Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Hwayugi (aka A Korean Odyssey)

Photo credit: www.imdb.com

Hwayugi (A Korean Odyssey) I was somehow reluctant to watch for no good reason. I love the two male leads and A Journey to The West seems like a wealth of inspiration for a multitude of stories. I can't explain my reluctance. Howeever as soon as I started  I was caught up with it and was shedding predictable tears by the last two episodes.

The story is inspired by A Journey to The West but in a romantic manner. The Monkey King (played so cutely by Lee Sung Gi - who looks odd in the photos but I love him ever since Brilliant Legacy) and Monk Triptaka fall in love. The Monk is the female lead. In the original story the Bull does not have that much to do but here he (played by the  wonderful Cha Seung Won) is an integral part of the story. The premise is that the demons and deities live in the human world and the Monkey King and Monk will save it from disaster by fulfilling their destinies. Instead of the head band The Monkey King is enslaved by a bracelet that causes him to fall in love with the Monk. Well they made it work. There is the pig, here a very popular K-Pop star falling in love with a zombie, winter general and summer general and the sad deity wife of The Bull who is condemned into 99 lifetimes of misery because she stole human souls to save her and The Bull's child's life.

Anyway this totally worked for me and Cha Seung Won has an amazing comedic talent. He has aged but aged well and I love post Army duty Lee Seung Gi. I think it is the first time I watched the female lead Oh Yeon Seo and I liked her very much. But my favorite female actor was Lee Se Young who played the zombie and the evil priestess who took over her body.

This is highly recommended if you are into whimsy and silliness with a dash of melodrama.


1 comment: