much Do Hee meant to him. He kept acting like a protective older brother to her until the end, and I also liked how his relationship with Goo Won improved into a subtle bromance, lol. To think he was initially establishing theories on how Goo Won was a vampire, and how Goo Won was offended by that, haha. It was a really nice gesture of Goo Won to heal Seok Hoon’s broken arm, and after that they got on good terms. I even briefly thought they were going to push Seok Hoon and Ga Young together, as they were both the “rejected” love rivals and some series tend to do that, but I think it was for the better that they didn’t. Not everyone needs to be involved with each other, lol. But yeah, Seok Hoon was a really compassionate character who, again despite my initial suspicions, wasn’t aware of any of Seok Min’s devilry.
It seems like we have now come to the villain of the story. I liked the implied notion that, while Goo Won was a demon, Seok Min turned out to be the actual Devil in the story. I think it was powerful to first show how intimidating he was by the way he manipulated the people around him, how he threatened and bribed people before his true colors of being an abuser and killer were revealed. The revelation that Seok Min was the one who’d orchestrated all the attacks on Do Hee and instructed the masked killer didn’t come as a big surprise. We’d seen glimpses of the mysterious “Abraxas” whose orders the masked man was following opening and shutting a lighter, which was a habit of Seok Min. From what I gathered in the end, Madam Joo used to be quite a relentless business lady with a lot of dark deeds to her name. However, after she adopted Do Hee, she suddenly started redeeming herself and even started praying and confessing her sins in church in order to go to Heaven. It seemed like this new version of his mother threw Seok Min off, as he’d grown up in her example and had developed quite a twisted personality. I do feel like his reasons for harming Do Hee (and consequently Goo Won) escalated throughout the developments in the story until they didn’t really make sense anymore and he just wanted them gone because they’d made sure everything was taken away from him. Despite the fact that he had Goo Won’s Demon manual, there wasn’t anything he could do with it because he didn’t have powers himself, so I didn’t really see how that contributed to anything except the fact that he knew Goo Won wouldn’t be able to kill him without bursting into flames. Seok Min was a typical sociopath that seemed like a very calm and collected gentleman but was an extremely manipulative, stone cold man. He didn’t care even care about his family, he dominated his household and abused his wife and son until they were too scared to stand up against him. Everything to secure total power, both over his family and Mirae Group, everything to make sure no one was around to oppose him, ever.
There were definitely some things that I would’ve liked explained in a bit more detail. For starters, I would’ve liked more information on the relationship between Madam Joo and Seok Min. What kind of things had Madam Joo done, and did Seok Min truly grow up admiring that side of her? Why did he feel the need to record the conversation between her and Do Hee’s parents on the night of their accident? Was he already creating leverage on her? But why, if that was the side of his mother that he wished had remained? When he was shouting at Do Hee in their confrontation that his mother became soft because of her, it seemed like he didn’t like the effect Do Hee had had on his mother. It’s still a bit confusing to me what exactly his intentions were, with everything he did. I mean, he ended up killing his own mother himself in the end, by tampering with her medication. In any case, Seok Min’s greed for Mirae Group seemed to gradually escalate from bad to worse, and in the end it didn’t even seem like it was just about the chairman position anymore. He even freed a freaking homicidal maniac from prison to send him after Do Hee, so surely it had to be more personal than that.
Speaking of the masked killer dude, maybe this is as good a moment as any to introduce him. Before we actually find out who he is, we are shown glimpses of this guy that show that he is the one that’s after Do Hee. His name is revealed to be Gi Kwang Chul (played by Kim Seol Jin) and before we even learn that he’s set up by Seok Min, it seemed like he was just your average maniac. He seemed to be living in the dressing room of some abandoned old theater, and he had a lot of different masks hanging around. He also had a lot of pictures of Do Hee pinned to the wall and he seemed to be kind of obsessed with (killing) her, seen from the way he kept looking at those pictures. He definitely had some screws loose, he kept dancing around the dressing room as if in a trance, and when he got to Do Hee he was clearly enjoying it. So yeah, it seemed like he was just some killer who happened to have it out for her. Still, especially after finding out that he’s under the instructions of Seok Min, I found it hard to believe he didn’t also have some sort of personal connection to Do Hee. From the way he was interacting with those pictures and the lengths he went to hit her in the most personal way? I mean, he broke into her house and Goo Won’s office, he stole Goo Won’s Demon manual to pass it on to Seok Min, he snuck into all these places Do Hee went, he even went so far as to stab Goo Won in the heart so he wouldn’t be able to protect her anymore – I found it hard to believe it was just another assassination job with no strings attached. And it became all the more confusing when we did get the confirmation that it had been Seok Min all along, and Seok Min burned him to a crisp inside the dressing room. Was that just because Kwang Chul had told him Goo Won had seen his face? It still seemed a quite drastic measure to close him inside a room and set it on fire. Apart from one mention of that he freed him from prison, we don’t get any more information about the relationship between Seok Min and Kwang Chul. I thought that was kind of disappointing, because Kwang Chul was definitely a very scary villain and I was actually interested in learning more about who he was and where he came from. It was like they introduced this super intimidating and capable antagonist, and then just killed him off without revealing any further information about him apart from that he’d been a repeating offender. Like, this guy was able to get into every single place unnoticed, he just dressed up as a security guard or a construction worker and that was it. He even snuck into Do Hee’s house and put on a record while she was in the next room, not suspecting a thing. Like, this guy had mad scary skills. He literally dangled Do Hee from her own balcony and whistled and giggled while cutting the sheets that tied her one by one. This was no ordinary assassin, it really seemed personal, also with all the pictures he had of her. I just thought he’d have some sort of connection to her, or at least one personal reason why he’d go that far. But none of that was explained, only that Seok Min had been instructing him, and then he was killed by Seok Min because Goo Won had seen his face, at least that’s what was suggested. In my opinion, his character definitely deserved more closure than that.
In the whole scheme of things that were going on in the Noh family, there is one more thing that still isn’t clear to me: to what extent was Do Kyung involved in all of this? Do Kyung was receiving the same texts from Kwang Chul on his phone as his dad. This could mean that he was either the mastermind himself, or that he was simply in CC as his dad’s accomplice. But then it was revealed that he actually synched his dad’s phone with a separate mobile phone to keep track of his correspondence with Kwang Chul. In other words, Do Kyung knew what his father was up to, and it seemed like he was keeping tabs on his activities, but he didn’t actually do anything about it. He seemed just as spiteful towards Do Hee as his father, so initially I just assumed he and his dad were in it together. When it was revealed that Do Kyung was severely abused by his dad, I was seriously disturbed. The parts that were revealed about what was going on in that family were really messed up. I’m still kind of bummed out about the fact that Do Kyung never got to speak his truth. I don’t know what he was trying to do keeping tabs on his dad, because he kept taking the abuse and also kept doing filthy jobs for him. I don’t even know if him running into Do Hee in that gasoline station shop with his car was under the orders of his dad or just because he was losing his mind. At that point it was clear where he got the psychotic tendencies from, so it could’ve been either one of those explanations. In hindsight, I find it a pity that they never revealed Do Kyung’s true intentions and plans. While I was properly creeped out by him in the beginning, I actually developed some serious compassion for Do Kyung after he hung himself. That final talk he had with his mom where she actually told him he had himself to blame for the abuse and that he should’ve just obeyed his father like she had really rubbed me the wrong way. I couldn’t blame Do Kyung for telling her she was just as bad as his dad. As much as I empathized with Se Ra in the sense that she was stuck in an abusive marriage and only kept obeying her husband because she was terrified of him and was just trying to survive, she should not have spoken to her son like that when he was actually trying to protect her and make a difference. Seeing how messed up Do Kyung was by the time of their last talk, it didn’t come as a big surprise that that made him snap. It just really stung that he’d endured all that in order to protect his mother, and she turned on him like that, guilt-tripping him for bringing it on himself. Despite the fact that she came around in the end and even started a charity for child victims of domestic violence, I just couldn’t find it in myself to truly forgive her because she still put on freaking headphones with nature sounds to dampen her son’s screams. Do Kyung became so messed up because of both his parents and he never got the chance to tell his side of the story. That’s what I found the biggest pity in the end, the revelation that Do Kyung was a victim of the Noh family as much as Do Hee was, and the fact that he never got his redemption and justice. I was actually disappointed when he hung himself. I understand why he did it, but it was frustrating because I had hoped that he’d at least be able to tell his full truth about how he was actually innocent and had been trying to expose his dad. Honestly, I still have so many questions about Do Kyung, there was so much left unexplained about how his father was using him for his dirty work and how he truly felt about everything his father made him do. With the tapping of his dad’s phone it almost seemed like he may have been gathering evidence on him, just like his mom. Why didn’t they work together in that case? If Do Kyung had known that his mother was trying to do the same, maybe they wouldn’t have ended up like this, blaming each other for both trying to deal with the situation in different ways. Even if their combined attempts didn’t lead to anything, two people would’ve been stronger than one, and they at least would’ve had each other’s backs.
As I said, the fact that Se Ra ultimately turned her husband in and devoted herself to a charity for child victims of domestic violence was a nice gesture, but it honestly didn’t redeem her for me. The way she told Do Kyung how this was all his own fault, in combination with the sweet flashback of the two of them at the end was just too wry. No matter how scared you are, knowingly turning a blind eye to abuse – and especially the abuse of your own child! – without even trying to step in can be seen as equally bad as executing the abuse itself. Again, I understand she was terrified, and let’s not forget she was also getting abused herself, but she really shouldn’t have told her son that it was his own fault and that he should’ve just taken it quietly like she did. That was the last thing Do Kyung needed to hear at that point. Losing her son like that was the final push it took for her to realize that she really did need to step up against her husband. Seeing Seok Min cry those fake crocodile tears at his son’s funeral knowing he didn’t even care at all was probably the final drop for her.
Apart from the tragedy that was the Noh family, there was also Soo An. The way Soo An was depicted also seemed to lean more towards a comical type of character, because she was the most outrageously dramatic out of all of them. Of all the family members Do Hee had to face, Soo An was the least intimidating. Starting from the fact that she was a hysterical mess and her reactions to every single unfortunate and tragic event that happened in the family were quite exaggerated, it was probably best that she was left out of it. I thought it was a bit tricky to have a character like her in-between the crossfire of the Noh family, because she basically became the most oblivious family member of them all. It seemed like she was behind on all the developments as well. When Do Kyung hanged himself, and everyone was in shock and/or grieving (or pretending to), she came bursting in to yell about how Do Kyung had allegedly killed her mother, which was literally last episode’s news. It made it a bit hard to take her seriously at times, with her overly fancy getups and overdramatic responses to everything. The only scene that genuinely touched me was when she was completely paralyzed by the news that Seok Min had been responsible for everything, and she actually forgot to yell at her two boys, and they came up to hug her. That was a really sweet moment. Apart from that, it just seemed like she was written as a character that shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Even the fact that she named her boys Austin and Justin, resulting in her constantly yelling their names in a comical fashion was enough to proof that. While I didn’t mind that she wasn’t as evil as Seok Min, I didn’t really know what to think of her being portrayed so comically, because she would’ve been a really easy target should she have gone against Seok Min – I’m a 100% positive that he wouldn’t have spared her either. In any case, I did like that in the end she made up with Do Hee. It was funny that she buttered Seok Hoon up with the exact same words as she used for Do Hee, and Do Hee was like, “You need to find some new words”, lol. I really loved that Seok Hoon ultimately became the new chairman, and also Do Hee’s reasoning for why she didn’t come back for the position after Seok Min was gone. After all her screaming about Do Hee potentially becoming the chairman, it was nice that Soo An ultimately did accept Seok Hoon as the new chairman, and that she made peace with the knowledge that at least her boys would be able to succeed the company in the next generation.
One last character that I need to discuss before I’ll go on to my critical discussion of specific scenes and storylines is God. After crossing paths with a homeless lady a couple of times, Goo Won realizes that she must be some sort of deity, because she seems to know exactly what’s going on with him. It ultimately leads to the revelation that she is God (played by Cha Chung Hwa). While she uses a perception filter to get into fancy cafés and gambling places, through Goo Won’s eyes she always looks like a homeless person. Apparently, she’s the one who made him into a demon and bestowed his demon work on him because she “needed a worker on Earth”. She’s also the one who tells him that Do Hee has to die for his powers to return, and she watches the choices he makes to protect Do Hee with dismay. Although she keeps claiming that she doesn’t feel any emotional attachment to humans, she still brings Goo Won back to Do Hee in the end after he sacrifices himself for her. I thought it was an interesting choice to depict God in this way, also because she definitely didn’t have all the knowledge or power to do literally everything. There was something very mysterious about her, despite her comical demeanor. I found her an interesting character.
Now that I’ve gone through all of the most important characters, I’d like to discuss some points that form my main criticism on this series. All in all, I felt like things started getting a little wobbly from the second half on. The acting became a bit overdramatic here and there, there was an increase in very intense events that were almost immediately debunked or nullified, and there were some inconsistencies and ambiguities that I would’ve liked clearer answers to.
First of all I want to establish that I understand that, when teasing certain flashbacks, the writers didn’t want to give away all the information yet. Still, I found that there was a lack of consistency in some teased flashbacks that could’ve been avoided. For example, in the scene where the deal is revealed that Do Hee’s father made with Goo Won. When that flashback is first teased, Do Hee’s dad is shown crawling over the ground all bloodied by himself, as if he was trying to get away from something he got involved in. In the actual flashback, he wasn’t crawling over the floor by himself, but he was on the ground together with his very pregnant wife who took a bad fall. He was looking around yelling for help, and that’s when Goo Won came to him. The setting was just very different from what had been teased in the initial flashback. Again, I get that they didn’t want to give away anything that might suggest something had happened to Do Hee’s mom yet, but they could’ve still showed her lying next to him and it would’ve still been a mystery what was going on. Also, it was very predictable that Do Hee’s father’s wish would’ve had something to do with Do Hee. His deal was made around the time she was born (since the contract ended when she would just turn eleven), and it had already been mentioned that Do Hee’s parents had her quite late in life, so it was possible that there might have been complications around her birth. Of course I’d never expected yet another major dramatic flashback scene where her parents had to look for hospitals on foot after first getting into an accident and then being turned away by the first hospital – that was another additional dramatic scene right at the end that felt a little excessive to me, to be honest. Anyways, the inconsistency in the flashbacks wasn’t really necessary in my opinion, they could’ve just shown the same scene and kept it vague.
To name some more examples of dramatic scenes that only ended up causing shock value because they were almost immediately debunked or nullified, there was the scene where Do Kyung ran into Do Hee with his car whilst at the gasoline station shop. The whole assault seemed very excessive in itself, with the explosion and the fire and everything, yet it was solved very easily and conveniently. Not only did they both make it out unscathed but Goo Won’s powers also somehow mysteriously returned. It just made you go like, “OH MY GOD” and then, five minutes later, “Oh nevermind, they’re fine”, and this was repeated a couple of times.
Goo Won breaks up with Do Hee under the dramatic notion of “I’ll disappear until she finds her happy ending without me”, but then still visits her every single night when she’s sleeping, puts her to bed and stays with her until the morning. That doesn’t look like letting go, man. He was even keeping an eye on her whilst she was out with her colleagues and stuff. It just made the whole situation feel like, why did you feel the need to break her heart and break up with her if you’re just gonna keep tabs on her from a distance?
One example that combines the inconsistency of flashbacks and the shock value element was the scene in which Goo Won got his memories of his past life back. The way the flashback is initially constructed, in combination with Goo Won’s shocked reaction to remembering it, makes it look like he was the one who killed Wol Shim himself. He literally mumbles, “I’m the one who killed you” and throws himself a holw guilt-trip pity party. When the whole flashback is revealed and we find out Wol Shim was sacrificed without him even being there, that honestly made me go like, “so, what, he wasn’t even there when she was killed?” Again, I get that they didn’t want to give away everything yet, but this just kept putting me on the wrong track time and time again, which became a bit tiring at some point.
The same went for the gradual step-by-step revelation of what really went down between Madam Joo and Do Hee’s parents. First it’s a just a thing of the past: Madam Joo had business relations with Do Hee’s dad, Do Hee’s parents passed away and Madam Joo took on the responsibility for Do Hee. Then suddenly it’s suggested that Madam Joo knew more about or actually had something to do with the accident. Then it’s revealed that while she was trying to get back at them, she didn’t personally kill them. And then it’s suddenly revealed that Goo Won was there at the crash site. The thing is, this was just an additional piece of information to fill in a backstory at the end of the main storyline, my head didn’t need all of this last minute angst when there were only two episodes of the show left.
I also felt this way about the revelation of Madam Joo’s pancreatic cancer. It just added another dramatic reason to the already established ones that Madam Joo had for wanting Do Hee to get married fast. This was literally revealed in the last episode, so it really didn’t matter anymore at that point. It was enough for me to know that Madam Joo was already in bad health, that she wanted Do Hee to get married before she ran out of time, and that she was murdered because her medication was tampered with. In a way this debunked her death in the same way as Do Hee’s father’s – they knew they were going to die anyway.
The sudden revelation that Goo Won was involved in at least Do Hee’s dad’s death and that he had been there at the crash site came as a surprise to me because, again, I wasn’t expecting any more dramatic revelations while approaching the end of the show. Additionally, while I get that Goo Won wouldn’t remember them because it had happened at a time when he couldn’t care less about the names and faces of the people he made deals with, he’d still actually come eye to eye with Madam Joo before, so I found it a bit odd that he didn’t even remember her. For someone with such a tight work procedure as him when it came to collecting people’s souls, he didn’t seem to be especially sharp about connecting dots with people he’d offered deals to. That kind of connected to how lax he was when it came to retrieving the Demon manual, and I found that a bit odd to be honest. You would’ve have thought he would be very on top of things and protective of anything that could be used against him.
One thing I also found odd was that Goo Won’s secretary suddenly just happened to find out everything about Goo Won’s past life at the exact moment that Goo Won remembered it himself. There was this whole mystery element of him not being able to remember how he became a demon, and then when he finally retrieves his memories Bok Gyu just somehow happens to be reading a scroll or article and goes, “Oh hey, I think I just found out everything about your past life, I can’t believe what you’ve been through!” The timing was way too convenient, as if they just wanted to create an easy way to make Bok Gyu suddenly aware of everything without having to include a scene in which Goo Won told him about it himself. I thought that was a bit of weird writing.
The most bizarre event, one that I still can make neither heads nor tails of, is the “death” of Seok Min. After Goo Won stops him from strangling Do Hee, Seok Min lets himself fall off a skyscraper with the maniacal last words, “I can still escape to Hell!”. The next day, it’s announced on the news that he committed suicide by jumping off a building. Except they haven’t found his body yet. That already made me go 🤨 because how can you already publicly broadcast what happened to someone if you don’t even have the body? Did someone see him fall and recognize him as he was falling or something? Like, it was clear that he was still alive because no body equals not dead in most cases, but why was it already broadcasted on the news like that? Also, how the heck did he manage to survive that fall? He’s not even limping when we get the confirmation that he’s indeed still alive.
The next confusion occurred when Do Hee visited the prosecutor on her case, who goes, “So, it’s been a week since Noh Seok Min jumped into the Han River.” The Han River?? Where did that suddenly come from?? As far as I could see there was no river at the bottom of that building! It was really confusing where this came from, and Do Hee also didn’t rebut it or anything. If the news was already broadcasting that he’d jumped from a building, where did that Han River story suddenly come from? Everything about his “death” was so inconsistent and confusing, I just couldn’t keep up.
I also didn’t understand why Seok Min went through the effort of burning half his face so “the Devil wouldn’t be able to find/recognize him” after he literally let himself fall screaming that he could always escape to Hell.
My biggest confusion occurred during the final confrontation between Seok Min and Do Hee, when he kidnaps her and reveals his “new face” to her. Goo Won comes in to save the day and basically buries Seok Min under a collapsing piece of rock. He removes it before it actually kills him, but Seok Min is depicted lying on the ground, coughing up blood and seemingly losing consciousness. Then, all of a sudden, he just comes walking around the corner with a shotgun. Honestly, that moment was kind of ridiculous. Yes, he was off screen, but you can’t tell me that he suddenly was able to get up unnoticed after being crushed and walk all the way around to get his shotgun and surprise them from the other side. I honestly thought someone else was coming through the door because the idea that it was Seok Min didn’t even occur to me. That turn of events was so confusing to me that it distracted me from the dramatic scene that followed, where Do Hee got shot and Goo Won saved her life, enabling his own spontaneous combustion. I still don’t get that part at all. At that point everything was crumbling down, from the ceiling to the logic of the occurring events.
The final example I’ll give relating to a shocking event that was debunked was the very final part where Goo Won was brought back by God. After the second-to-last episode, I was really curious what would happen. I had the feeling they’d probably bring him back somehow, but logically there wasn’t really a way to do that, because he’d broken the main Demon rule of bringing someone back from the dead. To have that entire Goblin-reminiscent dramatic scene of him disintegrating in Do Hee’s arms and depicting the paralysis that Do Hee was left in, only for God to then just go, “Nah, you know what, let me give you a Christmas miracle.” ??? I initially thought she made them go back in time, with the winding clocks and the fact that they ended up in the same spot where Do Hee first got his tattoo, but no, he was just suddenly back and all was good and well again. I mean, as I said I had expected that he would probably be brought back even though it wouldn’t really make sense, but I was still disappointed by the convenient way in which they made it happen. For me, it really debunked the effect of the super dramatic combustion scene. It also didn’t make sense to me that God would just suddenly become empathic towards a human being. She’d made such a deal about being merciless, she’d even encouraged Goo Won to let Do Hee die so he could get his powers back, and she seemed genuinely disappointed by his decision to sacrifice himself. So it was very odd for her to just go, “You know what, I’m in a good mood.” Like, everything combined, all the final dramatic revelations and flashbacks just ended up being unnecessary shock value things that the writers could’ve either solved differently or done without entirely, in my opinion.
Having mentioned these critical remarks, there were also a lot of things I liked and enjoyed about this series. I did have a good time watching it, but from the second half on things just started getting a bit excessive. I really felt like it wasn’t necessary to make every single backstory and revelation so dramatic, especially towards the end of the story. Honestly, I wouldn’t have minded if some things remained ambiguous, for example the details about Goo Won becoming a demon or the deal that Do Hee’s dad made. It felt like the events were clear enough for the viewer to fill them in mostly by themselves without revealing the actual details. Apart from that, there were some really beautiful and touching moments, even in the side stories. The scene where Goo Won went to make a deal with this old man who just wanted his ailing wife to remember him one last time actually brought a tear to my eye. It was just a short scene, and the elderly couple weren’t even recurring characters, but just that one scene when the wife was talking to the younger version of her husband – UGH. That was so heartwrenching. Moments like that, including the tender moments between for example Bok Gyu and Da Jung, proved that the writers really knew how to create a touching scene and story without too much dramatics around it. Just one strong connection between two people that didn’t need too many words to explain it. I really appreciated those kinds of scenes.
Since I want to end this review on a happy note, I just want to make mention of some final funny side characters that I really appreciated.
First of all, the guy that Do Hee was initially supposed to go on a blind date with when she met Goo Won. She meets him for another blind date when Goo Won is her bodyguard and honestly, this guy cracked me up. Choi Woo Sun (played by Lee Kang Wook) was depicted as a guy with a really lame sense of humor, but I honestly felt for him. When Goo Won actually got the lobster to claw him in the lip I genuinely felt sorry for the guy, like, that was just mean! I liked that he came back as Do Hee’s prosecutor and didn’t hold any resentment against her. It was nice that they made him return rather than just keep him as a one-episode guest actor. He deserved someone who appreciated him the way he was, lol.
I also really liked the police officers who kept trying to help Do Hee and Goo Won find the masked killer. In the end, the police weren’t really able to solve anything by themselves but they were good people on the right side. I liked how Officer Park Kyung Soo (played by Lim Chul Hyung) was kind of enamored by Goo Won and strived to be like him, lol. They were nice supporting characters.
Lastly, of course I can’t forget about the Wild Dogs — I mean the Perilla Leaves and Big Scallions! In the first episode, Goo Won collects the soul of a mob leader, and his gang initially keeps coming after Goo Won to get revenge on him for killing their boss, but they then change sides and become Goo Won’s personal mob. They reminded me of the gang from Strong Woman Do Bong Soon that started following Bong Soon around after she initially kicked their butts, lol. They were a comical bunch, and I especially liked their leader, “No. 2” (played by Jung Soon Won). These guys were just so immersed in their devotion to Goo Won, even though the demon himself hadn’t even asked for it. I loved how they ended up starting their own restaurant and how touched they were when Goo Won came to visit them in person. Just like with the Mirae F&B members, it was just nice to have them appear every once in a while for some uncomplicated comic relief. They were really funny, I liked them.
This review has taken me a lot longer than I planned, longer than a day at least, so let’s just get on with the cast comments and call it a night, shall we? On a general note, I really liked seeing so many familiar faces and also seeing some new sides to actors I thought I’d seen more than enough of. I liked the cast overall, and I’m excited to comment on the actors.
I am so freaking proud of Kim Yoo Jung. She’s one of those actresses that I’ve watched in dramas ever since she was a child actor and it feels like I’ve basically seen her grow up through those. The first show I ever saw her in was The Moon that Embraces the Sun, back when she still played younger versions of the female lead characters. In the meantime I’ve also seen her in Moonlight Drawn By Clouds, Clean With Passion For Now and Backstreet Rookie. There are still some dramas with her on my list. It was the first time for me to see her in a real adult role, a CEO even, and I was really impressed with how maturely she portrayed Do Hee. I was expecting to see the typical “deer in headlights” face during shocking or surprising scenes way more, but I was impressed by how she seemed to have developed her facial expressions. Her chemistry with Song Kang also seemed very natural. It was a very refreshing new side of her acting that caught me off guard in all the right ways. I’m glad she’s finally getting to show a more mature side of her acting and that she doesn’t just gets cast for teenage and student roles anymore. I think she did very well!
Song Kang also showed me a new side to his acting that I wasn’t expecting. After seeing him in Love Alarm and Nevertheless,, I thought the choice to cast him as a demon was very fitting since he has that devilish charm about him. Still, I was positively surprised that his character didn’t have that same toxic vibe around him. It was actually refreshing to see him in a bit of a caricature role with some comical aspects to him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him act comically at all before, actually, so that was a nice new side to discover of him. I knew that with the combination of him and Kim Yoo Jung, their kissing scenes wouldn’t leave much to be desired and I’m glad I was right. It’s just nice to have a main couple that you know won’t be disappointing in terms of displaying chemistry. All in all I think he did a very good job, I’d love to see more unexpected sides to his acting!
I’ve officially dubbed Kim Hae Sook the Korean equivalent of Dame Judi Dench. I always love her performances, she’s such a treasure in anything she plays a part. I loved that, even after her character passed away quite early on in the show, she still remained an important and consistent character through all the flashbacks. She really lived on, and I loved how she sometimes just appeared next to Do Hee as a comforting presence when she needed her support. I’m glad we still got to see Madam Joo’s story unfold even after she was gone. I’ve seen Kim Hae Sook before in a bunch of shows like I Hear Your Voice, Pinocchio, About Time, Room No. 9 and Start-Up, and I hope to keep seeing much more of her. She always seems to have such good acting chemistry with her co-stars, I also really loved her scenes with young Do Hee and how that girl gradually brought a loving smile to her face. She was impeccable, as always.
I didn’t know Lee Sang Yi was in this when I started watching, so he was another friendly familiar face to see. As I mentioned in my review, I initially didn’t trust him, but I’m glad Do Hee at least had a couple of allies around her. Without Seok Hoon’s support, she would’ve probably been in even bigger trouble. I was curious to what lengths he would be willing to go for her and if he would really become a love rival, but I’m glad that he didn’t become pitiful after being rejected and the fact that he actually put in effort to become friendly with Goo Won also supported his good nature. He was the embodiment of “if you love her, let her go and support her happiness even if it isn’t with you”. It was also a nice development that he became the new chairman at the end, I don’t think anyone would have foreseen that (certainly not Seok Min). It was nice to see him mature in his own way and be his own person as well. I’ve seen Lee Sang Yi before in a couple of shows, like The Third Charm and Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha. Apparently he also appeared in Manhole and Andante, but these are too long ago for me to remember him from. In any case, I didn’t feel like I saw a whole new side of his acting per se, but I don’t think I’ve actually seen him react to such dramatic scenes before, so it was refreshing to at least see variety in his emotional range. He still seems to be stuck in second male lead roles though, so I hope he’ll get the chance to show more and more of his acting skills. I have no doubt I’ll see him pop up again in more dramas on my list, so I’m excited to see him depict more different roles.
First of all, I just want to say that Jo Hye Joo is freaking gorgeous. She has a really characteristic face and somehow her gaze really pulled me in. She’s one of the few actors in this show that I didn’t know, but she definitely made an impression. As I mentioned in my comments on Ga Young’s character, I really liked how real she was. She stood behind her own choices, even if she ended up feeling stupid about them, but she always owned up to what she did, unapologetically. I loved that she was way more than what Goo Won treated her as, she was way more than a former DV-victim or a rejected second female lead, and it was really powerful of her to embrace that and choose her own path in the end. It really made me root for her and I didn’t expect to do so when I was introduced to her, so that was a nice unexpected development. I’m really excited to see her appear in more shows and different roles. I think she did a really good job showing a variety of expressions and emotions, and her character was established very well. Can’t wait to see more of her!
I could’ve sworn I’d seen more of Heo Jung Do, but I guess I just remember him most clearly from Rookie Historian Goo Hae Ryung, Something in the Rain and Crash Course in Romance since it hasn’t been that long since I watched those. He was also in W – Two Worlds, but that’s too long ago for me to remember and I probably didn’t register him as much back then since I didn’t recognize him yet. I’ll probably see him appear more often in the dramas that are still on my list. In any case, he was another familiar face and I really liked how he portrayed Park Bok Gyu. He was a really comforting and supporting ally to Goo Won, and all in all a good guy. I couldn’t help but think he really deserved someone like Ms. Shin, who would take note of his loyal, good and sweet nature. Although he sometimes did get a little bit slapsticky, it didn’t bother me because the actor still managed to put on a very enjoyable performance.
I will keep saying it: Seo Jung Yeon is one of my favorite middle-aged Korean actresses. No matter what kind of role she plays, she always manages to nail it, and a drama in which she plays a role I’ve already seen of her has yet to appear. The same went for this show, even though she’s such a familiar face she always manages to show a side of her that I haven’t seen before. I found Ms. Shin such an interesting character, with her stoic exterior that hid a very giddy girly heart. I’ve seen her in so many shows, like Valid Love, She Was Pretty, Descendents of the Sun, Moonlight Drawn by Clouds, Bride of the Water God, Something in the Rain, Come and Hug Me (probably still my favorite role of hers), Melting Me Softly, The King: Eternal Monarch, Run On, Nevertheless, (where she actually played Song Kang’s mom), Dali and the Cocky Prince, Our Beloved Summer, and there are still a bunch of her dramas on my to-watch list. I’m always happy to see her and I will always give her a shoutout, even if she just makes a guest appearance.
Moving on to the Noh family members, this was actually the first time I’ve ever seen Kim Tae Hoon play a bad guy. I’ve always associated him with nice fatherly roles, so his character in this show definitely burst that bubble. I’ve seen him before in Hidden Identity, Fantastic, Lookout and Persona. It had been a while since I saw him in a drama as well, so that in combination with the unexpected casting choice was kind of exciting. His usually bright smile suddenly got a very different vibe to it, haha. Apart from the aspects that I mentioned that made me really confused about the way he escalated in the end, I think he did a really great job portraying a sociopath. I hadn’t seen him wear these expressions before, so that was cool. I guess he’s still appearing in dramas regularly, so I’ll probably come across him again some time. In any case, it was nice to see this new side of his acting, he made a very intimidating villain.
Speaking of intimidating villains, Kim Seol Jin really knocked it out of the park with his creepy portrayal of Gi Kwang Chul. From the few dramas he’s appeared in so far I’ve only watched Arthdal Chronicles, but I don’t remember him from there. Still, he looked familiar. Anyways, he created a very scary character and as I mentioned in my review, I was actually a bit disappointed that he was just offed by Seok Min like that. As creepy as he was, I still wanted to know more about him and why he did what he did. What did Seok Min have on him, and why was he so passionate about killing Do Hee in the most personal way? I initially expected him to last much longer because he made such a perfect killer character, even if he was just under the instructions of Seok Min. His character and performance actually left me wanting for more, and that doesn’t happen a lot with serial killer characters. He did a really good job.
I want to give a very big shoutout to Kang Seung Ho for his portrayal of Noh Do Kyung. I hadn’t seen him in anything before and apparently he only has four drama projects to his name as of now. I really hope he’ll get the chance to act more because his performance in this show was actually my favorite, in hindsight. He managed to give such a compelling and haunting performance of Do Kyung, and it stuck with me until the end. Even though he genuinely creeped me out at first, I was actually very sad when his character passed away, because it was just when they’d revealed his abuse and how seriously messed up he was because of his dad. I’m still disappointed that they didn’t give more insight in Do Kyung’s intentions and if he really hated Do Hee or not. They were around the same age as far as I’m aware, so they might have actually gotten along if their family hadn’t been like this. I don’t know, something about Do Kyung and the way Kang Seung Ho portrayed him just stuck with me, and it doesn’t often happen that an actor I don’t know is able to touch me like that. I found his performance really impressive and I hope to see more of him in the future!
I hadn’t seen Jo Yeon Hee in anything before either, but she still seemed familiar to me. Or maybe she just reminded me of many a daughter-in-law in a rich K-Drama family. I appreciated the writers at least gave her some personality and backbone, and I always try to keep in mind that it’s all the more challenging for an actor to portray a character who makes bad decisions. I wish I could have seen more of the bond between Do Kyung and his mother, because we really only got that final flashback after Do Kyung had already died that suggested that they were on good terms and cared about each other. If that had been revealed a bit earlier, or if there had been more talks between mother and son than just the final one in prison, I would’ve gotten a better feel of their bond. Now it kind of came as a surprise that they even really cared about one another at all. I think the actress did a good enough job still, and my main issues of course have to do with the writing more than with her performance, so I’ll keep that separate. In any case, she was a new face to me and I wonder if I’ll see her pop up again somewhere.
Lee Yoon Ji is one of those actresses, along with for example Hwang Bo Ra, who just seem to have this urge to make every role they play funny. While there were definitely some scenes where I was impressed by her serious acting, it still seemed to me like she was making a bit of a caricature out of Soo An, and there were times where I felt like she could’ve toned down the comical aspect a little bit. Of course, her character was probably written this way, but I still think she could’ve been a bit more subtle with the comedy act sometimes. The first series I saw her in was Dream High (wayyy back) and after that I’ve also seen her in Revolutionary Love and The Third Charm, where I believe her character got cancer at some point, so that was also a bit more serious. She also had a guest role in Extraordinary Attorney Woo, although I don’t remember her from there clearly. In any case, she’s a familiar face and she’s been doing dramas for a very long time. I hope I’ll get to see more serious acting skills from her whenever I came across her again.
I remember Cha Chung Hwa most clearly from her role in Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha, but she also appeared in Shopping King Louie, Hotel del Luna, Crash Landing on You and Itaewon Class. I’ll definitely come across her again in my future watches. I thought she was a really cool casting choice for the character of God who disguised herself as a homeless person. I spotted one scene where they forgot to dirty her teeth, though 👀. Also, I noticed that on MDL she’s credited as “Noh Sook Nyeo” but I don’t remember her being referred to by that name (maybe by that waiter in the gambling bar?) and I also find it odd that she has the same family name as the Noh family, so I left it out of my review to avoid confusion. I initially didn’t expect her to be the God but at least some deity or something, because she definitely made some very specific and pointed remarks at Goo Won which suggested she was somehow part of his world. Apart from the uncharacteristic moment at the end where she just brought him back like that, I thought it was nice that, despite her casual demeanor, she actually didn’t care that much about human sentiment. Just because she was God it didn’t mean that she was willing to do anything for just everyone, and that made her character more powerful as well. I think Cha Chung Hwa did a really nice job of portraying such an eccentric character, because there have already been such different depictions of gods and deities in K-Dramas and it’s hard to stay original. I liked her performance, it was very refreshing in my opinion.
I just wanted to give a shoutout to Jung Soon Won, who played the second-in-command member of the Wild Dogs gang. I recognized him immediately as the guy who died first in The Silent Sea, so I was happy that he at least had more screentime here, lol. He apparently also appeared in Heartstrings, Tunnel and Fight for My Way, but I don’t remember him from those. In any case, I’m going to see him again in more dramas, and I can’t wait because I just like his face and way of acting, haha. Together with the other gang members he really went for his character and that energy was really nice to see. I hope to see him again in something else soon!
Just like with Seo Jung Yeon, I always, ALWAYS make a mention of Ahn Se Ha, even when he’s just a guest actor. I was so happy when he appeared in the flashback of Goo Won’s past life as his former servant – it made me hope we’d see him again in a reincarnation as well, but alas. In any case, Ahn Se Ha is one of those actors who just always delivers, even if he only appears in a single episode. His humor is always on point and he’s such a steady actor, I really love him. I just can’t not mention him whenever I review something he appears in. We stan Ahn Se Ha on this blog, Ahn Se Ha is the best.
All in all, I’d say it was an enjoyable watch, but I do understand the mixed reviews I’d heard in advance now. There were definitely some plotholes and inconsistencies here and there, and I just don’t like it when they make this super dramatic and shocking thing happen and then just take the entire effect away the very next moment. While I respect that they wanted to wrap up all the storylines and backstories by revealing the truth from start to finish, including Do Hee’s dad’s deal with Goo Won and Goo Won and Do Hee’s full past life history, the way they positioned these revelations in the story were a bit off to me and mostly just distracted from the main storyline, which was already very engaging in itself. It just ended up as a continuously piling up mountain of dramatic events that lasted until the very last episode. Apart from that, as I said I had a good time watching it, the acting and the chemistry between the actors was good and there were some really touching moments. I’m glad I watched it, and it was really nice to see a bunch of both new and familiar actors portray unexpected and impressive acting skills.
I’ll be going on holiday at the start of next month so I don’t know if I’ll get to watch and review another show before the end of September, but we’ll see about that. I’m very excited to find out what I’ll get to watch next!
Until next time!
Bye-bee! x
