Genie, Make a Wish

La idea es original, pero la ejecución es un desastre

Yo intenté terminarla, pero hay poco tiempo disponible y demasiados otros dramas que sí son buenos. La idea era original, pero se desmorona rápidamente. Las actuaciones están bien, pero la trama es un desastre, y cada vez se pone peor, las cosas adquieren menos sentido mientras avanzan los capítulos.

La historia entre un genio que estuvo encerrado en su lámpara por mucho tiempo y quiere venganza, y una chica que nunca ha encajado del todo por su personalidad (y que, además resulta ser la nueva reencarnación del objetivo de venganza del genio) podría haber sido interesante o divertida.

El problema fueron todos los personajes secundarios, la forma en la que intentan explicar o justificar la historia de los ángeles caídos y los antagonistas es bastante absurda, no suma y cansa. Además, toda la historia lateral de la abuela que se vuelve joven por un deseo, pero igual va a morir en su hora fue aburrida y podría no haber existido en absoluto.

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it's Temu Goblin.

This is by far writer Kim Eun Sook's sloppiest work until now & yet the drama is still enjoyable. To elaborate a bit more on the script, I think they wanted to make a Goblin-like fantasy show & so the writer made a similar framework for a drama that is different enough. Personally I find nothing much wrong with this. A 1000 year romance with some flashbacks & an endless opportunity for corrupting wish stories -instead of ghost stories- could've easily lead to the drama of the year, or the second best at least. The problem is that the show is really not written consistently at all, the writer's self established rules are not respected, often not even within the same episode & the finish is very variety show like in the sense that there were a great many fun skits, but none of the plot makes sense, like at all.

Also the Arabic theme is really poorly researched & feels super forced. I don't give a flying monkfish about the religious connotations, but the whole Goryeo Koreans in Arabia felt incredible weird to me, what is even more forced? Korean actors speaking Arabian & doing that a lot. I really don't know why the writer couldn't just come up with a Korean version of the genie myth, or just call genies genies, but don't explain AT ALL what they are in Korea, that would've worked too. Correction, I do know why this happened, probably there may have been a sponsorship deal with the Emirates or something similar..

The most nonsensical part of the show is FL's condition, psychopath or sociopath? or whatever else, the basic concept that she does not have emotions at all is super silly & quickly full of contradictions.

Self-censorship always bothered me in Korean dramas, there are certain themes that cannot be shown on Korean TV & this often leads to really annoying & stupid subplots. In Genie, Make a Wish this manifests in how it's possible for a foreigner to wish for endless riches, but a Korean person cannot do the same & even if they kind of do, they still have to obsessively return the money. In this drama money is returned at least 3 times, though "only" twice voluntarily.


Anyway despite all of the above why is this still a 7?
Well, basically the casting is brilliant, the visuals and the photography are also amazing & the drama is just very funny in general. So if someone is capable of shutting off their brain a A LOT, then I can totally see them loving this. Suzy is not only incredibly gorgeous in this one, but also had great chemistry with Woo Bin & their constant bickering is endless fun. I would watch a 200 episode long sitcom where these actors play an old married couple..

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I'm wondering who put a spell on me and you / How did I find myself here?

I couldn't find a real linear interpretation for “Genie, Make A Wish”; the drama seems to belong to that typical category of fantasy series that, on paper, seem familiar: an immortal genie tired of humanity, an incredibly twisted and emotionally inscrutable woman, a bet with God, wishes that end up backfiring on those who express them. Those references to 'Goblin' (and why not, considering the writer) the irony, the previous lives, the intertwined destinies, the impossible loves, the curses and the “condemnation” of eternal life...

But episode after episode – skillfully spread out over time – it became increasingly clear to me that my attempt at “natural interpretation” was not a limitation as a viewer, but rather a structural feature of the work itself. Behind the fantasy apparatus and the seemingly simple mechanics of desires, the drama constructs a system that only works as long as the viewer agrees not to reduce everything to an immediate moral or a single explanation.

If the narrative system of “Genie, Make A Wish” rejects such a univocal explanation, it is because its characters, too, probably do not function as moral demonstrations. Iblis, in particular, does not act to create conflict, but to confirm an already given idea of humanity. He is not a driving force of the story: he is an embodied thesis.

From the outset, he seems less interested in tempting than in confirming a belief. He does not offer seduction, but rather proves that humans will fall anyway. In this sense, I thought – perhaps conceptually boldly – of Satan in Milton's ‘Paradise Lost’: a figure who does not need to win, because he is already convinced that he is right.

The Iblis portrayed by the talented Kim Woo-bin – with a truly comprehensive, all-round performance, never mannered or hammy, magnetic even in his gaze and always up to the difficult task assigned to him – is in fact a “satanic” genius more in function than in actual inclination towards evil. He is arrogant, brazen, convinced that he knows human beings better than anyone else, including God. Centuries of observation, of granting wishes, of confirmation have instilled in him an unshakeable certainty: humans are corrupt, selfish, predictable. His challenge is not driven by curiosity, but by the presumption that he has already seen everything. And when you are convinced that you already understand everything about someone, you stop listening to them.

Ka-young, played by the stunning and self-deprecating Bae Suzy—with an incredibly intense and dedicated performance, that crescendo and that deep pathos of sincere emotion in the finale—enters the scene as a disconcerting, almost repulsive figure. Sociopathic, unemotional, incapable of empathy—at least according to clinical categories. Psychopathic, perhaps.
A young woman who grew up under the sign of expulsion: abandoned as a child, she is raised by her grandmother Pan-geum – played by Kim Mi-kyung, who is so talented and devoted to her role that it is difficult to distinguish between acting and real life – who, rather than teaching her how to “feel”, explains to her how to “be in the world”. She does not heal her, but provides her with rules of restraint, discipline and responsibility. The rules of conduct are not a sign of coldness, but strategies of control. Ka-young learns an ethic of behaviour even before she learns emotional grammar. Above all, she learns not to “cross the line”.

This apprenticeship shaped every aspect of her adult life. Her work as a car mechanic perfectly embodied this attitude towards life itself: cause → immediate effect; do the job well = the engine works, do it badly = it doesn't work: no ambiguity, no emotional interpretation, absolute certainty and guarantees. At the same time, she devotes herself to woodworking, building furniture and even coffins. Not out of a morbid fascination with death, but to take away the panic, to bring it back to a manipulable, measurable, concrete realm. It is the opposite of the destructive impulse: an attempt to exercise rational control over the inevitable.

On this journey, only two people truly see her for who she is. Her grandmother, who does not ask her to change, and her chosen friend — not an imposed one — who accepts her quirks without wanting to correct them. Both embody a form of relationship free of pretension: they do not ask Ka-young to be “someone else” in order to be acceptable.

And it is precisely this form of self-restraint that throws Iblis's system into crisis. When the opportunity for desire arises, Ka-young does not react as expected: she does not desire out of greed, she does not use power to fill a personal void, she does not even seem particularly seduced by the idea of being able to have “everything”. This does not make her morally superior, but narratively incompatible with Iblis' thesis. Her presence does not defeat him: it defuses him. Faced with an individual who asks for neither excess nor need, the system of human classification on which Iblis has based his certainty ceases to function.

The central conflict of the drama then seems to shift: no longer between good and evil, but between a device that claims to explain humanity and a subject that stubbornly continues to escape categorisation. Ka-young and Iblis challenge each other with five wishes: four human beings and a dog, chosen at random. No one is totally guilty, no one is completely innocent. Selfishness arises from fear, altruism comes late or with detachment.

The inclusion of a radical moral anomaly (with the extemporaneous ‘crime’ variation) interrupts any consolatory reading: evil exists, but destiny can be rewritten. In the end, a fragile and reversible majority of altruism shows that humanity cannot be either absolved or condemned. The parable is clear: human beings remain unpredictable, and the certainty of the system collapses.

In this millennial intertwining, predestination is not total: Iblis and Ka-young remain bound by a past in which a third wish has already marked love, suffering and mutual protection. Ka-young carries echoes of that experience with her, while Iblis retains only fragments erased from his memory. Yet it is precisely Ka-young's radical choice in Goryeo—to use the three wishes purely altruistically—that demonstrates that humans can escape all certainty. Predestination and free will meet in tension, transforming every decision into an unpredictable moment.

In this context, the role of Ejllael (Noh Sang-hyun, well-suited to the role and subtly ironic) becomes even more significant. He is neither good nor evil: he is neutral, the administrator of the inevitable. He doesn't judge human desires, he records them; he doesn't punish, he executes. God's messenger and Iblis's age-old rival, he observes the bet between the genius and Ka-young with silent attention. He does not intervene, but everything that happens passes through his eyes: every choice Ka-young makes, every prediction Iblis makes, becomes a mirror of what is at stake. Ejllael is not an indifferent spectator; he is an interested witness to a dualism that shakes millennial certainties, making what seemed immutable fragile and every decision more intense.

The finale of "Genie, Make A Wish", therefore, does not simply conclude the story: it completes its arc, highlighting everything the series has explored from the beginning. After Pan-geum's death, Ka-young is confronted with a pain that exceeds her capacity for understanding: a woman incapable of emotion experiences such intense grief that it disrupts the rules of her orderly life.

The encounter with Iblis thus becomes the decisive turning point: the genius fears that the third wish will confirm his view of humanity as corrupt. Ka-young, on the other hand, chooses to live human emotions to the full for just one day, even at the cost of her own demise. The paradox is clear: the act appears selfish, but it is the most authentically human gesture possible: it stems from the desire to feel, understand and confront life itself. Faced with this radical sincerity, Iblis loses the bet and bows down, giving up his pride.

In this way, the parallel destinies of the main characters become the symbolic fulfilment of the Goryeo girl's third wish: to protect each other until the end, even through pain. Their rebirth as immortal beings, Ka-young as Jinniya and Iblis as a genie, marks the conclusion of a millennial cycle of observation, bets and mistakes, transforming the test of human goodness into something different: a lesson in responsibility, freedom and a form of true love.

And this is where the ultimate meaning of the ending lies.. What remains is not only the story of two immortal beings united forever, but the parable of the drama itself: a journey through desires, limitations, moral codes and conditional freedom, which shows us how human beings are neither predictable nor reducible to patterns, but live amid chaos, choice and the possibility of redemption. The bet is over, but the reflection continues: in “Genie, Make A Wish”, true immortality lies not in power, but in the ability to choose and feel, even when this means accepting the burden until the end.

7 ½

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Schizophrenic

I watched this drama to the end. Many viewers will probably like it, but for me it was too contrived – with a unpalatable mixture of silly hijinks, gratuitous violence, sadism, ridiculous wishes, and bogus profundity. It had a convoluted plot with too many secondary characters, and a lot of elements that just didn’t come together in a cohesive whole.

In the beginning, the ML is a a big goof ball of a genie who can do anything with a snap of his fingers. Somehow he’s also Satan. He can put out a raging fire or catch someone who’s fallen off a tall building, He can appear and disappear and travel through time. He can fly, burst through the walls of buildings, and deflect bullets. No problemo.

As for the FL, she just doesn’t give two figs about anything because she’s a psychopath (or maybe not). She’s trying to be decent, but she has the soul of a killer. Why should the viewers care about either of these absurd characters? There’s nothing at stake. Neither of them want anything–-or anything substantive–-either from the world or from each other.

As the story progresses, wishes are granted, wishes are postponed, unforeseen circumstances arise. When a romance develops, it seems completely unmotivated.
When are the good people at Netflix going to hire writers who can actually construct a story with heart and nuance–one that doesn’t rely on gimmicks?

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pro-kontra di drama ini

sbnrnya gw pro-kontra sm drama ini. diawal pro tp diakhir jd kontra wkwk

awalnya yaudahlah silakan aja klo mau pake nama iblis dan folklorenya sklian. sbg muslim gw gamau defend iblis sgtunya krna iblis aja gabakal nge-defend kita sbg makhluk yg dianggapnya paling lemah. folklorenya (yg mostly based on Alquran dan tafsir itu) jg msh gw persilahkan buat dipake asal eksekusinya bener aja. soalnya gw sbg muslim bener aja mengakui msh ga bgtu paham yaa karena beranggapan smua itu misteri ilahi. gw prcaya tp ga untuk mempertanyakan itu smua karena yg diwajibkan jg cuma mengimaninya. makanya klo dirasa mampu nih bawain kisah2 yg didapet dri Islam, gw persilahkan. tp jgn asal2an, krna ini menyangkut suatu agama. takutnya jatohnya malah menyimpang dri aslinya.

nah di bagian pertengahan-akhir gw terganggu bgt nih krna apa yg gw takutkan di awal itu terjadi. penyimpangan itu beneran ada dongg.. bgian mana coba tebak?

mungkin klo nontonnya teliti, klian bisa nemuin beberapa penyimpangan. cuma karena gw nontonnya di skip2, yg paling menyimpang itu ada di karakternya sih.

ini kok penggambaran sifat dan karakternya bgni sih? sejak kpn iblis digambarkan lebih baik dri malaikat? kok malaikat nya digambarkan penuh hasrat, emosi, ambisi gni? malah ada di satu scene manusia nyuruh malaikat biar ga terlalu patuh sm Tuhan. udh gilaaaa, kata gw teh.

sbnrnya dri awal pas iblis dan malaikat itu digambarkan punya sifat manusiawi, gw udh ga berharap byk sih. udh badmood abis.

saran: coba research nya yg bener. ini gw sbg muslim aja research iblis, satan, jin, dan malaikat yg bener2 blm mampu. blm lg ditambah sm sosok qorin yg sama2 'roh'/'makhluk tak kasat mata' (di drama kayanya sosoknya digambarkan oleh si anak Mongol itu deh).

mnurut gw, jgn lah lngsng step up ke iblis klo bedain setan sm jin aja blm mampu. trus bukannya iblis sm setan aja itu beda yaa?? iblis tuh rajanya setan2 gasih?? disini penggambaran iblis dan setan disamakan soalnya.

bneran deh, isu agama tuh sensitif bgt. salah interpretasi bisa bikin celah untuk isu rasisme/diskriminatif. udh mah skrg jg islamophobia marak jg kann di negara2 luar sanaa

tp buat artisnya sndiri gaada celah sih, oke smua aktingnya. tp gw jd gak masuk aja ke dramanya soalnya storylinenya wtf bgt. mau ikut bucin jg malesss. berasa disuruh meromantisasi iblis. udh gila kali yaa. disukai genderuwo aja udh amit2, apalagi inii

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Messy.

Dec 2025
Maybe it's a generational thing, but a Genie is not Satan (or Iblis in this case), and so the reference to that name just didn't fit, and bugged me throughout.
In folklore the Genie (or Jinn) was created by God/Allah, and could be good, evil or neutral. Naughty ones got imprisoned in containers.
All boxes ticked.
However, the merging of more religious content (as mentioned, plus the angel of death, angels at all, hell etc), ruined it for me, as it made the character nessy and blurred. If they wanted to make up a new fantasy character, then rename it.
What I also couldn't handle, was the way the FL lead character treated him. I get she was a psycho, but I found too much of it irritating and often uncomfortable.
The plot became frayed for me, and both the story and characters were often all over the place.
The personality of FL's grandmother was one of the biggest changes... yes we change/mature as we age, but her younger self was actually not easy for me to like at all.
Personally speaking, it was KWB that carried this drama.
The acting overall was good, it was the story/script that totally let it down.
Lovely to look at/visually, but very disappointing for me and I wouldn't rewatch.
KWB and other cast members, have been in far better dramas than this. It could have been superb ~ but wasn't by a long way.

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Cast and Supporters will pay price when they will met with angel of Death Izrael, In Shaa Allah

This drama is absolute crap, which mocks Islam and Islamic concepts, even GOD and one of His favorite Angel, Izrael, the Angel of Death.
So Death to Koreans and Death to cast of this drama and whole team. They will go to Hell and definitely meet Satan (Iblis) there, who they have praised, who is the biggest enemy of Humanity and enemy of Islam and Muslims.

This drama will have consequences for SURE for Koreans.

And for those who are satisfied with it and praising it.
You should know that, the Angel, Satan feared most from is the Angel of Death, Izrael.
As satan knows that He will come for him eventually. and this drama even mocks this Angel.

Production, Cast and supporters will definitely pay price when they will met themselves with angel of Death Soon.
In Shaa Allah

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Racist…

I once read Marry my husband. PHONOMENAL manwha but I read about the change that the author had to make that happened before I read it. It was considered to be the only flaw of the manwha. This change was because the author wrote the Arabic’s as violent tyrants that want tor him everything good, according to the one who read it. It was disgusting and racist. Well… this drama soaked itself in this. It even when far to write the villain as an Arabic child the in the body of a Korean boy, giving the Korean actor the role, not the Arabic actor and making him the sweet victim at the same time, win win for the Koreans but not the Arabic boy. They portrayed the Arabic boy as greedy and vile and a tyrant. They also portrayed Arabic people as such against the Korean characters which where portrayed as just so morally upright, regardless of being the devil. The same characters that are so evil, they don’t flinch when a familiar is being tortured before them. The same Korean characters that are: Satan and a true psychopath, yet they Still found a way to make the Arabic people the most unhuman people in the drama. It wasn’t even one person, they simply created a city of Arabic people and dehumanised all of them to People that are so cruel that they are no longer human. I kept noticing it throughout the entire drama. It was as if matter how wicked and cruel the Korean characters were. They wanted to make sure that the Arabic characters were much more unhuman. By this, I mean lacking so much humanity, they no longer resemble humans. Do you know the perfect characters to portray this lack of humanity? The main Korean characters, except the grandmother. Satan, ka Young, death, and the wicked boy, however, they still managed to circle it back to portraying the Arabic as especially lacking humanity. I was even impressed at how they managed that. They wanted to make it clear that no matter how wicked the devil, death, a wicked boy and a psychopath could be, the Arabic were worse/lacked humanity. They portrayed that anytime they could. What did the Arabic do to them? Not many people have even noticed it even though it is portrayed so blatantly. They constantly compare them to Ka Young, A psychopath, Showing that a psychopath had such morality humanity and kindness that even through her psychopathy she could think to make wishes for other people, and the Arabic were simply wicked, self serving and corrupt.
I simply could not indulge in this story as after every wicked deed that any Korean character did, they would stop and make sure to remind us that either wasn’t the Korean, but an Arabic or that the Arabic are significantly worse. They kept reminding us that the other gin that was held captive and abused by the Korean boy was not a victim even though he was. He was at least offered grace at the end and was rescued. Elijah’s cruelty to humans and his familiar was overlooked and made comical however they never missed an opportunity to show us how wicked the Arabic were. No particular Characters meaning that they generalised all Arabic people. There was no reasoning behind their cruelty, for Example, Being the devil, a psychopath or death, making it clear they were vile by nature, And justifying why Iblis committed mass genocide to the entire city. I said that was no one worth saving. If it had no innocence.
Also, if Iblis was universal, could speak Arabic and adapted his face and body to suit the country, why didn’t they cast an Arabic man, just once? It was as if they would have hives if they put one in the main role on Korean camera.

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