Review of My Demon / 마이 데몬

I have a confession to make: in the past, I would never watch the Korean dramas that aired on streaming platforms one episode at a time. There was a good period of my life when I would only watch Korean dramas if I could binge watch them straight through, but then, in 2023, I started slowly kicking myself out of this habit.

Nowadays, I love watching dramas if they end up having me biting my nails for another week or two in bitter anticipation of what happens next to the female or male leads.

At first, I had no interest really in watching My Demon. I say this about every single drama that Song Kang ends up being in, as I feel like he’s not the greatest actor in the world.

My judgement might be clouded because I first saw him in Nevertheless, and I absolutely hated his character in that drama. I thought he was so toxic. But when I saw Kim Yoo-jung was in this, I knew I had to watch it.

So I ended up watching it as each episode premiered week by week! It was a bit agonizing, as I just wanted to watch the show all the way through this round, but, in the end, I made it.

Let’s get into the review, shall we?

A CEO finds herself tethered to an actual demon, leading to both romance and drama.

Our female lead in this drama is Do Do-hee, who’s dealing with some major trauma at the very beginning of the series. Her mother figure, the founder of Mirae Group, mysteriously dies, leaving a vacuum in leadership at Mirae Group. It doesn’t help that Do-hee is technically the outsider in the company, as the founder had brought her in after a car accident left Do-hee an orphan.

However, this becomes one of her many problems after a failed meeting with a handsome young guy, Jeong Gu-won, who leaves her infuriated yet wanting more.

Gu-won is the owner of an arts foundation called Suwol, and in his side plotline, he has a well-known sword dancer lusting after him. She’s unfortunately going to be friendzoned, as when Do-hee is hunted down by a mysterious man, Gu-won saves her.

Turns out he’s a demon, and he makes shady deals with people in order to keep on living. He gives them what they want, and then when the time comes, they have to die in order for the exchange to be completed. If Gu-won doesn’t end up finding someone to do a deal with him, he will literally combust.

This becomes a bigger problem later when his demon tattoo somehow transfers to Do-hee, and he can only use his powers while he’s touching her.

The drama is sixteen episodes long, but it dances around several different plots. There’s the mystery behind Do-hee’s caretaker’s death, and, as we learn later, everyone and everything is interconnected in different ways.

There’s also the guy who tried to kill her in the first few episodes popping up again here and there, leading to Gu-won becoming Do-hee’s pseudo bodyguard.

One of the big tropes, though, that randomly begins to appear throughout the course of the final episodes is the past lives trope. I started to really get tired of this trope when it appeared in Destined With You, but, if we’re going to be honest, I think it fits this drama a bit more because it explains how Gu-won ultimately ended up becoming a demon.

I just wish that dramas would stop explaining everything with past lives, reincarnation, and everything being left up to fate. It feels like lazy writing when you rely on a trope so much, and because of it audiences are going to eventually get burned out if it isn’t done right. The last few episodes of this drama honestly felt like lazy writing to me, and they began to be a slog to get through in the end.

Perhaps it’s because the show just became too predictable by its conclusion.From the very beginning, I thought where the plot was going to be easy to predict, and the elements that try to complicate this predictability, such as the past lives trope, just aren’t done well in a way that makes it more surprising.

Like…I was genuinely interested in the show up until a certain point, let’s say that.

Overall Thoughts

My final verdict is that this is just an okay drama for me. I liked how it leaned more into the supernatural and fantasy tropes.

Some other dramas that I’ve watched simply didn’t tap into the potential of the folklore and supernatural (thinking really hard about Tale of the Nine Tailed or My Roommate is a Gumiho here), and I thought this show did a decent job with that.

But again, in the end it felt like the writing just fell flat. I also am still not impressed with Song Kang’s acting.

This might be his last role before he goes into his mandatory enlistment, but almost everything I’ve watched him in feels like he plays the same variation of a character. I think he feels kind of stiff to me.

That said, taste is totally subjective. It’s fine if you like the show—it might not have been my cup of tea, but it certainly is someone else’s! Someone give me Do Do-hee’s wardrobe though—the stylist deserves a raise for how they dressed both leads.

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