Review of My Roommate is a Gumiho / 간 떨어지는 동거

This has been one of those dramas I’ve always known about and wanted to watch, but never got myself together to actually sit down and watch it. I feel like I have to be in a specific mood to watch Korean dramas, which has limited me throughout the years.

What got me started on this one was after I ended up watching Where the Stars Land, I knew I needed a break from obsessively watching dramas that Rowoon was in. I ended up scrolling through the Korean section of Viki before I landed on this one.

I knew it was fate when I saw it as a option, and then I pressed play immediately. I will admit, there was a hot minute where I was staring at the female lead and trying to figure out where I had seen her before. It took me about five episodes to realize that was Hye-ri.

I used to watch Girls Day music videos back in like 2014 all the time and hadn’t thought about them since, so it was refreshing to have that little nostalgia and throwback when I realized who she was.

I also started cackling when I realized the guy from At Eighteen was in this too, I love him as an actor.

Enough rambling! Onwards with the review.

An accident draws together the only male gumiho and a female college student.

The plot in this one begins when the only male gumiho in South Korea, Shin Woo-yeon, ends up meeting a history college student named Lee Dam. Despite him being 999 years old and her being like twenty, she ends up accidentally swallowing his bead after a night out, and he hesitates to take it out.

He has some trauma when it comes to that bead and women, as the girl he loved so many years ago died after he ended up removing her bead.

So Lee Dam moves in with Shin Woo-yeon after they realize what has happened, and they begin a strange but interesting dynamic between them. Despite him being filthy rich and living in a wealthy house for Korean standards, he works as a nonfiction writer during the day and she goes to school.

The first five episodes is establishing their dynamic and how they will end up falling for each other, and more characters are brought into the fold.

There’s Lee Dam’s two best friends, one of whom is assigned to a former gumiho and Woo-yeon’s friend for a fake class dating project. Lee Dam is now avoiding the most popular boy in school, who has a crush on her, and there’s an entire plot line about how the two are connected through the red string of fate.

A big part of this show is insisting the many different ways that Lee Dam and Woo-yeon can’t be together but them pretty much ignoring it after pining for each other.

Like Woo-yeon and Lee Dam admit early on their feelings, but when he removes the bead from her he tries to wipe her memories, which fails.

This leads to Lee Dam being pissed off and pretending her memories are wiped, they he becomes a history professor at her school in order for him to watch over her.

They then realize she actually didn’t forget and eventually reconcile, then there’s a plot line where her and her guy friend pretend to date to make them jealous.

The final arc is basically trying to make Woo-yeon human, and the same rehashed “we can’t be together” plot line comes back. Honestly, my overall thought about the plot in this drama was seriously lackluster.

We can’t become invested in the characters and their relationships enough, so when they keep bringing up the same core conflicts and reasons for them not to be together, it becomes tedious to get through the show.

Like the chemistry between the leads was good but I wasn’t sold on their romance either. In the end it feels like a feel good romance show where everyone ends up happy, but I wanted more substance.

We got a glimpse of an evil ghost at one point and how it could threaten Lee Dam, and that was the only sense of urgency throughout. We then lose all other supernatural elements once Woo-yeon defeats that spirit, and then it feels like it just existed for that one moment.

Add in more drama and action! Let him protect the girl he loves!

Overall Thoughts

I’m glad I watched it, and I’m sure someone out there loved this show, but I thought it was something I could easily skip by the end. I don’t know how I made it through all sixteen episodes, but I did.

That’s a feat in itself, which implies the drama wasn’t total trash for me. Taste is subjective though. I’d like to see more gumiho dramas in the future, but most I’ve seen so far have only disappointed me.

They don’t commit hard enough to the fantasy elements or they lose something halfway through, like Tale of the Nine Tailed. Regardless, I think this one is just okay. It could’ve been better. I also wanted to see more character growth; it feels like the characters are fairly stagnant throughout as well.

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