My Girlfriend is a Gumiho 내 여자친구는 구미호 Review

My Girlfriend is a Gumiho 내 여자친구는 구미호 / My Girlfriend is a Nine-Tailed Fox

★★★★

The 2010 Korean drama, starring Lee Seung-Gi as Cha Dae-Woong and Shin Min-Ah as Gu Mi-Ho, known as either “My Girlfriend is a Gumiho” or “My Girlfriend is a Nine-Tailed Fox.”

Brief synopsis: Cha Dae-Woong is an irresponsible young man that accidentally frees a gumiho, or nine-tailed fox, from a painting in a Buddhist temple. The gumiho saves Dae-Woong’s life and follows him to Seoul, with a desire to become human as well. Dae-Woong and Mi-Ho commit to a plan to turn her human, but becoming human may prove more difficult than it appears.

This drama was pretty fun because the story was fairly organized and the acting was great! Because I’ve seen both lead actors in more recent dramas, it was interesting to watch them as their younger selves. They’ve definitely improved since “My Girlfriend is a Gumiho,” but they were good actors to begin with!

One of the more interesting aspects of this drama was that it drew a lot of parallels to Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale “The Little Mermaid,” some of those parallels drawn quite obviously. That fairytale is not quite the happy story that Disney would like to let us believe, but the same gist. She wants to become human, saves his life, and requires his help in order to become human. There is another character that provides the method for the transformation, but the transformation comes at a heavy price. The parallels are drawn all the way up into episode 12. Then that concept was figuratively thrown out the window. I liked this part where the characters took charge and decided that they would either live together or die together, not to let fate be determined for them by some force they didn’t know. It wasn’t quite the climax of the story, wherein the goal is either failed or achieved, but it’s probably my favorite part of the whole drama! It’s a lesson to get out there and change your own fate rather than getting dragged along by it.

There were some things about “My Girlfriend is a Gumiho” that gave me a bit of confusion. By the end, I still wasn’t sure if Park Dong-Joo was a good-guy secondary character or an antagonist. It wasn’t really clear. He kept trying to break up Mi-Ho’s and Dae-Woong’s relationship, but he had all these good intentions. He kept too many secrets from Mi-Ho, but told Dae-Woong all the secrets Mi-Ho didn’t tell Dae-Woong and about the solar eclipse in the final episode, which ushered in the happy ending. I don’t think Dong-Joo’s character was really good for the drama because we didn’t know that much about him, his goals, or his motivation. It seemed he was just there to draw attention away from Dae-Woong, but I think he had more unrealized potential. In the final episode, an elderly woman is introduced that we understand by implication to be the Sam Shin Grandmother who was responsible for putting Mi-Ho in the painting in the first place. I think we also could have seen a bigger role from her and in the ending.

One of the other exciting things for me in this drama was the unexpected cameos from Park Shin-Hye and Lee Hong-Ki, both in their characters from one of my favorite dramas ever, “You’re Beautiful” (which was aired the year before). I almost wish all of A.N.JELL was hiding somewhere in drama, but I was excited and surprised to see those two again! 

I think this drama could have been better in a lot of ways, but it was still well-executed. I didn’t get very emotionally involved, but it didn’t change that it was good drama with a cool concept and good acting. It also provides a lot of date ideas for couples! Bonus!