K-DRAMA SPECIAL: Korean Mythology
A scene from 푸른 바다의 전설 - The Legend of the Blue Sea
By Sharon Stern
As I was considering what dramas would be fun to focus on for summer, I was thinking of what is fun in this season. I thought about escaping from the regular routine. There is so much that is negative in the world right now, that a good escape could help us reset. I guess K-dramas are all about escaping, so watch anything and you’ll meet that goal. If I want an escape, I want a good story. I want some humor. A little romance is fine. A happy ending leaves me in a good place. And so, I decided to focus on Korean myth in K-dramas. Fantasy is a really common theme in K-dramas, but fantasy about traditional myths is a slightly narrower field. Myth takes us into a different world, which definitely qualifies as escape!
There are actually a large number of dramas that use Korean mythology in their stories, but they aren’t all feel-good kind of dramas and that’s where I’m headed with my list, so the list has gotten narrowed down. One of the things we all love about K-dramas is that they teach us about Korean culture. What better of a place to start than with mythology?
A lot of the well-known stories in American culture come from European folktales and fables and everyone knows the stories – the fox and the grapes, the three little pigs, Cinderella, Hanzel and Gretel. Those stories feature witches and fairies and talking animals. As we know from Joshua’s pieces in the newsletter, Korean folklore is alive with many wonderful creatures. Some of Korea’s myths come from shamanistic narratives. Some reflect distinct regions of Korea, especially the distinct mythology of Jeju Island. Some myths were imported when Korea was occupied by the Qing Dynasty. Some are centuries old from Chinese regions. What I can say is that they are nothing like our myths or stories and that makes them a great deal of fun. When drama writers take a story of myth that everyone in a culture knows and add some twists and turns, it can be even more fun.
Most, but not all, of the dramas on my list are older. I don’t know if that means myth has gone out of style, but I think the newer uses of myth have been edgier. A few of them are some of the best-known dramas out there, so you have probably seen them. Maybe summer is a good time to watch them again!
Gumiho - 구미호
The gumiho is a nine-tailed fox creature. The nine-tailed fox exists in folklore from China, Japan, Vietnam, as well as Korea. According to Korean mythology, the gumiho can live for thousands of years and feeds on human hearts or livers. It can shape-shift and turn into an extremely beautiful woman, to lure its prey. If the gumiho can either consume 1000 souls or live 1000 years without eating a human, it can become human. The gumiho has a life bead that gives it strength – not entirely unlike the Chinese dragons. They transfer the bead to a human through a kiss in order to take the human’s life energy. The gumiho then takes it back to absorb that energy. If the bead stays in the human host too long, it will use up all of their energy and they will die. Once the gumiho takes back their bead, the human won’t remember the gumiho or the experience. All of these details make great fodder for drama plots. Here are my favorite gumiho dramas.
My Girlfriend is a Gumiho - 내 여자친구는 구미호 [2010]
Viki – Starring: Lee Seung-gi, Shin Min-ah, No Min-woo, Park Soo-jin
Genre: Fantasy, rom-com
This is one of my favorite dramas of all time. I’m sure some people may find that really strange. The key to watching this is that you cannot take it seriously at all. It’s extremely silly. This is a Hong sisters drama, so you know it will be fundamentally pretty good. It is 100% a parody of life and, I would argue, of the 1980s. It pokes fun at clothing styles, hairstyles, the cartoons of the 80s (this is where you learn about the 80s Korean cartoon rage Dooly the Dinosaur – you should look it up before you watch, especially how Dooly shows he is your chingu), the music of the 80s (Great OST with most of the main cast singing!), the fads of the 80s (Asian action movies!). If you can watch it with the realization that there is nothing serious in it, it’s all kinds of super silly fun and very cute.
The main character Dae-woong (Lee Seung-gi) is a very unstudious college student, action movie star wannabe who is supported by his grandfather (Byun Hee-bong). He accidentally releases a gumiho (Shin Min-ah) from an ancient painting at a Buddhist temple and ends up begrudgingly taking care of her and eventually falls in love with her. She is being chased/pursued by a half-human, half-supernatural being, Dong-joo (No Min-woo) who tricks her with a deceitful scheme to become human. She looks exactly like a gumiho he was in love with, but killed, centuries ago and he wants to take her and flee. Sung Dong-il plays a film stunt director who wants to emulate Chow Yun-fat (famous Hong Kong director of action movies – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). Hilariously, Sung Dong-il looks pretty much just like Chow Yun-fat. He protects Dae-woong’s pathetic aunt.
If you’re up for a total spoof on life, this is your drama. In my opinion, this is a perfect summer binge! Lee Seung-gi and Shin Min-ah are truly cute in this, in every sense of the word. If you’re taking Korean classes at KCCNYC, there is a perfect scene in here for learning the use of “안 돼”.
My Roommate is a Gumiho - 간 떨어지는 동거 [2021]
Amazon Prime, Viki – Starring: Jang Ki-young, Lee Hye-ri
Genre: Fantasy, rom-com
Although the story of this drama is not completely different than My Girlfriend is a Gumiho, the style is completely different. This drama was based on a webtoon. It features a male gumiho (Jang Ki-young) who has lived for 999 years, trying to become human. He loses his bead accidentally in an accident with a human woman (Lee Hye-ri) – he gets gut punched and it flies out into her mouth. He only has one year to go to become human! He has to retrieve his bead and not kill the human in the process. He convinces her to move in with him until he can retrieve his bead, because, now that it’s in her, he wants to absorb some of her life force. The second lead woman character (Kang Han-na) is someone who was a gumiho, but is now human, so she has a perspective in both worlds.
In many ways, this is a standard rom-com and pretty light-hearted. One very fun, minor character is a Mountain Spirit played by Go Kyung-po. It’s fun because there aren’t large numbers of mountain spirits that show up in dramas and they are very important beings, mythologically. Mountain spirits exist in the mythologies of all of Southeast Asia. He tries to mess with the fate of Lee Dam, the Lee Hye-ri character, but her personality is too strong for him.
Gu Family Book - 구가의 서 [2013]
Viki – Starring: Lee Seung-gi, Bae Suzy, Choi Jin-hyuk
Genre: Fantasy, rom-dram, action, historical (in a way)
Lee Seung-gi was sort of stuck in gumiholand, between My Girlfriend is a Gumiho and Gu Family Book, but in this one, the tables are turned – he is a half-gumiho, half-human character. Technically, this is an historical drama and it is very much a costume drama, but I would argue that it feels a whole lot more like a fairytale. There is no part of the drama that goes to the palace or deals with royal politics, except for parts of the drama that take place at a training center for soldiers. It shouldn’t matter if you aren’t a huge sageuk fan, because this plays out much more like Snow White or Jack and the Beanstalk than a court drama.
The story begins with an unjust killing (ok – a moment of blood) and the daughter of the house, Yoon Seo-hwa (Lee Yeon-hee) and her house servant run away to escape a life in a gisaeng and the daughter’s brother also escapes in a different direction. A gumiho named Gu Wol-ryung (Choi Jin-hyuk) finds Seo-hwa unconscious and takes her to a cave. When she wakes up, Wol-ryung lies to her about the fate of the servant and her brother and Seo-hwa falls in love with him. Wol-ryung wants to become human, but has to hold out 100 days by not revealing his true nature, otherwise he will turn into a forest demon for 1000 years. He fails, when trying to protect Seo-hwa. Seo-hwa is horrified and leaves him, but she is pregnant. She gives birth to a half-human, half-gumiho.
The child, Choi Kang-chi (Lee Seung-gi) is adopted by a noble family, but as he grows, has trouble controlling the gumiho-side of his nature. Meanwhile, Dam Yeo-wool (Bae Suzy) comes dressed more-or-less like a man with her father, a martial-arts trainer, to the village. Kang-chi trains with the martial-arts soldiers to control his powers and when he discovers that Yeo-wool is a girl, falls in love with her.
There are several other fairytale elements to the story, but over all it is interesting and, as I’ve already said, very much a fairytale. I will warn you, however, they completely ruin the story in the last two episode and go totally off the rails in the last 15 minutes. I mean, don’t watch the last 15 minutes. They make no sense at all. Someone was smoking something when they wrote that. They’re trying to set up for a sequel, but, yikes! they fail completely. Up to the last two episodes, it’s an interesting fairytale with some fun action and great mythological fantasy. Despite the end, I still recommend it!
I am not recommending Tail of the Nine-Tailed – 구미호뎐 [2020] here on this specific list for a couple of reasons. It is not a relaxing watch. It has some really gruesome scenes. One of the genre classifications is horror. There’s nothing wrong with any of that, but I feel like it also makes a serious mess of the mythology. The main character is a gumiho who was a mountain spirit and also sort of serves as a grim reaper. Huh? The chronology of his life doesn’t make a lot of sense, from the mythological perspective. And that isn’t the only character that has mixed mythological messages. There is more myth in this drama than most, but most of it doesn’t seem “correct” or close to classical interpretation. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t watch it, however! I’m just not putting it on the easy watch, feel good mythology list.
Goblin – 도깨비
Goblins are spirits/deities who hold an immense amount of power and sometimes trick humans, but sometimes help them. They are not formed from the death of a human, but are the spirit possession of a human object like a broom, often stained with human blood. Dokkaebi can fend off evil spirits, bring good harvests or fish catches, but there are bad dokkaebi that can bring disease as well. A number of folktales tell of someone that wrestles with a dokkaebi (they always win), only to return later to find that it was a broom. There are several classifications of dokkaebi and I won’t get into describing them all here.
Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (known as Goblin) – 도깨비 [2016]
Viki – Starring: Gong Yoo, Lee Dong-wook, Kim Go-eun, Yoo In-na, Yook Sun-jae
Genre: Fantasy, rom-com, rom-dram
This is one of the classics of all time. If you haven’t seen it, you have to. Period. There are so many places in culture where this drama is referred to. This drama has one of the most perfectly scored OSTs made – every song has the vibe of the drama. And the banter between the Gong Yoo and Lee Dong-wook characters has to be watched at least a dozen times, but be ready to click Pause many times the first time you watch it.
The story is about a military general, Kim Shin (Goo Yoo) in the Goryeo Dynasty who is framed as a killer by the king. He is killed and possesses his sword to become an immortal goblin. Part of his suffering is to watch everyone he knows and cares for die, generation after generation. The only way to end this cycle is to find his “bride”, who removes the sword from his chest (the two things – person and sword – are one).
The bride turns out to be a high schooler, Ji Eun-tak (Kim Go-eun) who had a tragic childhood, one of the results of which is that she can see ghosts. She can also summon the goblin.
Additional characters include the Grim Reaper (see more below) (Lee Dong-wook) who does not know how he became a Grim Reaper, but ends up living in the same house as the Goblin. There is also Sunny (Yoo In-na) who runs a chicken shop where Eun-tak ends up working, but who has a past with both the Goblin and the Grim Reaper. The drama slowly walks us through all of these mysteries.
This is one of my favorite dramas. I immediately bought the OST and have spent more hours than I should admit analyzing the songs. However, I think they screwed up the ending, mythologically. I won’t do a spoiler here, but I think they got that one detail wrong. This is an immensely entertaining drama and is truly a must see. If you’ve seen it before, summer is a great time to rewatch it!
Bonus Mythology Character — Grim Reaper – 저승 사자
The Grim Reaper or Jeoseung-saja is the messenger of the afterworld. Jeoseung-saja escorts souls to the afterlife. The European Grim Reaper is a faceless being in a floor-length black robe, carrying a sickle. Jeoseung-saja typically is dressed in a black hanbok and black gut (hat). They are servants of the underworld, tasked with making sure souls find their rightful place in the afterlife. They can grant brief reprieves so that humans can complete unfinished business before passing. Some say that a shooting star is a Grim Reaper taking a soul to the afterlife.
In Guardian: The Lonely and Great God, the Grim Reaper is very suave, with a long black coat and black fedora. He receives cards with the names of those who will pass, aligning with the part of mythology that says the Grim Reaper can foretell death. In this drama, one of the Grim Reaper’s responsibilities is to sit down with the one who is passing and give them a cup of tea. The tea allows them to forget everything so that when they are reincarnated, they aren’t haunted by old memories. Exceptions may be made for particularly bad humans.
In most other dramas that depict Grim Reapers, the characters are pretty dark and unhappy, which may be very appropriate…but they don’t really make my feel good mythology list.
Mermaid – 인어
During the Joseon Dynasty, a scholar by the name of Yu Mong-in collected known folktales into the book Eu Yadam, writing it in Classic Chinese. One tale in the book tells the story of a fisherman who held mermaids hostage. Mermaids in Korean mythology symbolize love, longing, and at the same time beauty, but danger.
Legend of the Blue Sea - 푸른 바다의 전설 [2017]
Viki – Starring: Jun Ji-hyun, Lee Min-ho
Genre: Fantasy, rom-com
This is another classic of all classics and another if-you-are-a-drama-fan-you-have-to-see-this drama. This is yet another classic drama with an interesting OST that uses some smart twists to tie us into the theme, such as selecting bossa nova (a music style from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil). The story is based on the folktale collected by Yu Mong-in. The interesting twist in this drama is that the entire cast reincarnates from the Joseon to modern times. It takes a while to figure that out, but it is revealed slowly. Most of the drama takes place in modern times, but there are flashback scenes going back to Joseon.
The basic story is of a young-ish man, Heo Joon-jae (Lee Min-ho), who was abandoned by his mother and ends up being a con man, with a couple of other interesting characters. Joon-jae meets the mermaid Shim Cheong (Jun Ji-hyun) in Europe while he is working on a high-end con. Joon-jae doesn’t know Cheong is a mermaid because she has come up to the land and therefore has legs. After a series of incidents, they end up jumping off a cliff into the ocean. Cheong saves Joon-jae and he ends up going back to Seoul. One of the secrets of mermaids is that they can erase a human’s memories through touch or a kiss. Cheong erases memory (or does she?) and then swims all the way to Seoul to find him. A lot of antics keep this drama moving and interesting and full of plot twists, especially as the past is revealed. It is super entertaining and worth every second to watch.
Gods – 신
(Sort of and Sometimes)
There isn’t a single word that really scoops them all entirely up into one bucket. The realm of the gods in Asian mythology is complicated. There are a number of gods and those that serve each god. To generalize on a very simple level, the most powerful gods are of the sky, the underworld, the sun, the moon, agriculture, creation/destruction (same god), goddess of mothers/motherhood. Similar to Greek mythology, gods mixed, married, had offspring. There are gods with different levels of power. Above in the description of My Rommate is a Gumiho, I mention mountain spirits. Our newsletter folklore expert, Joshua Kim, has introduced us to Dangun (단군), founder of area of Korea, who descended from the heavenly realm to rule the earthly realm and after a thousand years, chose to abdicate and went to Mount Taebaek, where he became a mountain god. There is a lot to read to keep all of the gods and creatures straight.
There are a number of dramas that touch on the mythological godly realm in different ways. In the theme of easy-watching, feel-good dramas, one, in particular comes to mind.
Bride of Habaek - 하백의 신부 [2017]
Viki, The Roku Channel – Starring: Shin Se-kyung, Nam Joo-hyuk, Lim Ju-hwan, Krystal Jung, Gong Myung
Genre: Fantasy, rom-com
Habaek is the water or river god. He is a key god in the foundation mythology of Goguryeo. He is able to shape-shift into different animals. He is strong, like the rivers.
The drama is on the silly side. I do think it’s hilarious that Habaek is repeatedly appearing half-naked, dripping wet and commenting on how godly he is. The storyline comes from a manghwa. There is a psychiatrist, Yoon So-ah (Shin Se-kyung), who believes she was abandoned as a child and tries to commit suicide by jumping into the Han River. She lives, but then has a fear of water. She meets Habaek when he descends to earth. He has come looking for sacred stones. His rival for So-ah is a demi-god who is a CEO of a resort in the earthly realm, but is also a bit of a fire god, played by Lim Ju-hwan. Other godly characters include the goddess of water, played by Jung Soo-jung and a god of the sky realm, played by Gong Myung.
The drama is a silly, fun mix of mythological gods mixing with humans and is an easy, summer watch.
If you want more edge with your mythology, not as fluffy stories, there are some others you could check out.
Tale of the Nine Tailed - 구미호뎐) [2020] – watch on Viki, Prime, Netflix
Arang and the Magistrate – 아랑사또전 [2012] – watch on Viki – Shin Min-ah is a virgin ghost (another kind of mythological creature) and there are many scenes in the heavenly realm and lots of Grim Reapers
The Haunted Palace – 귀궁 [2025] – watch on Viki – Lots of ghosts and shamanism and one of the main characters is an imoogi – another Korean mythological creature
Black – 블랙 [2017] – watch on The Roku Channel – all about Grim Reapers
Some people might want to point you to the ill-named A Korean Odyssey – 화유기 [2017] – watch on Viki, Netflix – but I have trouble pinning this down to Korean mythology. The mythology is Buddhist and is Chinese, not Korean.
Ja Myung Go – 자명고 [2009] – watch on Viki – is not mythology, but folklore. Based on a tale from the Samguk Sagi
