The Witch (2025)

Let's keep it brief and spoiler-free - This isn't for everyone

I swear I expected nothing as I went into this and still got vastly disappointed. Until the end I wasn't sure if the drama even knew what it wanted to be - after finishing, I am almost sure it never wanted to know. Watching weekly, you couldn't know what you'd get, so we all had to speculate, only for some of us to be vastly let down. But now that it's aired, you won't have to guess, so here's what this really is:

1) It's slow paced. Very slow-paced. But slow pace can be nice too, right?
2) It's repetitive. While at first I figured it was for more details or atmosphere, I now have to conclude they either thought viewers are dumb or needed to fill screen time. If you can still enjoy something after seeing the same scene for the n-th time, you might not mind.
3) It's atmospheric and sad. If you like that, go ahead. But all the mystery and suspense is coming from the bad things you are anticipating to happen, not the actual mystery.
4) Said mystery as to why these things happen will never get solved. If from the description you expect to see a story where a guy uses statistics to find a realistic reason why things happen to a girl he knows, you will be so disappointed.
5) He uses statistics. But they (and the whole logic) are so damn faulty and flawed and pitted like swiss cheese, if you just use your brain once or know a bit about statistics, it will be hard not to notice. Will you mind? I can't tell, but it annoyed the hell out of me.
6) It's not a grand romance. In fact, ML is a big red flag for so many reasons - which, to be fair, the series notices itself to some extent- , and the romance only is included towards the end as the characters barely interact.
7) That, on the other hand, means the focus will be almost entirely on the main characters from various perspectives and times, so if you really like taking a deep dive into single character's lives, this might be for you - but don't stumble over all the plotholes.
8) If you don't like the first episodes, you might still like it towards the end, as the overall feeling, atmosphere and context change vastly. When it comes to showcasing just how life-changing the characters' research was for them, they actually did a great job. That being said, if you don't enjoy the middle or want something entirely logical, good luck hanging on. The last episodes did make up for some of my issues as I enjoyed the change in storytelling, but it wasn't worth it for me.

In conclusion, this is a series about a guy who is hellishly determined to solve a problem and incredibly great with collecting and anaylsing data. With the small flaw that his analysis is...not using the statistics my professors taught me. As this is the whole point of the plot, it fell apart entirely for me. Maybe I am one of the very few people who actually believe data, statistics and research can be fun, interesting and exciting and I was never the target audience to begin with. The storytelling, the angles, the focus on data, it all relies heavily on the one point that lacks execution the most. That's the one big issue I have with narrowly-focused, detailed series - if you don't get your details straight, it's an immediate failure, because people are more likely to actually take a closer look themselves. Let me warn you: Don't look. And if you can't - don't watch.

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The Witch – A Story Full of Potential, But Lacking Impact

The Witch had all the ingredients to be a standout supernatural drama—a unique curse-and-rule-book concept, a melancholic vibe, and stunning visuals that set the perfect eerie tone. Right from the start, the premise had me intrigued. The whole idea of fate being dictated by mysterious rules was fresh and full of potential. Add to that some strong performances from the leads, and I was ready for an unforgettable ride.
But as much as I loved the premise, the execution had its hiccups. While the supernatural elements were intriguing, the drama had a habit of constantly throwing flashbacks at us. And not the kind that add depth or make you go, "Oh, that’s why this happened!" No, these flashbacks mostly felt repetitive, dragging the story instead of elevating it. I found myself wishing they had used that time to build more tension or add unexpected twists instead. I felt like I was watching the same moments over and over again. This story would have hit so much harder if it had been condensed into 6 or 8 episodes instead of stretching itself thin.

Another thing that didn’t quite work for me was the romance—or rather, the lack of it. I tried, but I just couldn’t feel the chemistry between the leads. Their interactions felt distant, almost forced at times. And let's talk about the ML’s behavior… Stalker vibes? the way the ML constantly hovered around the FL gave off some serious stalker energy. Sure, it fit the dark and mysterious theme, but it also made things a little uncomfortable.

On the bright side, the acting was pretty good. Both leads delivered their roles well, especially in capturing the drama’s sorrowful undertone.
That being said, I can’t deny that The Witch had its strengths. The supernatural elements were gripping, and the drama did a great job of maintaining a sorrowful, almost tragic atmosphere. If the focus had stayed purely on the mystery and supernatural aspects rather than forcing an unconvincing romance, I think it would have been much stronger.

Overall, The Witch had a fantastic concept, incredible visuals, and a hauntingly sad atmosphere. But with a tighter script, fewer unnecessary flashbacks, and a stronger focus on its mystery and supernatural elements, it could have been truly amazing. Unfortunately, the dragged-out pacing, lackluster romance, and repetitive storytelling made it fall short of its potential. If you’re looking for a well-executed supernatural thriller, this one might not be the best pick.

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Breaking the Curse with Statistics.

*Updated Review*

After watching the episodes so far of The Witch, the story is getting more interesting! It has a mix of mystery, superstition, and maybe even romance.

In the first episode, we see the story from Lee Dong Jin’s (Park Jin Young) perspective. He is a smart and observant data miner who meets Park Mi Jeong (Roh Jeong Eui) again after many years. People believe she brings bad luck, and over time, she starts to believe it too. Dong Jin was curious about her back in high school, and now he wants to prove that the superstitions around her are false.

The second episode shifts to Mi Jeong’s perspective. She is isolated, trapped in her own mind, and works as a translator. We get to understand her situation better and see how the events from episode one affected her. It seems that the boys who show interest in her always meet an unfortunate fate, adding to the mystery.

The cast looks really promising, and their acting is great so far. One of the best surprises was Ju Ji Hoon’s cameo! It was unexpected but definitely added to the excitement of the episode.

The way the story is told is really impressive. The color grading in both episodes is different, one shows emotions from the person living through them, while the other shows it from an outsider’s point of view. This contrast makes the storytelling even more powerful. The music also plays a big role in adding depth to the emotions. The whole story narrative is peculiar and I’m loving it.

Now, I am even more intrigued - was everything just a coincidence, or is Mi Jeong really cursed? I can’t wait to see how the story unfolds!!

P.s - I’m adding a 0.5 to the total rating because finally seeing RJE smiling after a long time in her dramas :)

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A Slow Burn That's Worth Watching !

If anyone comes from the comments section to this review section, you find some of the watchers saying the story is confusing. Let me tell you one thing Sometimes it's not about fully understanding every detail of a story - it's about how it makes you feel. This drama falls under this category.

The plot looks simple but the real thing lies in the execution, how to show & execute the story by avoiding confusion. I like the drama's main theme " If we are destined for each other then fate will bring us together, no magical things required".
We connect to the story' from Episode-01 with a typical school story and the storytelling narrates the story with two main leads Point of View so in early episodes we get some repeated scenes with slow pace and almost all main characters were introduced in the first half. Decent acting from both main leads. After completing 5 episodes the story turns into methodical investigation mode just like a detective procedural. And the writer perfectly blended Science & Belief themes in the story, when Lee Dong Jin starts his methodical investigation the tension between rational ( science) and unexplainable ( belief ) makes the story gripping and makes watchers curious about what happens next.

Positives
Park Jun Young & Roh Jeong Eui acting.
Story and Narration.
Musical Tracks & Soundtrack.
Drama's dark atmospheric sets & art.
Challenges between Science & Belief themes.
No Forced Romance Between Main leads.
Perfect Ending.

Some Weak Points
Slow pace, watchable with 1.5x speed.
9th ep twist & weak plot twist.
Some repeatable scenes.
2nd Couples story.

If you want to watch something interesting with a non romance genre, I recommend this drama.

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Good twists

The show started off a bit slow in the beginning but my interest grew from episode 3 onwards. I was curious to see where they would take the story and how the ML would try to help the FL. The use of statistics to try and evaluate the incidences of people getting injured around her was a good plotline.

I didn't realise that the series was only 10 episodes long so by 10th episode I thought we needed a bit more and was a bit surprised that it was over. I didn't see a certain twist coming and that was quite interesting. The story of the second male and female lead was a bit rushed. Perhaps these would be the only drawbacks.

The actors did quite a good job and the OST is lovely as well. Overall I enjoyed it.

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Is it Love, Is it Witchery, Is it Logic, Is it Stalking? Tune in to Find Out

My review after completing this series--it is not your typical love and romance Kdrama. For this reason I liked it. It was a compelling story with the theme of the FL possibly being a witch, and the ML being a statistician trying to find a logical way to be with her despite how all the other men who loved her were injured or died. In the end the theme was about committing to your feelings toward the person that you love, and staying with that person always. It's really a story about commitment. It was at times fantastical with mythical themes that gave the story the mystery and suspense to keep the viewer tuning in. At other times, its was logical, statistical, and mathematical. It was two antithetical worlds coming together to explore the nature of love.

One of things I most enjoyed about this series was the interaction I had with other MDLers. It did get us discussing. One (from oppa_) you can read about in the comments to this review who observed the extreme stalking behavior from the ML and how dangerous it is to normalize that under the guise of love. I completely agree and truthfully Dong Jin's behavior toward FL was extreme stalking. I noticed in the last episode Jung Hyoek tells Mi Jeong if she would like to press charges of stalking to let him know. I think the writer had put this in to address the stalking. It had to be addressed. It would have been negligent not to address this extreme behavior by the ML. Another theme not explored are the years-long negative affects of bullying. I do think stalking and bullying were brushed aside for the more fantasy-type narrative. The other MDLer (Mary Nanna) I interacted with took a perspective of mythology in the story of the Siren call. The Siren a mythological half-woman half-bird whose beautiful voice lured sailors to their doom. I took the perspective that this series theme was about how stupid humans become when saturated with the "love cocktail"--the chemicals in our body that are released when we fall in love. It makes us do stupid things, display risky behavior, and make poor decisions that (in the case of this series) can lead to death. There are many layers to this series which to me means it was well written, and I enjoyed the other perspectives and discussions it brought.

Well done to the cast and crew. I especially enjoyed the storyline between Lim Jae Hyeok and Jang Hee Kyung. I just love a drama that has a really good storyline between the supporting actors. Well done you two!!

I wrote this after watching 6 of 10 episodes--A recipe for a really unusual, yet interesting love story. This is not your stereotypical Kdrama romcom.

Take one beautiful yet mysterious female...
Add in numerous besotted males who become so distracted with said female they accidentally injure themselves (sometimes fatally) in or near her presence...
Combine this with some jealous females who start a rumor she is a witch....
Mix in a nerdy statistician, data miner, number cruncher who happens to be good looking, is also in love, but wants to find out a logical explanation for all the injuries (and even death) surrounding this woman....

And you get a strangely different but compelling story.

It's subtly suspenseful which has kept me tuned in. It moves slowly but that adds to the mystery. It's delightfully different, and I'm enjoying watching it.

I think in the end, all of his data collection will render the verdict that when humans fall in love they don't think clearly and it causes them to be at risk for getting hurt. However, I'm staying tuned in to see if there is an other worldly twist to the story of her actually being a witch. I've watched up to the 6th episode, so I'll post again once when finished with the series.

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A unique and creative plot but failed to progress.

This should be marked as a mystery instead of a romance series. I don't feel any romantic chemistry between the characters, for both the lead and the second couple. Our characters barely know each other, but then suddenly in the last 2 episodes they all start to fall in love. Does that make sense?

As for the mystery, it has a unique and creative plot and I think the way everything unfolded is okay, but very confusing, and it's still an unresolved issue in the end. I don't really understand the purpose of bringing it in the first place when it leads to nowhere.

Anyway, I give it 6/10 for its unique and potential plot, and for the acting from the actors. I started this series because of Jin Young in the first place and I think he did well with the role.

There are some illogical flaws in the plot. First, it's how everyone accepts the fact that our female lead Mi Jeong is a witch so easily without questioning anything. It's a fantasy thing, not something that happens so commonly in real life. Even adults believe it and try to kick a homeless orphaned teenager out of the village, just because of a ridiculous fantasy rumor spread in a high school! And a university professor just accepts it as something his student researches and analyzes data and turns it into an assignment report?

Second, after all the progress, in the end the issue is left unexplained. What is that "witch" thing? How did it start? Why did it happen? And how to resolve it? That's the biggest disappointment in the mystery plot of this series. It has potential, but in the end, no one finds any solution to it. Somehow it feels a little bit meaningless to me.

As for the romance in "The Witch", the biggest issue is that our male lead Dong Jin is a stalker. He follows and studies everything about Mi Jeong in the dark without her knowing. I think it's creepy to have a romance between a stalker and his target. I would feel so scared and disgusted to discover that someone has been stalking me for a long time, not to fall for them. Of course, in this series, Dong Jin has his reasons that he has to study carefully about Mi Jeong's "witch" curse before he can safely approach her without dying. However, the leads surely need more time to get to know each other first to have any romance. So how can they do that? Maybe the male lead can ask the male introduce himself online and they learn about each other from afar first before meeting in real life. Does that count as the male lead violating the law? No one knows because it's never thought of, when we are living in a world full of technology.

Well, at least the leads already notice each other since high school, and Mi Jeong does have some feelings for Dong Jin when he is her delivery man. They have a few conversations and she feels a bit comfortable with him. How about our second couple? Their romance feels really odd and forced to me. They meet briefly in the last few episodes, bicker a little bit and suddenly become a couple in a minute!

I think the plot of "The Witch" is too complicated for a 10-episode series. It needs more time for its mystery to be discovered and unfolded, and for its romance to grow gradually. This is a very slow-paced series, but the ending feels too rushed in my opinion.

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It was too short; the author, I need more

I love this drama. The acting was superbe for some and ok for others, the pace was amazing despite the bad reviews but it was just a little too short. From ep 1 to ep 10, I was hooked. I know a lot of people would give a bad review to this drama; and while I totally agree with some of you, I disagree with the pacing been too long. It's a new type of world to explore so Yess the ML needed all this episode to get to this point with all of his experiments especially if he was trying to give two people a normal life. However, the choice of number of episodes was not the right one, with 10 episodes as your foundation with all the rules established, your story just began. I wanted to see more about the origin story of the witches (please do more episodes on this, s2 or special ones), I wanted to see more about the two couples especially when you crushed unexpectedly the love story of the SLs in 2 ep???!!! Seriously ??? I mean I need more of them both leads. I want to see them search for others witches, date without any drama, see where did they get this DNA, a SML origin story like give me more.
My other problem with it and that's why a lot of people are mad, there's no romance. Yess the theme ''if love is a risk'' is explored but it's a more of a mystery for me than a romance. The marketing of the genre was wrong. After that, chef 😘.

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a story of witches and algorithms

Finished 8/10 🌟
Watching the witch is an emotional journey. Overall, the story isn't bad, but I think it was executed very strangely, for me there was a development problem regarding the characters, I think 10 chapters were not enough... To explain the full background of the variable and investigation into Mi Jeong's curse, I felt there were very repetitive scenes and too many flashbacks... If the curse was going to be centered on a "true love" they had to give more importance to that fact, but that was not the case.
I highlight the performances, which were very good, especially the male lead, the very beautiful ost, and the gorgeous photography... I think it's a kdrama that might not appeal to everyone, but it's worth checking out 👏

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This show is truly cursed.

Let me highlight the most significant flaw of this show: the recaps and repetition of scenes. I kid you not, each episode is literally 20% recap and reused scenes of death or someone getting injured. This is clearly an attempt to pad the run time to meet their obligatory episode lengths. The same death scenes are shown repeatedly, often death scenes just from the previous episode. It's infuriating.

Second, they needed to give Park Mi-jeong (female lead) more lines! In retrospect, the female lead likely has fewer lines than some of the side characters. She is so underutilized that it feels almost criminal. While this makes sense given the circumstances of the deaths surrounding her, incorporating more inner dialogue or any additional lines would have significantly improved her character. Most of the time, she is merely present to be pretty and gloomy.

Next up, Lee Dong-jin (male lead) character is ... something else. Not to even sugarcoat it, if you're interested in watching a man openly stalk a woman over several episodes-like following her through dark, creepy alleys-then this is your guy. At least the show has the decency to address his stalker behavior and not pretend this is all okay.

I genuinely wanted this show to be better than it is. It suffers from a painfully slow pace (not in a good way mind you), exacerbated by the constant rehashing of the same death scenes. Despite these shortcomings, I found myself eagerly anticipating each week's episode. I was invested in how the protagonist would unravel the mystery, and the last two episodes were quite enjoyable, ultimately saving the show from complete disaster.

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Successful love life of a Stalker xD

I really wished if this drama had some other meaning, but nope. Don't get me wrong, I loved the acting and some intense moments, the drama had. But looking back at it, all I can think of is that Dongjin was just stalking her and for sake of the drama, we made it that he was doing it for research purpose. First of all, I really wish if the plot had gone in some other direction, but nooo, till the very end they stuck with that ridiculous theme.

I mean, what did anybody gain from this? A Stalker justifying his love? Uhmm Or that there are unfortunate people whose existence itself is a curse................ I really don't know. I thought despite the drama being super slow, it would at least do a better job explaining or concluding the shitty plotline they brought. ALAS! They did not, and on top of that, ridiculously brought in a second love story....

Really really disappointed.................

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