My Demon

Good Enough

Korean Drama '' My Demon '' is a fantasy romantic comedy with enough comical moments, beautiful cinematography, and an enjoyable love story.

The drama has a strong start, with pretty scenes and impressive cinematography that blends nicely with the comedy reliefs that the drama adds here and there. The family drama is quite enjoyable as well, with many melodramatic moments. The crime case as well has some intense moments.

The love story, on the other hand, is basic and predictable. And yet, it is a guilty pleasure, with enough romantic moments and cheesy scenes to keep things interesting.

The performances, in addition, were all great by everyone in the cast.

So, overall, seven out of ten.

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English and Portuguese Review

𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥
I started My Demon just to kill some time, without expecting anything. A lot of people had spoken badly about it, so I went in prepared to drop it halfway… but I ended up getting a lot more into it than I imagined.

The drama isn’t just romance; there are many storylines that start being explored after the death of the female protagonist’s parents. The series has suspense, tragedy, mystery, revenge, investigation, and even action scenes. And the supernatural part involving the demon protagonist was something I really liked.
One thing that surprised me were the reflections about life and humanity. The drama talks about free will, destiny, human selfishness, and even actions considered inhumane, showing moments where humans can be worse than the devil himself.
The humor also really got me. There are several characters who are pure comic relief, and they genuinely made me enjoy watching it, not letting the story be only about tension.

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𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥
Comecei My Demon só pra matar o tempo, sem esperar nada. Muita gente tinha falado mal, então fui preparado pra abandonar no meio… mas acabei me envolvendo bem mais do que imaginei.

O dorama não é só romance, há muitas tramas na história que começam a ser exploradas apartir da morte dos pais da protagonista. A série entrega suspense, tragédia, mistério, vingança, investigação, e até cenas de ação. Além da paete sobrenatural envolvendo o protagonista demônio, que foi algo que me encantou.
Uma coisa que me surpreendeu foram as reflexões sobre vida e humanidade. O dorama fala de livre arbítrio, destino, o egoísmo humano e até ações consideradas desumanas onde o ser humano pode ser pior que o próprio diabo.
A questão do humor me pegou muito. Tem vários personagens que são puro alívio cômico e realmente me fez me divertir assistindo, não contendo apenas tensão em seu enredo.

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A copypasted masterpiece!

My demon is a good drama, in my opinion. It was fairly enjoyable, visually gorgeous, quite funny and generally held up well. It has a very attractive main cast, wonderful special effects, a pretty compelling plot and likeable characters.
Many people complain about the acting but i actually thought it was pretty good most of the time.
It does have many flaws. My demon is extremely predictable, full of Kdrama cliches and generally gives you a huge sense of deja vu. While watching it, i was constantly reminded of other Kdramas such as: Goblin, buisness proposal, heartbeat, and tale of the nine tailed (also many other popular Kdramas.)
My demon seemed to possess the supernatural charm and visuals of 'tale of the nine tailed', humor and cliches of 'buisness proposal' and romance and plot of 'goblin' and 'heartbeat'.
There are many similarities between my demon and these Kdramas, from general cliche tropes to downright copypasting scenes and dialogue. (Example, the scene were Gu Won "dies" in the second last episode is almost identical to the scene in goblin where the goblin Kim Shin dies. They are both held by the female lead as their bodies disintegrate into tiny particles. Another example is the scene where Do Hee is falling off a tall building and Gu Won catches her, which is almost the same as the scene from tale of the nine tailed where the 2 leads do the same thing. Not to mention, the humor of the show in general really reminds me of buisness proposal.)
There are also just general cliche tropes such as the main character dying before magically coming back to life in the very next episode, psychopath villain, maain characters having a fight due to a stupid misunderstanding ect.
But despite all these things, my demon is somehow still a good drama in my eyes because it does manage to put all these cliches together quite well and also shines in its own ways in certain episodes. I think the main couple had great chemistry, the humor was spot on most of the time, as previously said the special affects were beautiful and in general, it was a fun drama. I'd say, go head and give it a try. My demon is nothing special, but it works well with what it has and gives you a sort of nostalgic feeling (like deja vu) and though it is very cliche, that doesnt necessarily make it bad.
My demon is unoriginal, yet alluring and worth watching once

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Just an average Demon-Human Lovestory

The story is about a demon falling in love with a human girl. The two are already tied by the past as lovers. Wolsim, which is also Do-hee in the present time died due to Catholicism issue. Catholicism is considered a taboo at that time which lead to her execution. While, Yi-sun on the other hand, is away to take an exam to land on a government post. When he came back he witnessed Wolsim's execution and became enraged. Yi-sun killed all the people he sees in sight after Wolsim takes her last breath in his arms. After all his killings, he also decided to kill himself but a sudden turned of event led him to be back as a demon.

Centuries later, Yi-sun becames Gu-won and lives as a demon, making deals with desperate people by granting them wishes in turn of taking their souls to hell after 10 years. While, Wolsim is reborn as Do-hee who happens to have a big family issues. One timeful event led the tattoo which is the power source of Gu-won to transfer into Do-hee.

To cut the story short they work together to get what they want. Gu-won needs the tattoo back and Do-hee needs Gu-won's protection.

The story was pretty common, I find it quit similar with The Guardian: Goblin's Bride. Though a firmly prefer the later, no question. I just can't help but to notice that both the series have similarities on how the male leads ceased to death by burning away as they fight with the main villain in the story. Another thing is that the parents of the female leads made a deal with the male leads to save the baby female leads. As you know, if you see both the series both male leads fell in love with the child they saved.

All I can say is that, I find the show's progress to slow. In my opinion, it could have end in 12 episodes if unncessary scenes were cut off. For me, the show only got interesting in mid episode 15.

The actors were great but I just think the chemistry of Song Kang and Kim Yoo-Jung lacks the sparks. For the side characters, I personally loved Ga-young's story arc, especially her ending where she was able to repay the grace she received herself when she's a kid. Suk-hoon is just too good to be true as he embodies ungreediness and unselfish love to Do-hee. The office characters did good as they help me occasionally ease my bore as the show unfold. Both the secretaries of the leads were sooo cringe LMAO. Lastly, I commend the actors who played Noh Suk-min and Noh Do-gyeong as they really made me stop for awhile and think who could be the lighter guy among them.

The OSTs were good with superb editing skills for the show's effects. Though, the scene of the gasoline stop shop fire doesn't sit right with me.

I recommend this show if you wanted to watch a fantasy like drama with a demon falling for a human girl. But, if you are looking for a drama that is fast paced with solid storyline, you might have to skip this one. The show was okay but I can say there are alot more dramas with the same concept of this one that's more worth it.

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Funny, exciting, cute

This show is probably my favorite K-drama yet.

Positives:
- Song Kang's acting is amazing (and he's just very gorgeous)
- interesting and well-written female lead
- well-thought out story line and fantasy elements
- funny side characters
- interesting villain
- thriller/gore-like elements
- very strong and good start & middle
- the soundtrack (the instrumentals!!!) is so good
- the insight into history and religion were interesting

Negatives:
- the last two episodes are much worse than the rest of the series and can't really compare - the plot and the character development feels out of place and uncharacteristic. This would have been better without the last two episodes (whose conflict could've been solved within minutes)
- some characters are a bit ridiculous/unserious and there are a few cringy moments
- the villains were a bit predictable but that wasn't the point, so it's fine

Overall really a great series. I especially loved Guwon, he was funny, pretty, epic, entertaining, and just great in general. The only real downside is that the show drops a bit in quality after/around ep. 13, but that is the case in many K-dramas.

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A glut of villains , violence & comedy imbalance. Cringeworthy irritating comedy.

Started out interesting but then got bogged down by the sheer number of people the Female lead was in conflict with. It's one thing to have you wondering who the evil behind the evil is, and it's quite another to have more than three "grade A" villain's! Super creepy/violent scenes trade off "comic" relief, which is more irritating than relieving [IE: gang members who turn into super fans of the demon-just cringy]. The romance between the lead's assistants got way to much screen time and again, and was also cringy. Episodes were either super violent or stupid sidekick filler. I was really puzzled why this drama didn't just pull me in & keep me in because it checked off all the right boxes of what I am interested in. Still, when they revealed the whole back story of the main couple-I was nonplussed as it was not compelling.
the last 3 episodes dragged, and the end, though happy. was anticlimactic-like the writers & actors were all just tired & ready to be done. Yes tidy endings for all characters, but kinda TMI & bland at that.


In the end it was a few things that made this a huge disappointment:
***Spoilers***
It just didn't work for me that in her past life the female lead worked in a tea house-which translated to prostitute (?)! was planning on committing suicide & then faked being Catholic in order to hope to change societies norms concerning rank. I just didn't see the nobility in that, nor the grand love, and certainly not any grand sacrifice. Which is what they were trying to sell us.
Also, a major blunder on the writer's part was having the female lead's parents die because of a deal with Demon (& ha ! he didn't even remember ? but then said he did but didn't mention it because it would complicate things ? All of the was unconvincing, but even more unconvincing was female lead's forgiveness of that due to her seeing that he "saved" her in her past life (uh, NO he didn't, he just accidently interrupted your suicide attempts) Another plot point in which we have to suspend disbelief is that the female lead's surrogate mother was trying to take down the female lead's parents & had a significant part in their deaths. OH the time skips. must every drama have them ? And having Demon just appear, with him being like :hey yeah I'm back why are you surprised ? not excited, not showing any emotion, so weird & unromantic. Then thier lives just go on with him STILL being a demon-you know the thing that appalled her when she actually saw him in action after he supposedly became a nice guy!? yeah, so he's immortal, goes around looking for bad people to punish and wow-that's actually pretty awful if you want a future with him (you hate his job & you're not immortal). I felt like they just kept him bipolar-I love cake- I take lives-I love my woman-I send souls to hell. If they were trying to get us to see him as some Batman/Robinhood righteous dude, they failed. This is no Tale of the Nine tailed, nor is it Healer.

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Lot of potential, but comes crashing to a halt in the final episodes

TL;DR - Worth a watch, but don't get overly invested.

If there is one way to sum up My Demon, it would be "wasted potential". It had a phenomenal cast, a plot that initially seems gripping, and a promising OST. But it then proceeds to spend 16 episodes doing nothing with each of those elements.

Starting with the OST, it immediately grips you episode one with TRUE - YOARI. But aside from True and Whenever Wherever, many of the songs quickly wear out their welcome due to repetition. It feels like the producers found a song for each emotion they wanted to evoke, and then just played that song to invoke a feeling, with no real diversity or writing to back it up. Perfect example - using the main song TRUE when Jung Gu Won returns to save Do Do Hee. Theoretically, a great scene, if we hadn't heard the song over and over, in addition to the scene just not really landing right due to improper build up.

Which brings us to the next issue - the writing team squandered a phenomenal hook with the plot by trying to shoehorn in every single kdrama trope you can imagine. Secret God hiding behind the scenes as a beggar? Check. Protagonist losing their OP powers to force tension? Check. Extremely forced break-up in the final act? Check. Weird trauma connecting the ML to FL to force said break up, without any proper explanation or payoff? Check. If they had just kept the plot focused on the murder of Chairwoman Joo and properly hidden the true killer better, it would have been a vastly more interesting show. Unfortunately, it quickly becomes apparent that Jung Gu Won will simply snap his fingers to get Do Do Hee out of any situation, but then oddly not actually see it through immediately, because then we'd have no show. This becomes increasingly apparent when they keep randomly mentioning Jung Gu Won's need to fill contracts as a demon, but only when they need to manufacture a time crunch to remind the audience they should actually be caring about the demon vs god plotline instead of the murder mystery part.

The only thing that saves the show from being totally bland and average is the chemistry between the cast. Both the ML/FL and the SML/SFL make adorable couples with tons of great moments. it feels like they were written by an entire separate team of writers compared to the rest of the plot. Watching Jung Gu Won awkwardly try to play homemaker with Do Do Hee was some of the best moments of the show. It's just a shame that it comes grinding to a halt when they decide to shoehorn in the weird connection of Jung Gu Won actually having signed a deal with Do Do Hee's father and being there on the day of his death. It's clear they were trying to force a confrontation by trying to make Jung Gu Won responsible for Do Do Hee's parents' death, but it isn't written well enough to make sense. He never actually does anything to her parents, but then basically dumps her and runs away out of shame, only to come back and then they never really address it as a couple? It is entirely overshadowed by the fact that she dies to save him, and then he resurrects her and dies himself for breaking one of God's rules. It felt incredibly hamfisted, like the writing team needed to hit a set number of cliches per episode so they forced it in there to be more like Goblin King or Tale of the Nine Tailed. After all, what good is a fantasy kdrama without the MC "dying" in the penultimate episode?

So overall, it is a perfectly serviceable show, just not very unique. Each thing it does is simply done better, in another show. Want ill-fated romance and tragedy? Goblin King. MC with cool superpowers that chooses to give it up to be with FL? Tale of the Nine-Tailed. Tragic past-lives connection? Destined with You. Burning chemistry between the leads with a romance that will both make you laugh and sob at the same time? Crash Landing on You. My Demon is basically an amalgamation of a bunch of different shows, and it does each thing just slightly worse than the show it's copying.

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Park Jae Eon was more of a Demon

This drama solidifies the notion I had that Korean people have a very skewed idea about Catholicism. Either their Catholicism is VERY different from actual Catholicism or they have a very wrong idea about what it actually is.

Every time I watch a drama that somehow references Catholicism, I feel like I'm watching a version of a fairy tale, instead of referencing a religion. That probably isn't that inaccurate, since the Bible is a fictional book, but it is certainly not used as a feelgood story like a fairy tale.

I'm an atheist but I was raised Catholic and I couldn't get into the story because it made absolutely no sense to me. I still don't know if Jung Koo Won was a demon or the devil. If he was a demon there should be more of them and they should work for the devil and not for god. Here we see a demon who is slave to the clock, working to reach objectives in signing contracts, just like every salary person under capitalism. Even he is no match to capitalism in terms of evil.

I do like that they subverted the image of god from the western one. The powers and abilities of this god don't match the original ones, they make absolutely no sense. One of the things I like the most about mainly Korean and Japanese stories is that there is no definite line between good and evil, people can be and are both. Catholicism, as it's was adopted as a way to control the people, does draw that line. It's basically the story of good vs evil and evil being used as a deterrent to make people good. The devil being friends with and working with god doesn't make absolutely no sense. In this drama, the devil is pitiful and god shows no mercy, except for a random miracle. In terms of Catholicism, this drama makes no sense. Still, people converting and using Catholicism as a way to demand and get their will and salvation is on brand with western Catholicism.

The story is underwhelming, nonsensical, predictable, full of patriarchal tropes and annoying. I don't really have any remarks about it. Just another money grabber disguised as a drama. You know greed is one of the seven deadly sins, right?

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Waste of KYJ and SK's chemistry and acting skills

It had potential and some moments/dialogues/ideas that stood out but the execution was downright blasphemous because I simply cannot believe someone would actually pay for a story/plot that is so paper thin it may not even exist.
Side characters except probably for Ju cheon seok were downright caricatures which is sad because those characters had potential. The chemistry and the tension between the leads carried it until a certain point but after that...yeah.
I cannot even call it tropey because that would mean they have done a good job about the tropes because they had the right leads who could have done justice to a solid, tight storyline with tropes done right. They tried to do many different themes and ended up a mess. A shame honestly.

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