Pop toast.

The Hong Sisters are at it again.  If you’re clueless about the hallyu wave, Hong Sisters are like the rock stars of the Korean drama screenwriting world. They’ve delivered hit after hit. Just to name their works : Delightful Girl Choon-Hyang, My Girl, Fantasy Couple, Hong Gil Dong and most recently, You’re Beautiful. Now, they’re back again on small television screens everywhere in South Korea and in different parts of the world where folks like me will be watching on their small laptop to be fully immersed in their world in their next project, My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho (Nine-Tailed Fox).

Nichole Alden – Baby Now

What’s a Gumiho, you may ask? Here, let me google that for you. This time, the sisters have put a supernatural spin on the typical romantic kdrama. And since it’s by the Hong Sisters, you can’t forget their signature potty humor–there’s no room for politeness decorum.

The camera focuses on extremely beautiful woman who is waiting for someone down the stairs.  She’s delighted to see that he’s there. The background music is lovely, it’s giving an ambiance that it’s true love.  The average-joe-looking boy spots her as he comes down the stairs. His carefree expression drastically changes to a panicked one. The girl keeps shouting out his name to catch his attention but he clearly doesn’t want to be near her. Dae Woong knows that she’s trouble.  He runs in the complete opposite direction and pretends to talk on his cellphone. Somehow she magically appears in front of him and he’s trapped. There’s no way he’s going to escape the terror that is his girlfriend. She grabs his hand and they gallop across the street while men gawks at her very presence. More men toppling over her. And now even more men sighing.  She demands that he buy beef for her today or she’ll kill him and devour every morsel of his flesh. She promptly takes a finger, swipes it against his face and licks it. Poor guy, he doesn’t even have a say in this.  I’m guessing dating a gumiho isn’t quite lavish as you might’ve thought, eh Dae Woong?

It turns out that Dae Woong is an aspiring stunt man and his dream is to become an action star much to his grandfather’s disapproval. His parents passed away when he was young and his rich grandfather is all he has for financial support. Rather than abiding by his grandfather’s wishes for him to study him in the UK, he spends his time in the salon reading scripts and preparing for auditions and riding his shiny motorcycle that he bought with his Granpappy’s tuition money (What an idiot). The only person supporting his dream is this mysterious girl who’s-name-I-have-no-care-for (something tells me that this drama will feature a love square ahem).

Stupid Dae Woong is now getting a curl perm for an audition at his Granpappy’s salon and just to emphasize how much he’s an idiot, he just realizes that the movie he’s starring is historical and I doubt there would be any curly haired samurais back then. While he ponders about this, his Granpappy barges in and scolds him for wasting his money.  His friends try to reason with Granpappy about the perm damaging his grandson’s hair, Dae Woong runs for his freedom. More motorcycle scenes. Thankfully, the motorcycle scenes ends when he is stopped by a police officer who brings him to the police station. He wasn’t stopped for violating the road safety code (you know, the important stuff like speeding and not wearing a helmet *cough*) but because his motorcycle was reported stolen. That’s really it… What’s with dramas and their stupid reasons to be illogical?

Our boy is weeping behind bars until his aunt bails him out on the condition that he follows his Granpappy’s orders. Dae Woong is more worried about his hair turning into a frizzball at this point but Granpappy wins this round, little boy. You can see him smirking on the side and tasting his sweet moment of victory.

So Dae Woong finally gets to rinse off the perm residue out of his hair and he hesitantly decides to abide his Granpappy’s wishes to focus his time in school and to get into a decent college to avoid his Granpappy’s wrath. However, he later learns that his school time will clash with the audition he just got so he whines a bit more in the car and demands that they turn around. That’s not going to happen. His Granpappy will only listen to him if he’s becomes a decent human being.

Meanwhile in a rural part of Korea, two tourists are taking a tour with a monk in a temple on the waters. The monk tells the story of the fox ad the Samshin Grandma in the painting. The fox is not just a ordinary fox, but actually a trapped fox demon who dreams of becoming a human being one day. And as they very well know, SamShin Grandma was the matchmaker of the village and the demon did all her chores in hopes of becoming a human. One of the tourist points out that the fox demon is missing all of her nine tails. The monk tells them that all her tails were cut off by Samshin Grandma because the village women were envious of her beauty. He beauty was so powering that she stopped every single man in that village in their tracks and they wanted to be in every moment of her presence. The Samshin Grandma thinks of a solution that maybe getting the demon married off to a man will solve the problem. This frustrates the village women so much that they start spreading terrible rumours like that the fox demon needs to devour the livers of one hundred men to fulfill her dream of becoming completely human.

So it was time for the fox demon’s wedding. She waits in her glamorous wedding attire for the groom to show up. Seasons past by as she patiently waits. He never shows up. When she realized that no man would ever want her, she weeps and a fox howls in the distance. To prevent this from ever happening again, the Samshin Grandma cuts off all her tails and traps her in the painting that the two tourists see before them. The tourists are shocked at this ending and claim they would give up their husbands to make the demon happy once more. The monk and the tourists leave but the plump one realizes that the sausage that she brought in her bag is missing. The skinny one convinces her to forget about it and just leave.

Behind the screen, the beautiful demon is pissed. She hates the fact that the monk is bringing people to laugh and rub salt on her wounds and is speaking nonsense for their entertainment. She chews on the sausage but spits it out. It’s not even meat but tofu!  She’s hasn’t eaten meat in years and she is so hungry, she could eat a whole cow.

Granpappy is convinced that he’s going to follow his grandson wherever he goes even to the bathroom. Dae Woong is obviously not happy about this and gives Granpappy his shoe to ensure his privacy to the loo. Score! Dae Woong’s got his Granpappy’s trust back and now he’s skimming the environment for an exit. He’s an action star in the making, he’ll find a way. His Granpappy becomes suspicious ad barges into the men’s room to find that the top window is open. Shoot! He’s escaped again and rushes out to look for the stupid boy. All the while, his granboy was actually in a garbage bag the whole time. He rushes into a garbage truck that happens to pass and hides himself from his granpappy and aunt. He’s enjoying the truck ride to glorious freedom.

The truck stops at a gas station and our hero sneaks off.  It starts to pour rain heavily and he’s using a leaf for an umbrella (how cute!).  He hitches a ride with the monk who takes him to the temple on the waters. The monk offers him a place to stay until the storm is over. Dae Woong is more concerned about getting back to Seoul but the boy is such a doofus, he can’t remember his aunt’s phone number for the life of him. He gets outside to get a signal.  He find himself in front of the temple on the waters and rushes in front of the door not knowing what lies ahead of him.

The storm is is getting even more violent and Dae Woong is scared out of his wits. He’s dialing numbers furiously on his cellphone but can’t hold of his aunt. His cellphone battery is almost dying. Then a woman speaks to him on the phone telling him he’s quite cute now that he’s taken off his hat. He freaks out. Did he just accidentally press the button for video chat? He looks at his phone. His phone died moments before. Insert WTF? face on our boy. PANIC. The demon tells him to enter the temple.  He won’t be able to see her no matter how hard he looks for her. She wants him to paint nine tails onto the painting. He’s about to pee in his pants and he worries about being in trouble for vandalising the painting. And guess what, he’s still talking on the phone even though it’s dead (Can I just say this is one of the most stupidest heros I’ve come across in my years of watching kdramas?!).  He takes a marker and draws.

Snap. Crackle. Bang. Dogs are barking and the monks are having a feeling that something’s amiss. More thunder and the demon’s eyes are turning bright blue. She’s free. The painting is now only of Samshin Grandma. Dae Woong figures that he needs to get his butt off of here NOW or he’ll be dead. He runs for the woods and running as fast as he can for his dear life. He trips over a rock and tumble down a cliff near a river unconscious. Out of the blue, the demon comes out as a beautiful female and pokes at him to make sure he’s not dead. He’s in incredible pain. She saves his life by giving him her fox bead as a thank you. How does she do it? By a kiss, of course. :)

The next morning, Dae Woong wakes up to find himself hanging on a tree. He remembers falling down a cliff but not much else. He sees a pretty girl on the ground smiling at him. She says she put him there so that no boar could hurt him. He’s puzzled by how a girl like herself has superb strength to throw him over a tree branch. She replies that she’s a fox demon who talked to him on the phone last night. He’s not believing her and think she must be some mad woman.

At the temple, the monks and police are investigating how on earth the fox escaped from the picture.  All the evidence they have left is a left cellphone and now they’re looking for Dae Woong.

Dae Woong wants to get rid of this mad woman so he tells her to get lost and go back to the temple. He doesn’t want to do anything with her since he’d have to take responsibility for vandalism. She can’t go, she doesn’t want to be trapped for 500 years again because of her circumstance. Cue face of WTF? Gumiho tells him that he has in debted to her for saving his life for giving him her fox bead but he’s not having any of it. He wants to go back to Seoul and resume his life. he doesn’t want to see her nine tails. He angrily stomps off and Gumiho is smirking at what an idiot he is because he’s heading straight to the boar’s direction. Five minutes later, Dae Woong is running back to Gumiho. Looks like the two will be peas in a pod. The couple find solace at a bus station and he tells her to scram. She’s not going anywhere, Dae Woong. Dae Woong gives up and just tolerates her. She replies that she did a good thing saving him. At least it lightens up the load to the terrible thing she did years ago.

Back at the temple, the monks have sent for a vet to check on why the dog keeps barking. My, my, my. Aren’t you a delicious looking vet? He later learns about the disappearance of the fox in the painting and becomes more interested in the story. Future fox hunter in the making, me tells.

Gumiho followed Dae Woong all the way to the phone booth and she’s waiting patiently for him. He’s making phone calls here and there and she’s admiring how much the world has changed. She acts in her absurd behavior like licking the soda can and Dae Woong is just admiring her beauty.  Everything’s settled. It looks like he’s the victor against his grannypop who ended up paying for his tuition anyway. He can go to the auditions and keep his bike. Perfect. He knows that he can just leave her there since they haven’t exchanged names.  Oops, he’s forgotten that Gumihos have extremely sharp hearing. Looks like he’s stuck with her and he has to feed her now since she wants meat. Over dinner, she makes him swear that he cannot tell another human being that she’s a gumiho or she’ll kill him in exchange that he keeps mum about the vandalism. He laughs it off. Now more absurd behaviour with girl wanting to eat raw meat and he still doesn’t get it. They share the common goal of becoming human beings together but in different senses. And that they don’t have parents.

INSTANT BONDING TIME.

Dinner’s over and he’s heading back after calling the temple to pick her up. He’s feeling a bit guilty leaving her there. Gumiho looks for him with meat in her mouth at the bathroom but becomes fascinated with the toilet, thinking it’s a magical water fountain. Her bone falls down and she accidentally flushes it! Not happy, she rolls out her sleeves to get it out with her hands until she smells the monk from the temple in the building and goes hiding. The vet and the monk learns that the Dae Woong and Gumiho were here but now they’ve apparently left for Seoul so off to Seoul they go.

This is my first time drinking such and unique surprising water!

Gumiho tracks DW’s scent but on her way she comes across a man drinking soda pop and snatches it from him.  Oh, what a lovely gumiho. She’s in complete ecstasy after drinking it and guess who passes by? The scrumptious looking vet! Luckily for her, he has no idea how she looks like exactly but that she’s pretty.

Her aunt is still searching for DW but can’t get any hold of him. She gets into the elevator and lets out a fart. Unfortunately for her, she didn’t think that the man on the above floor would get on the same elevator and the poor man has to face with the stench. Two other ladies get on and starts complaining about the smell. The man in DW’s aunt’s defense takes the responsibility for letting out the fart.

Cue the most heroic kdrama moment in history. Mafia-style.

DW’s on a bus heading for Seoul and the ticketmaster tells him he has to pay for two tickets for the lady next to him. He freaks out when he sees it’s Gumiho right next to him. He accuses her of being a stalker and this angers Gumiho. He refuses to believe she’s the same gumiho in folk tales that seduces men and eats their livers.  She threatens that one day she’ll show him her nine tails on a full moon for his arrogance and take back that fox bead in him. She’ll kill him the next time she sees him.

I’ll follow you and make you believe. And then you’ll die.

DW can’t even walk straight anymore without looking behind his back to see if she’s there to kill him. He’s seeing her everywhere. On the bus, at night, on the station… A couple of his friends offer him a place to stay to keep his nerves intact. He accepts. When he’s about to change his shirt, a friend notices that he has gruesome wounds behind his back and is shocked that he doesn’t feel a thing after falling down a cliff.  Things are falling into place. HE NOW GETS IT. What that woman said was all true. He tells his friend about the Gumiho and his pal advises him to shut up since he just broke his oath of keeping her identity a secret. His friends leave the gym and he’s all by himself now playing basketball.  He throws the ball but strangely it comes back to him. He’s feeling something is wrong. Then hundreds of basketballs are heading towards him. She’s here.

Gumiho circles around him tell him that it’s a full moon out today. A perfect night to kill someone. She reveals her true identity in all her glory. And she snatches his head for a kiss of death.