This review may contain spoilers
Progressive potential muddled by Orientalism and lack of follow through
The show is definitely making use of the Netflix platform to showcase a kdrama romcom that contain a lot edgier topics and portrayals than it usually can on it's mainstream broadcast and streaming platforms, but it's adherence to the false equivocation of being childish to being cute makes the moments eye rolling rather than it's intended effect. Both the actresses who played young and elder Mi Ju were fantastic. Both were standouts in their own way. Some of the dark physical humor is quite funny, like when Ejlael breaks through the windows to fly away and Irem horrifically cutting her tongue and her other senses in order to not give away information to Iblis since she cannot lie. The drama has a lot going on with portraying psychopathy, utilizing Islamic Arabian mythology, and also featuring a lesbian character.
From what I understand of psychopathy wise, there's actually a lot of people that have it, especially in high level leader positions. The condition can be managed in a positive familial environment like shown with Ka Yeong. The show also shows the typical kdrama murder psychopath with another character that also grew up in the same village. He seemed to be undiagnosed, so never received treatment or care from the village that Ka Yeong got. It feels icky that the show made her unable to mask emotions when the other person was able to do so, just for comedic effect and so that she's "healed" with magic at the end when she is turned into a Jinniya. It seemed like they were were also veering into neurodivergence outside of psycopathy that they never address and she's completely changed. She might as well have been reincarnated as a fifth time rather than turning into a Jinniya out of nowhere.
The better way for the drama to have involved the Islamic Arabian mythology was to have actually featured a Arab actor to play Iblis for the entire story and have Arab consultants. Korea may be an ethnostate, but it's been intentionally exporting it's soft culture and interacting with other cultures for so many decades now, but it seems to fall into the same pitfalls again and again. There needs to be some sense of respect or otherwise it's just cultural appropriation and using another culture to be exotic. It's also frustrating that the show has Ka Yeong's past life say that Joseon also has genies. If that's true, that's what this show should have been about in the first place. There are graphic violent scenes where Arab people who are portrayed as enslaving two Korean children are beheaded and some visceral violence towards Korean characters as well, but they are at the hands of an Arab character that forcibly took over the body of a Korean child. The hero Iblis is only ever shown in Korean form. There's a weird undercurrent of Islamaphobia.
I don't agree with the MDL spoiler tag of the show having an LGBT character. The show doesn't hide it, Min Ji is not closeted. The show is cowardly though for not following through on the meet cute scenes that she has with both Irem and Mi Ju. Her scenes with the women are full kdrama romance tropes and she's seen dramatically locking eyes with her Korean TSA girlfriend. It's all one sided, Mi Ju never shows or expresses any attraction to her and Mi Ju doesn't even get a partner into old age, she's at the sand dune tour alone, watching her best friend being wind with her lover. It would not have cost them more for Mi Ju to have had a woman standing romantically next to her. They show that the reason her girlfriend broke up with her is because she point blank chose Ka Yeong over her. In the end lesbian Mi Ju was just devoted to her straight friend her whole life and even after the friend's death.
The dark humor storyline that worked the most was the little dog that wished for a human form and then wished for money and a human assistant, before tracking down his previous owners who he thinks of as family. He coughs out blood and it's implied that the owners had intentionally abandoned him because he was ill. His last wish was to turn back into a dog so he can reunite with his family as himself. Tragically the last we see is of the little doggy waiting next to the bus stop with the implication that he probably passed away without meeting them again. He had willed all his wish money to his assistant who has no memory of how it happened, but retains a sense of needing to devote himself to caring for stray dogs. It's so sweet and Daniel Henny absolutely went all out to play a dog in a human body and Kim Ji Hoon who I think may have been filming the american show Butterfly at the same time since he had the exact same styling was really funny as well as the stoic ex-military helper trying his best to help his boss.
From what I understand of psychopathy wise, there's actually a lot of people that have it, especially in high level leader positions. The condition can be managed in a positive familial environment like shown with Ka Yeong. The show also shows the typical kdrama murder psychopath with another character that also grew up in the same village. He seemed to be undiagnosed, so never received treatment or care from the village that Ka Yeong got. It feels icky that the show made her unable to mask emotions when the other person was able to do so, just for comedic effect and so that she's "healed" with magic at the end when she is turned into a Jinniya. It seemed like they were were also veering into neurodivergence outside of psycopathy that they never address and she's completely changed. She might as well have been reincarnated as a fifth time rather than turning into a Jinniya out of nowhere.
The better way for the drama to have involved the Islamic Arabian mythology was to have actually featured a Arab actor to play Iblis for the entire story and have Arab consultants. Korea may be an ethnostate, but it's been intentionally exporting it's soft culture and interacting with other cultures for so many decades now, but it seems to fall into the same pitfalls again and again. There needs to be some sense of respect or otherwise it's just cultural appropriation and using another culture to be exotic. It's also frustrating that the show has Ka Yeong's past life say that Joseon also has genies. If that's true, that's what this show should have been about in the first place. There are graphic violent scenes where Arab people who are portrayed as enslaving two Korean children are beheaded and some visceral violence towards Korean characters as well, but they are at the hands of an Arab character that forcibly took over the body of a Korean child. The hero Iblis is only ever shown in Korean form. There's a weird undercurrent of Islamaphobia.
I don't agree with the MDL spoiler tag of the show having an LGBT character. The show doesn't hide it, Min Ji is not closeted. The show is cowardly though for not following through on the meet cute scenes that she has with both Irem and Mi Ju. Her scenes with the women are full kdrama romance tropes and she's seen dramatically locking eyes with her Korean TSA girlfriend. It's all one sided, Mi Ju never shows or expresses any attraction to her and Mi Ju doesn't even get a partner into old age, she's at the sand dune tour alone, watching her best friend being wind with her lover. It would not have cost them more for Mi Ju to have had a woman standing romantically next to her. They show that the reason her girlfriend broke up with her is because she point blank chose Ka Yeong over her. In the end lesbian Mi Ju was just devoted to her straight friend her whole life and even after the friend's death.
The dark humor storyline that worked the most was the little dog that wished for a human form and then wished for money and a human assistant, before tracking down his previous owners who he thinks of as family. He coughs out blood and it's implied that the owners had intentionally abandoned him because he was ill. His last wish was to turn back into a dog so he can reunite with his family as himself. Tragically the last we see is of the little doggy waiting next to the bus stop with the implication that he probably passed away without meeting them again. He had willed all his wish money to his assistant who has no memory of how it happened, but retains a sense of needing to devote himself to caring for stray dogs. It's so sweet and Daniel Henny absolutely went all out to play a dog in a human body and Kim Ji Hoon who I think may have been filming the american show Butterfly at the same time since he had the exact same styling was really funny as well as the stoic ex-military helper trying his best to help his boss.
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