Alchemy of Souls (2022)
Review of Alchemy of Souls / 환혼
As my first semester of graduate school wrapped up, I really wanted to get lost in something. And, as one tends to do after taking a bunch of graduate seminars in super depressing topics, I pressed play on a Korean drama one day and rediscovered why I loved them so much throughout high school and my undergraduate years.
I don’t know what compelled me to watch Alchemy of Souls, especially because I am usually someone who doesn’t lean towards saeguk dramas, let alone fantasy ones, but then I ended up pressing play and becoming absolutely obsessed. There are a ton of flaws with this drama, which I will get into shortly, but overall I found the world it creates to be fascinating, and the acting to be weirdly good despite a lot of these younger actors not having done much before, let alone leading roles.
Thankfully, I watched Alchemy of Souls when the last two episodes were the only ones fans were waiting to come out, so I didn’t have to die of agony waiting for Part 2, for example. I just watched everything over the course of two days (it’s bad, I know, but I’m on winter break) and then waited for the weekend when the final two episodes dropped.
But man, I was even going on the Reddit threads for Korean dramas looking at fan theories to see if mine matched other people’s. That’s how deep into this drama I got.
Let’s begin the review!
The most feared assassin in the land finds her body switched, leading her to become the master of a boy everyone underestimated.
There is so much I could go into about this show and the plot that happens throughout all the thirty episodes and both parts/seasons. I don’t think it’s worth going deep into the plot in this review because there’s simply so many side plots.
In season one/part one, there’s a couple of episodes where I didn’t pay as much attention and didn’t feel like I missed much due to how many side characters and whatnot were introduced. That’s one of the flaws of shows like these, and I think historical Chinese dramas fall into the same trap: they have way too many characters.
Some of the side plots, such as the romance between the Maidservant and head of Songrim, ended up working really well, but I think this all ended up making the plot too much for thirty episodes.
I was genuinely surprised season one was twenty episodes and season two only ten episodes.
Season two had a lot packed into it, and chunks of season one could have been straight up cut and the plot would not have been affected. I felt like we went through just as much plot in part two, if not more, than part one, so it didn’t make sense to have that breakdown.
The show could’ve really benefitted from having more time added onto it, especially since these actors are all rising stars. Lee Jae-wook has been sprinting with his career in the past couple of years, and I think this solidified it. I also think we’ll be seeing a lot of the other male leads as well.
Although I did appreciate the weird love square going on between Uk, Yul, the crown prince, and Mu-deok/Bu-yeon. That was something I never knew I wanted in a drama like this, and for the first time in a long time, I was rooting for the second male lead, Yul.
I was so shocked to see Hwang Min-hyun in a drama because while I haven’t paid attention to K-pop in years, the last time I saw him he was in Wanna One.
I was an OG Nu’est fan. I literally was a fan when they debuted and they all looked like small babies. In the first season his acting was a bit wooden, but it improved with season two.
The first season of this show was riveting. I found myself clinging to every episode up until around episode eleven, when it began to delve more deeply into subplot territory. That lasted about five episodes, and then we got thrown back into the main plot.
I’m so-so on dramas written by the Hong Sisters, but I found this one, in the second season, starting to become more predictable. The stakes did not feel high towards the end, which is where the plot began to lag. Jin-mu’s death felt super anti-climatic, and so did the fire bird/phoenix being destroyed.
It felt too neat for a show that had a lot of messy moments, especially after that season one ending.
Alchemy of Souls cycled through all of the cliches and tropes of a Korean drama, but I think this was such a good, ambitious project. The chemistry between the female lead (with both actresses playing her) and Lee Jae-wook was off the charts.
We wrap a neat little bow on a lot of the storylines in the end, which I wasn’t mad at, and we get the play on their names: Uk and Bu-yeon were named after light and darkness. She was forced to live her life in the darkness up until she met Uk and became his master, and now he can be the light in her life.
She doesn’t need to be strong anymore and be a feared assassin. She can just exist and the two can do good for the world. Although
I’m still not buying how he didn’t figure out she was Nak-su until literally episode twenty-eight. Yul figured it out pretty easily and he was just the unrequited love slash childhood friend. Glad he was able to move on from that crush, but come on Uk.
You figured it out so quickly in the first season when she did tansu, yet somehow you’ve failed to recognize the same weird coincidences? At least he figured it out in the end and the original Bu-yeon decided to let them be at peace.
Also there’s a special shoutout here to the hair and wardrobe scenes. I literally became a Minhyun stan throughout this because dear god he looks good in pastel lavender and mint green. I was weeping when his wardrobe switched from the darker palette to the pastels.
There was a lot of visual storytelling with what the characters were telling, especially when his wardrobe switched, even with Jin-mu and his smudged eyeliner.
Uk, too, has a completely different wardrobe switch from the beginning of the series to the end. He went from wearing light blues and a simpler color palette to the all-black look after Nak-su’s rampage.
Overall Thoughts
I wrote a long review for this one because I’m deeply passionate over here. I don’t think I can rewatch Alchemy of Souls any time soon, but I’ll live vicariously through these actors’ other dramas.
I will also say the House of Jinyowon convinced me to try and do eyeliner like them—they absolutely rocked those wings. I’m a fan of that eye look. Alchemy of Souls is unlike anything we’ve seen so far in K-dramas, even though it adheres to the conventions and tropes, and I hope we see more of this in the future.
It’s distinctly contemporary—the dyed hair, makeup, piercings, wardrobe—but feels like it’s set in a fantasy saeguk.
Would’ve loved to see badass Nak-su taking down some villains, but I’m at peace with the fact she no longer needs to.
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