My Girlfriend is a Gumiho – Episode 01

The story opens with this flight of stairs at the bottom of which MI-HO is waiting.

What strikes me here is our young lady’s behavior : she stands there at one side of the road like if she couldn’t cross some invisible boundary. Just like when she was trapped in the painting/shrine.

Actually it quite resumes her original life’s drama : MH wanted to be a part of the human world but as a Gumiho she was sidelined. The only way for her to fit amongst others was to find a man who will love her and marry her. So she waited for him. Days and nights, nights and days…

But we all know how it ended eventually : nobody came to her despite her bewitching beauty, thanks to a bunch of jealous ajummas and all their slanders. Then all of her tails were chopped off by Sam-Shin Halmeoni (the Three Gods Grandmother) and she was confined for 500 years. Unfair ? Totally. But without it ? No story either.

Because one man will finally free her : DAE-WOONG aka Little Chicken (as I like to call him). For some remain unkwon reason – apart from Destiny – he’s the only person who seems to hear her voice from the  Beyond.

So no wonder that MH keeps calling him aloud : finally someone who can listen to her after centuries of invisibility ! But for now DW wishes just one thing : that MH could be more and more blurry and would vanish for good. Like a simple nightmare. Because to him, MH is just a crazy stalker.

At the beginning of the story, DW happened to be a show-off kind of guy, who is all about appareances. Look at him right now, flying into the air like a proud Wu Xia Pian warrior when… It’s just a trick.

An illusion. All made up to reveal his stuntman’s skill to the korean entertainment industry. I am not questionning DW’s desire to become a movie star. I think it’s real. I’m just saying that looking good in front of other people  is a distinctive trait of DW’s character. As a rich family’s heir, he even uses money to get his friends’s approval.

Acting in this way might give to DW a sense of being at the top of the (stairs) pyramid hierarchically. But at the end of the day, two people only will remain his closest true friends : BYEONG-SOO and SEON-NYEO.

DW’s sort of fakeness doesn’t come from bad intentions or anything. Just from his passionate… Immaturity. Therefore, ended up with MH the straight lady would totally challenge him. Let’s drop the (beauty) mask Little Chicken, shall we ?

True to herself would be MH’s greatest quality. Just like the Green Nature which keeps surrounding her, MH is genuine. With her, there is no artefice.

When you see her flying, she does for real. If she gives you the evil eye while she’s eating, she might really kill you (and reminds you strongly of My Sassy Girl‘s heroin). And if she chose to save your life by giving you her fox bead, be certain that she will look after it no matter how far you can go.

She’s quite honest about who she is – a Gumiho – and what she wants : So Meok-Ja ! (aka Let’s eat some cow !) Hence her refreshing, wild and free spirit.

I would say that  MH’s appetite is quite funny since it plays with the idea of her sexual one. The all chaser-prey dynamic goes beyond the life and death threats here : a sweet provocative tone with a zest of skinship fest, and – finally – a female lead all over a male lead’s body in KDramaland (and no, you’re not dreaming people : right up there should be one of the rare korean-style-wrist-grabbing performed by a woman.)

Unlike DW who sticks to his prejudices on MH’s crazyness, we viewers know that she is a creature from the Great Mystery. The unknown and invisible part of the world which tints her character with a somber shade.
No wonder that her Gumiho’s power intensifies at night, especially with a full moon. Even the white color associated to MH can be coupled with many different kind of feelings, such as innocence, purity, death, mourning, etc.

In any case, all those mixed feelings just make her look more radiant (and just so you know, I really like the fact that DW frees her by drawing her missing nine tails : it was like letting MH be totally herself again.).

So now MH is back – once again – into the human world. But this time around, by giving her fox bead  to DW and letting him know about her true nature, MH tipped him slowly into her own world of shadows.

Then, by being that different, how the Foxy Lady and the Little Chicken will manage to follow the red lanterns of love ?

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• Recap Visuelle : My Girlfriend is a Gumiho
• My Girlfriend is a Gumiho BO – Track 04
• Septembre 2010 : Dramas ? En veux-tu en voilà !
• My Girlfriend is a Gumiho BO – Track 02
• My Girlfriend is a Gumiho : Tournage
• Gumiho : le renard à 9 queues