My Girlfriend is a Gumiho

My Girlfriend is a Gumiho

6/10

My Girlfriend is a Gumiho 

Genre:                                   Episodes: 16                                   Year: 2010

Romance

Comedy

Fantasy

Synopsis:

Cha Dae Woong is a college student studying to become a stunt double in an action school. After accidently releasing a legendary nine-talied-fox sealed in a painting, he has an accident while the fleeing the scene. He is saved from his near-fatal accident after the gumiho he released gives him her ‘fox bead’ to heal his injuries. When Dae Woong wakes up, the gumiho scares him into letting her stay by his side until he recovers, so she can take back her bead. While Dae Woong slowly heals, he attempts to keep the gumiho, Gu Mi Ho, from accidently revealing herself to the world. Mi Ho then meets Park Dong Joo, a half supernatural being, who plans to return her to the painting, or kill her, while pretending to help her become human.

Cast:

Lee Seung Gi (Cha Dae Woong)

Shin Min Ah (Gu Mi Ho/Gil Dal)

No Min Woo (Park Dong Joo)

Park Soo Jin (Eun Hye In)

General Thoughts:

First of all, can we all just take a moment to appreciate how much Lee Seung Gi looks like Rupert Grint? Anyone else? Just me?

C'mon, he's basically Korean Ron Weasley

Moving along. The drama starts off well. Shin Min Ah is adorable. Lee Seung Gi is adorable. Together they are double adorable. There are some other characters, but no one really cares because the insane amounts of cute between our main leads is hard to look past. The plot, while not enthralling, is passable.

Who cares about anything else when you have this much gorgeousness to look at?

It’s a typical simple rom-com storyline: some event draws main couple together, some event keeps main couple together (even if they don’t want it), main couple must overcome some mundane obstacle, main couple are happy. And of course, the whole thing is doused in cute-sauce to distract from the rather minimal plot. Which is totally fine- the world needs happy-go-lucky, fluff dramas as much as it needs heavy, emotional ones. But then this drama takes a turn for the angsty and never comes back. Angst itself is not a bad thing, but honestly this drama didn’t do it well. All the drama basically comes from our two main leads being dishonest with each other (because they both think they know best), and making stupid choices. I just struggle to stomach it when our leads are total buffoons- particularly when they haven’t been retards for the first half of the drama.

We all knew we had a pair of selfless, stupid noble idiots on our hands

What Was Great:

Adorable Leading Lady:

Who can even be this cute? Seriously.

So I think we can all come to the agreement that Shin Min Ah is basically the cutest thing in the whole world, yes? Not only has she got the perfect face, but she pulled of clueless, innocent supernatural being as if she were born to play this role. As well as adorable, she could also pull out terrifying, soul-eating monster. Top stuff. Paired with Lee Seung Gi, they’re really just cuteness personified. Her desperate attempts to win his affections paired with her bold willingness to take what she wants is just a recipe for laughs. Seriously, if she and Lee Seung Gi ever had a child it would just be one giant dimple.

Gradual Shift to Love:

I really enjoyed that our main man had less than zero interest in Gu Mi Ho at the start of the drama. It basically just sets the floor for allowing in as much cute as is possible.

Woong-ah is NOT KEEN (at first)

We get all the cute of Mi Ho being head over heels for him mixed with the sadness when Woong-ah is mean to her- which only makes the moments he's nice to her that much more rewarding. Then we get the delightful progress of Woong-ah’s feelings as he starts to fall for Mi Ho. Yay. Adorable.

Soundtrack:

I adore the soundtrack to this drama. It’s cute and unique- exactly like the series, and is just a perfect fit. ‘Fox Rain’ still makes my heart happy whenever I hear it.

♪ Dubirubiru dubirubiru dubirubiruaffa ♪

What Wasn’t:

Noble Idiots:

About halfway through, this drama made a turn from rom-com to angsty melodrama. I don’t mind a bit of melo, but for hours and hours we had the same old melodrama revolving around the same old plot. “I’ll die for you”, “No! I’ll die for you!”, “If you die, I’ll die!”. Oh good lord, have mercy.

On the other hand- who didn't love all that angsty foxbead-swapping?

The only time this setup really worked for me was the first time it was tried, and the last time it was tried. The first time worked because it was a new turning point for this drama (even if we have seen it in countless others). With two characters like Woong-ah and Mi Ho, I had no doubt in my mind that we would at some stage reach the inevitable ‘separated to spare the other pain’, even though all the separation does is bring more pain.

Oh the pain...the pain of being a moron

I could live with it once, but when the idea kept recurring and the whole drama basically disintegrated into arguing about who would die, it just became exasperating. The last time the angst worked as our two main leads (finally) just decided to try and be happy with the cards they were dealt. I find this type of melo pulls at the heartstrings much more than grumpy separation, as the sad comes from some form of external force- rather than just having the leads make crappy decisions and making each other miserable. One noble idiot is more than enough in any drama. Two is just…yikes. And honestly, this drama bordered on three- Park Dong Joo sure had his noble idiot moments.

Half-Blood:

I'd be a lot madder if you weren't quite so pretty

Speaking of Park Dong Joo. What even. Why is he here? At first he’s set up to be a badass mystical beast slayer. Awesome, why didn’t you role with that show? While being a supernatural vet was kind of cute, it didn’t add a whole lot to the show. Dong Joo was always a character that never really got explained properly beyond ‘he once killed a gumiho he was keen on’. He wasn’t even close to evil enough to be considered a villain, and he wasn’t active enough to be considered Woong-ah’s love rival. Basically all he does all drama long is follow Mi Ho around with sad-eyes on, and whisper about how she’s making a mistake. The single time he actually does anything relevant to the plot is…oh yeah, that time he lied to Mi Ho and basically f*cked everything up and opened the gates for the angst and melo to come pouring in. Thanks d*ckwit. If you were any less-pretty I’d probably really hate you.

Re-watch?

Unfortunately, no. There was a lot I liked in this drama, but the pointless angst just killed it for me. 

The cute was great. Melo, not so much