Synopsis

Writer Shin Woo Yeo (Jang Ki Yong) is a gumiho, a 9-tailed fox who has lived for 999 years with the dream of becoming a human.  To become human, he must collect human energy in his Fox Bead.  After he suffers loss, however, he closes off his heart and is in danger of disappearing from existence.  Lee Dam (Hyeri) is a student at Seogwa University majoring in History.  One evening, Dam accidentally swallows Shin Woo Yeo’s Bead and becomes its carrier.  Shin Woo Yeo reveals his identity to Dam and asks her to move into his home so he can protect her and they can work together to remove the Bead safely.  Though Shin Woo Yeo, who knows how to remove the Bead but uses Dam to collect her energy, is deceiving Dam, the two begin to develop feelings for one another.  The pair struggles to definite their relationship as Shin Woo Yeo’s deadline looms nearer, and Shin Woo Yeo, no longer comfortable with deceiving someone he has grown to care for, removes the Bead and attempts to erase Dam’s memories.  Because of Dam’s strongmindedness, however, her memories are not erased and Shin Woo Yeo is forced to deal with his growing love for her.  When Shin Woo Yeo’s magic starts malfunctioning and he can no longer feel human energy, he excitedly starts to wonder if he is becoming more human, but as he begins to fade from existence, he realizes that the end is near.  Ultimately, Shin Woo Yeo gives his life to save Dam, and this sacrifice, along with Dam’s love, that allows Shin Woo Yeo to become a human.  The two live out their lives together, making their own destiny.

What is a Gumiho?

According to Safae Lagdani of Korea.net, a gumiho “is a nine-tailed mythical creature fox. The mythical creature is similar to the legends of China and Japan. However, in Korea, the gumiho is traditionally depicted as a nine-tailed fox that transforms into a beautiful woman. The gumiho is mostly deemed as an evil fox in which they seduce men, then kill them to obtain their heart or liver. Gumiho can even live for more than a thousand years. It is said to have yeowu guseul or fox bead, a source of its knowledge, strength, or power.” 

In “Gumiho,” Shin Woo Yeo is a gumiho, or a mythical nine-tailed fox who dazzles humans with his beauty.  He is centuries old, born a lowly beast.  When he dreams of becoming a human, a Mountain Spirit takes pity on him and grants his wish.  Every 100 years, if he lives with good virtue, he grows a tail.  He creates a Red Fox Bead, and if Shin Woo Yeo manages to dye that Bead blue with human energy within a thousand years – before growing more than nine tails – then he will become human. 

But while gumiho are typically depicted as evil in Korean mythology, Shin Woo Yeo is depicted as morally neutral.  Shin Woo Yeo is ultimately a shapeshifting beast who has assumed the appearance of a human.  Therefore, he does not think like a human.  Without the ability to think like a human, he simply strives to simulate what he has learned over the centuries.  Equating being alone to loneliness is a human concept, for example.  Shin Woo Yeo tells Dam that he is uncomfortable around others.  But watching her fascinates him, because she seems true to herself in every moment – whether happy, sad, or angry – and he likes her honesty. 

Shin Woo Yeo’s neutral morality leads to perceived indifference, and Dam initially accuses him of this when she begins to suffer from the restrictions placed on her as the carrier of the Bead.  But when live for a long time, he tells her, all you see is the repetitiveness of live and “everything feels meaningless.”  To Shin Woo Yeo, this extends to relationships, as well, which he sees as temporary and “nothing special.”  But that all changes with Dam.  One of my favorite moments of the K-drama is when Shin Woo Yeo and Dam are sitting outside one night and finally admit to one another that their relationship is special and significant.  Shin Woo Yeo says that living a long time means everything “feels like a passing season.”  At first, she too was nothing more than “a passing shower” to him.  However, he adds after a pause, “I’m still standing in the rain.”  Heart.melting.  Of course, the moment is hilariously ruined when Dam asks him to elaborate and he tells her she is “like family,” much like a niece – whomp, whomp.  But he clarifies later in the series by saying that he has never had a family, that nobody has every stayed with him for as long as she has.  He was used to being alone, but then he met her and she became special to him, like the family.  Dam made the ordinary of life special and Shin Woo Yeo realizes that he wants to be Dam’s “ordinary future.”

The Bead

Shin Woo Yeo’s Fox Bead represents his journey from beast to man.  At the start of the series, Shin Woo Yeo believes that it is human energy that turns the Bead blue, but later learns that it is humanity.  Every time that he feels what it means to be human – patience, curiosity, love, etc. – the Bead changes from red to blue.  It is through Shin Woo Yeo’s journey that “Gumiho” questions what it means to be human. 

We find out that Shin Woo Yeo lied to Dam about knowing how to take out the bead because he wanted to spend more time with her.  He needed the human energy to become human, but for the first time in a long time, he did not have to face life alone.  He knows that carrying the Bead puts Dam in danger, as it drains her of her energy over time, potentially killing her.  As he begins to fall in love with her, he realizes that he cannot put her life at risk for his own selfish needs and makes the decision to remove the Bead.  He takes her on an impromptu trip to visit a temple together, and there, at night on a bridge, he takes back the Bead.  But in so doing, all of Dam’s memories of Shin Woo Yeo and their time together are erased…or so Shin Woo Yeo thinks.

Shin Woo Yeo has never tried to control Dam’s mind before and underestimates her strong will to remember him.  Therefore, his attempt to erase her memories fails.  Dam, however, plays along with the lie feigning memory loss, initially, because she misunderstands Shin Woo Yeo’s feelings.  She thinks she was merely a “consumable” to him – and item meant to be used for her human energy and then cast aside.

This is my least favorite section of “Gumiho” as both parties suffer needlessly, but the suffering finally culminates in one of my favorite scenes – when they revisit the temple as part of a university trip.  The second scene on the bridge, at night, surrounded by beautiful paper lanterns, and with the musical score soaring, is perfection.  Dam’s honest tears and the hurt in her voice as she questions whether she was just a bead carrier to him is heartbreaking.  And Shin Woo Yeo’s response that it was not that he did not care for her, but in fact, that he felt that she deserved someone better…safer…normal…is equally gut-wrenching.  “You are too good for me,” he insists.  Dam’s “reckless and bold confession” tips him over the edge and he embraces her, unwilling to be apart from her even a moment longer. 

Their First Kiss

My only complaint about the reconciliation scene on the bridge is that the scene ends in an embrace, not a kiss.  The embrace seems like a natural moment, but the scene virtually screams for a kiss as both Shin Woo Yeo and Dam honestly confess their feelings.  The decision not to have Shin Woo Yeo and Dam kiss in that scene is most definitely deliberate, as it reflects their – but especially Dam’s – innocence and inexperience in relationships. 

The restraint on the bridge pays off when Shin Woo Yeo and Dam finally have their first kiss in his office where he is a professor at Dam’s university.  Maybe because a kiss is teased beforehand, maybe because Shin Woo Yeo sweetly admits to himself out loud that he misses Dam, maybe because Dam surprises Shin Woo Yeo by appearing unexpectedly in his office instead of going to the library like she said, or maybe because their desire for one another is palpable by this point in the K-drama, but whatever the reason, their first kiss is amazing.  Okay, so it admittedly turns scary as Shin Woo Yeo’s eyes turn red and aggressively deepens the kiss as we realize that – as long as he is a gumiho he will have to walk a fine line between love and hunger (gulp!) – but up until that moment, it definitely rates in the Top 10!

The Mountain Spirit

Though the definitions of destiny and fate vary slightly, they are common K-drama tropes that tend to be used interchangeably.  In “Gumiho,” we see these embodied in the character of the Mountain Spirit.  He is a shapeshifter, whom we first see as a white cat keeping watching over Dam and Shin Woo Yeo.  We first see him in his human form dressed in white at the university bookstore where he approaches Dam, but disappears when Shin Woo Yeo appears.  When we see him next, on the rooftop at Dam’s university, we learn that he is a mountain spirit who takes care of the destiny of gumiho, including Shin Woo Yeo.  He says that when a gumiho lives a thousand years but fails to become human, it turns into a maegu, or evil spirit.  The Mountain Spirit warns Shin Woo Yeo that if he fails to become a human before his 1000th year, the Mountain Spirit will ensure that he disappears from existence.

Later, the Mountain Spirit tells Shin Woo Yeo that humans belong with humans and that Shin Woo Yeo, a mere beast, does not have the right to decide his own destiny.  The Mountain Spirt then ties Dam to a fellow student, Gye Seon Woo (Bae In Hyuk), with the Red String of Fate.  When Shin Woo Yeo’s only friend, former gumiho turned human, Yang Hye Sun (Kang Ha Na) finds out about the Red String of Fate, she tells him that “there aren’t many people who can go against their fate.”  Two people tied together by the Red String of Fate always develop feelings for one another and end up together.  Shin Woo Yeo argues that fate cannot be that simple.  When Shin Woo Yeo finally tells Dam about the Red String of Fate, she realizes that it is why she keeps unintentionally getting involved with Seon Woo.  “I guess destiny does exist,” she initially admits.  But Hye Sun tells her that the reason all animals want to be human is because “only humans can decide their own destiny.”  This prompts Dam to find a way to remove the Red String of Fate.  She promises a shocked Shin Woo Yeo that “We are the ones to decide our own destiny,” not a “stupid thread.”  Despite the Red String of Fate’s best efforts, Dam repeatedly rejects Seon Woo, choosing Shin Woo Yeo and her destiny for herself.  After rejecting Seon Woo for the final time, the thread finally breaks, proving that we are in charge of forging our own destinies.  And the ending scene of “Gumiho” shows Shin Woo Yeo and Dam sitting side by side, tied together by a new Red String of Fate. 

When Shin Woo Yeo struggles to turn the Fox Bead blue, the Mountain Spirit approaches Dam without Shin Woo Yeo and tells her that it is not human energy that turns the gumiho’s Bead blue, but humanity.  Realizing that he is slowly disappearing from existence, Shin Woo Yeo writes a letter to Dam.  In it, he tells her that through all of his many years, she was his only joy.  She was the reason he suddenly looked forward to the morning.  “Perhaps I knew from the start, that you would change my destiny. That you would bring meaning to my meaningless and fruitless life.”  Shortly thereafter, Shin Woo Yeo sacrifices his life to save Dam’s and disappears from existence.    

Yang Hye Sun

Hye Sun is Shin Woo Yeo’s only friend, and my favorite character of the K-drama.  She is a fellow gumiho who has already managed to turn human.  Shin Woo Yeo teases her for being ignorant, as she never received any formal education and frequently misspells words and misunderstands idioms.  But despite this, Hye Sun has great intuition and lots of knowledge about gumiho-related issues.  She is frequently responsible for providing exposition.  It is from Hye Sun that we learn that the Bead absorbs energy from humans, but that if the gumiho waits too long to retrieve the Bead, it kills the human.  We learn that he made a mistake one time and has kept his heart closed ever since.

Even though Shin Woo Yeo is almost 300 years older than Hye Sun, he always turns to her for help.  Hye Sun is his one comfort.  She is the only one he tells his fears to, including when he begins to suspect that everything that he has been experiencing is a sign of his dissipation, not humanization.  When Shin Woo Yeo begins to lose hope, Hye Sun tries to keep him positive.  And when Shin Woo Yeo disappears, it is Hye Sun that is there to comfort Dam as Shin Woo Yeo would have wanted. 

One of the most gut-wrenching moments between the two is when Shin Woo Yeo appears in her apartment to thank her for caring all of those years, and for reappearing in his life before his 1000th year.  He knew that she did this because she was worried about him.  Hye Sun gets upset because she realizes Shin Woo Yeo is saying his goodbyes to her.  They are the only family that they have had over the centuries and she is visibly upset.  It is during this moment that Shin Woo Yeo asks Hye Sun to do him one last favor once as his only friend – to use her Fox Bead to ease Dam’s pain by erasing her memories of him once he is gone.

Dam refuses Hye Sun’s offer to erase her memories, saying that she would choose to live the rest of her life heartbroken that erase a single moment of her time with Shin Woo Yeo.  This declaration of love fulfills the final element of the Mountain Spirit’s promise to Shin Woo Yeo: “before the thousand years are up, before you grow more than nine tails, if you learn patience, love, and sacrifice, and eventually find a reason to live. If someone who desperately wishes you to live is waiting, beast will become human.”  Because of Hye Sun’s actions, Dam fulfills the requirements, and the Mountain Spirit keeps his promise, returning Shin Woo Yeo to the world as a human.  Hye Sun is one of the most significant characters in “Gumiho” and she cries in genuine relief upon Shin Woo Yeo’s return. 

Anti-Bullying

One of my favorite messages of “Gumiho” is the anti-bullying message.  Seon Woo’s friends frequently gossip about others, and discuss women like objects.  While Seon Woo does not participate in the conversation, he does nothing to stop the discussion.  When Dam overhears the conversation and sees Seon Woo standing there, Seon Woo realizes that he was wrong not to stop the bullying and offensive discussion.  As Dam says, “I don’t think it’s okay, even to just listen to talk like that.”  As the K-drama continues, we see multiple examples of Dam’s classmates gossiping about others behind their backs and posting photos of them online without permission.  Rumors are spread, creating trouble.  When some of the students attempt to engage Dam in gossip, she tells them that she does not like to talk about people who are not around.  And then later, when two classmates post a photo of Dam on a date with Shin Woo Yeo, a professor at the university, Seon Woo has learned the error of his ways and tells them to take it down.  An anti-bullying message is an excellent message for all ages, but particularly for younger and more impressionable viewers. Well done.

Final verdict: WATCH  

“Gumiho” is a cohabitation drama about a mythical creature that falls in love with a human.  Actor Jang Ki Yong does a fabulous job embodying the look of a mythical fox.  He is handsome, with wide and unblinking eyes, and slight, yet devilishly sly grins.  The score of composer Moon Sang Nam is beautifully written and is mixed in very well throughout the K-drama.  The storyline is well written, with a decent balance between the drama and comedy.  It also addresses such questions as what it means to be human, as well as what it means to be a bully, two relevant questions in today’s society.  I do have two minor frustrations about “Gumiho,” specifically, though both can be applied to K-dramas, in general.  One frustration is that K-drama leads tend to hide the truth from the ones they love.  The justification is that they do not want their loved one to worry or suffer, but it creates more confusion and misunderstanding.  This happens multiple times throughout “Gumiho.”  It is frequently done to increase the tension of the drama, but it is frustrating, particularly when drug out.  And my second frustration is how many poop jokes abound in this K-drama.  But other than these two frustrations, “Gumiho” is a top notch K-drama and one that I definitely recommend!

So there it is, our review of “My Roommate is a Gumiho.”  What did you think?!  Thank you for joining us on this journey.  Have a favorite K-drama you think we should review, comment down below!!  We look forward to seeing you back again next week!

Up next, “Korean Odyssey”