Tale of the Nine-Tailed (2020)

This drama broke me...

The romance between Lee Yeon and Ji Ah is a big one. These ill-fated lovers shared a forbidden love hundreds of years ago, and it ended in tragedy. They get a do over in modern times, but the same fate threatens them again.
This pair has a fun banter between them in the early stages of the series. Then as they grow closer, the romance picks up. There is a lot that Ji Ah doesn’t know about her past life and their past relationship though. Those secrets create plenty of issues for them.
I really enjoyed seeing how dedicated Lee Yeon was to Ji Ah. He goes through a lot to try and give Ji Ah a happy life, but he sure does face a lot of problems in doing so. Ji Ah also appreciates Lee Yeon and becomes a valuable partner for him as they face their enemies.
We get a little love/hate bromance in Tale of the Nine Tailed too. Lee Yeon and his half-brother Lee Rang have been at odds for hundreds of years. They also had a tragic past that tainted their relationship.
Lee Rang (my favorite) goes full villain and does his best to cause trouble for Lee Yeon, but it is evident that Lee Rang is acting out and still cares for his brother. Lee Yeon faces an uphill battle in trying to get through to him. We get some really great moments between this duo as they face their issues as well as some good character growth from Lee Rang.
This is the kind of show that has tons of wonderful supporting characters. Many of them will win your heart with their stories and current relationships. Others are of the villainous variety that add lots of drama and tension to the show.
Overall, I absolutely loved Tale of the Nine-Tailed. Dramas like this are my bread and butter because of the great mixture of elements involving fantasy, romance, thrills, and mystery. It’s always nice to see shows like this come together so nicely and treat the audience to such a fun story.

More detailed review here: https://bookswithnatasa.home.blog/category/kdramas/

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I got bored half way through and had a hard time finishing the series (but did)

6/10 is my rating. This is a 2020 South Korean romantic supernatural drama with 16, 60-75 minute episodes.

First I provide a unique synopsis then review.

Synopsis

At one time Lee Yeon (Lee Dong-wook) was a guardian mountain spirit but he fell in love with a human who was killed. In his grief he struck a bargain to live among humans in the city and hunt other supernaturals who broke the rules. In exchange for his service, his love was to be reincarnated although he did not know when or who she may be reincarnated as. In all of his Over 1000 years as a Gumiho, and during his long wait for his love to be reincarnated, Lee Yeon has seen many humans who resembled his lost love but has discovered they only look like her they are not her reincarnation. So when reporter Nam Ji-ah (Jo Bo-ah) recognizes Lee Yeon from an encounter as a child, Lee Yeon does not assume there is any special connection. But the two are connected not only through a tragedy in her past that may have taken the lives of her parents but even more so by the fact that Nam Ji-ah is the reincarnation of Ah-eum, the woman Lee yeon was waiting for. As Lee Yeon finds himself attracted to Ji ah he is confused as Ah eum had his fox beecd and her reincarnation should have had the bead as well. But Ji ah does not have the bead although so much about her is like Aheum. Others notice Ji ah’s similarity to Ah eum including Lee Rang (Kim Bum) who was jealous of his brother’s attention and the fact that he gave up his guardian role for love. And others from the past alsotake notice of Ji ah. The two fall in love allover again as Lee Yeon fulfills his current obligation as well as solving the mysterious events of the past.

Review

I waited to watch this because of mixed reviews. Recently there were some really positive reviews so I thought I would give it a try.  I think whether or not someone likes it would be influenced by how much of a purist they are.  If you take “Little Mermaid” as an example. The original story is not very uplifting.  Most renditions of it take some broad artistic license in telling the story and deviate a lot from that original story. With “Tale of the Nine Tailed Fox” they stick close to that lore, particularly at the end of the series.  I am not in love with the actual lore any more than I am a fan of the real “Little Mermaid” story.  I like the concept but don’t want to watch something that follows it as it does not have the best outcomes. The romance is okay. Their chemistry is fine but there wasn’t the slow build up. I would not watch this again and would only recommend it to those that are super fans of any of the main actors or that like stories that stick to a more pure form.  It has some sad moments but I wouldn’t characterize it as overall sad. I think it is very mediocre amd would have stopped watching it if I was not already half way through.

Spoilers

The love story was really 600 years before when he originally fell in love with her. We saw so little of that original story it was hard to buy him waiting 600 years for her.  Because his test was the “fox bead” being present or not it made me curious if all those others that looked like her might have been her reincarnated in earlier times.  It never addressed why those earlier people that looked like her were not her reincarnated when the test he was using was flawed.

 I liked his brother but it made no sense to me that he was doing evil things to his brother just because he felt abandoned by him. If you love someone so much you are hurt by them not paying attention to you why would you do things that could result in their demise.  I was glad he came around and the brothermance was one of the few good qualities of the show.  But I did not enjoy the first part of the show where he was simply being jealous and immature.

 You have this cool nine tailed fox that did some interesting things catching some of the bad supernaturals in the beginning but that was such a small part of the whole series.  Mostly it is him just pining after her.  Long scenes with the romantic music of them just gazing.  I got bored.  My daughter, who I was watching it with, was more bored than I was.  My boredom started after about episode eight and was not alleviated until about ½ way through the last episode. There just wasn’t that much happening. I found the serpent to be a boring super villain. The nine tailed fox wasn’t doing anything cool and it was just them fawning all over each other and stressing about her turning into a serpent.  She could have been reporting on all kinds of cool supernatural stuff and he could have been helping her.  But no.  Just more and more of just them living their life.  It was boring.

 What was up with grandma turning to stone? She turns herself to stone then he sacrifices himself and she just turns back? How? Why didn’t they talk about that more.  I mean I was glad she was back. I liked her even though she could be really cold.  But explain how that happened at least.

 So, in the end we go through several scenes thinking he is now human.  Oh woe is me I have to get a root canal.  Being a human is hard. But, surprise, at the very end we see he is still a fox.  What? How? I thought he died and was reincarnated. And part of all that was he was now human. But I read somewhere that the cast said if you understand the real story of the gumiho you get it. So I read it and apparently one way a fox can become human is to trick their love interest for three years into thinking there are human.  So that is what he was doing.  He was tricking her. But not very well because he slipped up about them having a daughter. But why would she trip on that anyway. He could have just been saying that.  I get they were sticking to the lore and all that but they did not explain that lore to the viewer. So, unless you knew to go read about that, it was just confusing. Why was he faking it?  And that doesn’t even make sense to me anyway. No more than bubbles with the Little Mermaid.  I didn’t like it.  It was silly.

 Why did the brother die?  I was just liking him. And what cold people.  So sad when Lee died but then the brother dies, they shed just a very few tears and then are like Lee is back. No big deal brother was sacrificed.  They made a big deal about him having a family but he didn’t.  They didn’t seem to care beyond just those few moments.  Life went on perfectly without him.  In fact it smoothed over all their newlywed troubles.  The little boy didn’t even seem to care his surrogate dad/brother was gone.  But don’t worry he is reincarnated as about a six or seven year old child.  Okay he looks like him but I thought you were convinced that all those other people that looked like main girl were not her.  So how do you know that little boy is him?  It was just stupid.  And how do they explain some are reincarnated as a newborn but some seem to appear at various ages.  Too weird.  Not buying it.  Not even in a mythological sense.

 I guess I am of the unpopular opinion that this just wasn’t very good.  Lots of potential with such cool characters (foxes and other immortals) but they just told a very boring love story.  I never like love stories where they get together too soon and that is what this felt like.  Okay. They are together. Let’s go home.  Oh she is going to turn into the serpent?  I don’t care.  You had your love story.  And the side love stories? Also pretty uninspired.

#TaleoftheNineTailed. #LeeDongWook #JoBoAh. #KimBum

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Essay title: How to massacre an awesome concept... Development: Tale of the Nine-Tailed (2020)

This show has a nice cast, which acted very well, nice photography, nice locations, nice music, nice CGI, awesome story-concept. Seriously: in this show all is nice, but the screenplay. Not sure, who's the story-killer (sure not a story-teller) who gave birth to such an embarrassing garbage.
I feel stunned because of the way the pretending-to-be-a-screenwriter could massacre a so fantastic subject like the one on which this show is based. This show had all the good premises to become something epic. Instead the outcome is tragically mediocre. To paraphrase Ji Ah "this story might really become a tragedy": and actually it did. A storm of plot-holes, plot-nonsenses, plot-oddities, eventually led me to rate this show 6.5/10, of which 4.5 points are given because of what mentioned at the very beginning of this review.
Delusional, disappointing, unbelievably frustrating.
If you need to be inspired to randomly f*ck off the world, this is the show which will give you a valid reason to do it.

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IN LOVE WITH THIS SERIES!

This couple is out of this world, the chemistry is unreal. The acting is exquisite. Highly recommend to every fantasy lover, this is IT! The story line is super interesting and unique, it was the first time I was exposed to the myth of the fox. I find the graphics ON POINT! The love between the two and the actions between the relationship of the brothers and those around them is raw and real. I watched the whole series in one day, and I payed attention the entire time. LOL.


Seriously watch!! I have few 10/10s and this one makes my fantasy self so happy. It isn't extreme, fake looking like some historical dramas which literally make me LOL with how obviously fake it looks, but is way more modern in the way they went about it. I WILL SAY ONE THING, the tower drop scene is constantly on my mind. thats all. I really hope you just give it a try. You will fall in love with the couple at the end, because the ending is not a dead one. I hope for another season.

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A good joy ride into the Gumiho’s past!

Spoiler alert!
We happen to value things which we either don’t have or used to have. The former is out of control for most of us and most of us are mere mortals who can’t do much but regret the latter for not having cherished it enough when we had it. But our ML being a Gumiho (and not a mere mortal) in a fantasy world gets the opportunity to build some more memories with his brother lee rang who is dead in lee yeon’s time.

Things I appreciated:
It showcases good face-offs between lee yeon and some powerful villains as well as friends (you will know what I mean). At times I was afraid that our ML might get beaten or severely injured (even though we know he was meant to bounce back). The most appealing and attractive aspect of this season was the battle with the perfect impersonator jang san-beom. It’s a pretty unique and fascinating idea to witness. The path of the damned gives the kind of mysterious and horrifying twist to the plot I love.
The use of pure Japanese throughout many scenes in the show was also likened by me. I watch Chinese and Japanese dramas as well, so being subject to two languages at once was something that felt really amazing.
This season presents humour with pretty good timing and broadens our knowledge of lee yeon’s friends and acquaintances. This one doesn’t have any romantic elements to it like the first season. Overall I appreciate the showrunners displaying different themes in the two seasons. I would like it if season 3 goes back to the romance between Lee-yeon and Ji-ah.
Lastly, we all know - “She is there”

Things I couldn’t:
Old-fashion rice cooker deity!? Toilet deity!!? Seriously? This made me disappointed for something with the standard of “tale of the nine-tailed”.

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You’ll love it and hate it. But it’s worth the watch.

I’ve watched hundreds of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Thai dramas but I’ve never seen one with such diverse reviews. One reviewer tears it apart while another raves about how great it is. So I didn’t really know what to expect when I watched it. But I can honestly say I understand both the love and hate for this drama. You really get pulled in both directions. I’ll try to explain my thoughts on why I think this happened. There’s slight spoilers but no names are given and most situations are alluded to so that you kind of know where it’s going but not who, how , or when. So it doesn’t really spoil too much.

Why some hated it:
Throughout the drama it’s repeated numerous times that one of the main leads will sacrifice themselves to save the other one. So everyone expected an ending like Goblin, Gu Family Book, or A Korean Odyssey. And let’s be honest, this type of drama usually ends with an open or sad ending. So when the drama took an unexpected turn and let the main leads have their happy ending but killed someone else off (that was quite popular), a lot of people were understandably upset. And I honestly felt their pain. Not only was a popular character killed off but the ending for the main leads seemed too good to be true for a lot of those drama lovers that like sad (or open) but realistic endings. That paired along with some inconsistencies in the plot was upsetting for many viewers.

Why Some Loved it:
There is a sacrifice but it’s not who you would expect it to be. But I have to say, having a villainous type of character have a change of heart to the point of sacrificing themselves for someone else shows tremendous character growth and it really touched my heart. I was sad, then happy, then angry, then very touched all in the span of a few minutes. This unexpected twist along with a happy ending for the main leads sent us all on a very emotional journey. Some loved it, some hated it, and some were just very touched and enjoyed the ride (like me). Even though there were some unexplained situations with the plot leaving some confused, the character growth in this drama along with some great acting saved this drama and made it worth watching in my opinion.

Story:
He’s a nine tailed fox and powerful mountain god that has become quite jaded with the world. His first love was a human that sacrificed herself to save him. Since foxes mate for life he’s tormented by her death and pays a high price to have her reincarnated. After 600 years she is reincarnated but does not remember him. Instead, she is obsessed with finding out what happened to her parents on the night they disappeared. But this isn’t just about their love story. It’s much more than that. This is about the battle between evil and good. It’s about how much we are willing to sacrifice to protect innocent people from an evil threat. It’s about breaking the rules to do the right thing. And it’s about how family has each other’s backs. I like that this drama had a little bit of everything. There was horror, comedy, romance, fantasy, mystery, and suspense.

Cinematography:
The fight scenes were well executed. And when the male lead leaps off of a rooftop to save the female lead, it was well done and very realistic. They put a lot into the production of this drama and it shows. From the costumes, to the scenery, to the action scenes, it was all top notch.

Acting:
This is one of those rare dramas where I don’t have a complaint about one of the actors. Usually someone is a little wooden and stiff or someone is a little over the top and over does it, but not this drama. Everyone did a great job, especially the main characters. Lee Dong Wook somehow pulled off being powerful and godlike one moment then a sweet ice cream loving puppy the next moment so well. I loved the complexity of his character. Jo Bo Ah had me rooting for her sassy, courageous, and super clever character too.

Overall thoughts:
The acting is great, the romance is decent, there’s lots of character growth with some really great side characters and it was really touching. But my main complaint is that while it starts out with some really riveting episodes in the beginning, it soon starts to falter. By episode four I found myself getting irritated at being repeatedly teased with snippets of the past but not being given enough information to know what’s going on. Several episodes seemed to consist mostly of hints at hidden identities and past secrets with lots of mysterious new characters being introduced. It got repetitive and confusing. Fortunately, by episode 8 everything comes together and the action picks up considerably. Also, in two different scenes where the female lead is standing in pouring rain, her hair stays perfectly dry. I was disappointed at their lack of attention to detail in some scenes like this. And there were some minor inconsistencies with the plot. But if you can get through those few episodes and you’re okay with the unexpected happily ever after fairytale ending, then you’ll like it. It’s not the best drama I’ve ever seen but it’s not a bad one either. But it touched me and I’m glad I watched it.

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I was pretty excited for this drama as this drama started off pretty strong but it went downhill as it went on. If you really like fantasy dramas, I would suggest this to you but I personally didn't like it as much. There were some scenes that were cringy and questionable like for example, when Ji ah fell from the roof top and Lee Yeon had to save her. The chemistry of the main characters wasn't good except for the parts where they had kissing scenes. I don't know it's not that I hate fantasy (I like it depending on the drama) it's just that I felt like their chemistry was lacking. I was pretty disappointed in the ending as Rang sacrificed himself so that the main couple had a happy ending...

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Good Enough

" Tale of the Nine-Tailed " is not the new Goblin. They can't even be compared, though they both kind of present a romance that exceeds the rules of time. Tale of the Nine Tailed has its own charms, its own universe, and its own disadvantages.

First of all, the story, being stipped from the shiny mythology decorations, was pretty simple, pretty predictable and it was dragging a lot. The romance was awkward, mainly due to the rushed development in the present time, and the badly handled reincarnation trop. But, at least the couple had a lot of sweet, romantic moments and they looked good together.

However, it is not an exaggeration to say that the romance was overshadowed by the romance. That is mostly because the second lead was a well-constructed character, with a deep personality, tragic background, and smooth chemistry with the main lead.

As for the mythology aspect, and the villain plotline, the drama did its best to present a creepy mystery, but it didn't succeed all the way. The bad guy was not that intriguing and his story was resolved in a disappointingly easy way.

The performances, moreover, were pretty good. The main lead did great with his action scenes, the second lead proved to me once again why he was my fav in F4, and the female lead was okay, but she really shined as a villain.

Finally, the CGI and costumes were, at times, laughable and ruined the mood and atmosphere more tha once.

So, overall, 6.5 out of 10.

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Oh What Wasted Potential

I was super excited to watch this drama because...Lee Dong Wook and for the first half of the drama I really thought it would be the most amazing one I have watched. But, it went downhill afterwards...

What did I like?

The first episode was a great introduction to the story and the characters. I was in love with Nam Ji Ah's strong personality and boldness. Even as the story unfolded, it was great to watch the totally unexpected twists and turns. Loved Kim Bum as the bad boy and Kim Jeong Nan who lent the story some real depth. Even the side stories like with the Spirit of Darkness (my favourite scene was actually the scene where Yeon defeats the Spirit of Darkness in his subconscious...epic!) Also love that Lee Dong Wook has made red umbrellas iconic. The production and visuals were amazing. And the fight scenes...olala! The OST Blue Moon.....yeeeeees!

What didn't I like?

Zero chemistry! I was so upset because I loved Lee Dong Wook in Goblin and Touch Your Heart and was hoping to be blown away. It was actually two-cringey to watch the love scenes. I was beside myself expecting a not-cliche drama. But that's what we got. The story got exhausting at some point and you almost want to hurry everything up just so we can be done with the main-characters-wanting-to-sacrifice-themselves-for-each-other. A suicide pact? Really???? The worst thing though was the lack of explanations. I wanted to have everything make sense in the end and when even the most important part of the end - Yeon's reincarnation as an adult human (or is it fox?) - goes without explanation, I was so frustrated!

Still, this was a really great one and all the bad doesn't take away from a great production, some good acting and Lee Dong Wook :)

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