K-Drama Love: A Korean Odyssey

Original Source

One of my best friends has been crazy for K-Dramas since I can remember. She always suggested me to watch one of them, but for a reason or another I never did it. Then last week I was home alone, the weather was nasty and I was bored, so I switched on Netflix. One of the suggested TV Shows popping on my home screen was A Korean Odyssey; I texted my friend asking if it was a nice show, and she replied straight away saying it was awesome. I decided to give it a go, and lazily played the first episode. An hour and a half later, I was truly, madly, deeply in love.

I watched all of the 20 episodes in 4 days, signed the petition for Season 2, bought online the Son Oh-Gong stuffed animal and downloaded the TV show soundtrack, which I am listening to basically every day... so, did D-Dramas play its magic on me as well? Boy, yes it did!!

Original Source

So, lets start from the beginning.

As I said, A Korean Odyssey is a Korean Drama, which is to say, a TV Show set up in Korea, played by Korean actors. Unlike US or European TV Shows, K-Dramas tend to only have one season, and each episode is roughly 1.30h long. They are very romantic and sweet, and usually the main plot focuses on the main characters love story. The story can also be enriched by a touch of supernatural, which is the case of A Korean Odyssey (and the type of story I like the most), or a reality-based story set up nowadays.

They obviously display Korean habits, culture and language, which I found so interesting, knowing very little about the Country. For the same reason, love stories tend to be very romantic, in the sweetest meaning of the term: there is no vulgarity in K-Dramas, no sex scenes (if not very, very chaste and “covered”), no show off of boobs. So, if you're looking for a Game of Thrones-like TV show, this is not for you! But if you're a romantic person who wants to get lost in a lovely story, set in a culture so far away from us, but so fascinating, then please run on Netflix and play the pilot!

But now lets dig a bit deeper in A Korean Odyssey story.

The show is a modern interpretation of the famous Chinese novel of the 16^th century “Journey to the West”. It is set in Korea, nowadays. Seon-mi is a little girl who can see spirits. Evil spirits usually, which are very annoying and scary her. She always carry with her a yellow umbrella, with a talisman attached, to exorcise spirits. For her peculiarity, she's always put aside by her schoolmates, left alone and bullied.

Original Source

One day, as she walks alone, a spirit bothers her, and she can't get rid of it by herself. As she struggles, a mysterious man arrives, and vanishes the spirit with his own dark umbrella. Seon-mi is fascinated, and asks the man if maybe he is a fairy. He smiles, and says that yes, he is something similar to a fairy, and that he will swap his powerful dark umbrella with hers if she does something for him. Go in the wood and rescue a fan from a house that only human beings with special abilities can see. The little girl accepts, and she is warned by the mysterious man to not talk with anybody in the house.

The girl finds the house, finds the fan, and as she walks away she meets a boy. She tries to ignore him and not talk to him, but with a trick he manages to engage her in a conversation. He says his name is Son Oh-Gong, a very powerful being, trapped in that house. He asks the girl to free him, and in exchange for that favour, he will protect the girl from evil spirits and run to her every time she calls his name.

Son Oh-Gong is a pretty spiteful, mooded spirit though, and as soon as Seon-mi frees him, he steals from her the memory of his name, so that the girl will never be able to call him, and then disappears.

After 25 years, the fate of the three characters is entangled again. The mysterious man with the dark umbrella, whose name is Devil King, has become a famous enterpriser with a great talent show. His agency launches many beloved stars, singers, actors, models, most of which are spirits as well, like the piggy P.K. Son Oh-Gong is living with Devil King, and the two have a funny hateful/respectful relationship, giving birth to some funny gags.

Original Source

As Son Oh-Gong walks in the city one day, he sees a girl in a car waiting at the traffic light. This girl is the grown up Seon-mi, who now has her own estate agency. Seon-mi made of her ability a way to get a decent, legal life, and buys from the market all estates said to be hunted by evil spirits, exorcises them with her umbrella, frees the estate and then sells is for a higher price. Clever, is she?

Seon-mi recognises Son Oh-Gong too, and in shock, runs after him. The two of them have a bitter conversation, where Seon-mi accuses Oh-Gong to have fled their deal, and Oh-Gong says its not his fault if she can't remember his name, and that he doesn't want any annoyances.

Things get a bit more complicated when the spirits find out that Seon-mi is actually the reincarnation of Samjang, a powerful priestess whose blood can make a spirit a deity. Son Oh-Gong decides immediately to devour Seon-mi, and get back all the power the Spiritual World took away from him as a punishment. To prevent that, Seon-mi gets a bracelet that will bend Son Oh-Gong to her, making him believe he loves her. Despite being aware that his love is not real, but only a projection of the bracelet, Oh-Gong can't kill Seon-mi anyway, and forces himself to create an alliance, waiting for a way to remove the bracelet and devour Samjang, to get back his great power.

So why this show is so good?

On the first place, there are lots of gags, especially among the spirits (many more fantastic secondary characters will join during the show), usually related to their spiritual animal forms.

Then, the love story between the main characters is so, so sweet, and after the first episode you will already find yourself waiting badly for a kiss between them.

Also, the show has a good dose of action, and a hint (but very, very little) of horror, mostly in the first episodes, when Seon-mi exorcises a few evil spirits.

I absolutely suggest you to give it a try. Its on Netflix, it is just 20 episodes long, but you will fall for it after the pilot, I promise you. And won't stop singing “When I saw you” for many, many weeks to come!

M