Anya's Musings

Name of the show: My Girlfriend is a Gumiho
Genre: Fantasy, Romantic Comedy
Lead Actors:  Lee Seung Gi and Shin Min Ah

 I was updating my Facebook page recently and they asked me name my inspirations. Out of the names that I filled out, most have been (according to me) extremely gifted women writers. Among them, I listed the Hong Sisters. Why? Well, primarily because I love their shows, all of them! Then there is this thing that I've learnt from life thus far and also from the creative writing classes that I took: writing comedy is very tricky. Learning to make someone laugh, truly laugh, is an art and a difficult one at that. And in this art the Hong Sisters really excel. But more on that in another post. I've been lazying around & not been blogging much lately plus my blog has a backlog of K-drama reviews (for those who have been asking me persistently: "k-dramas" is short for "Korean dramas" and I am their own personal bitch).

So on to my The Most Favorite Hong Sisters Drama EVER........

My Girlfriend is a Gumiho. Also go by the names My Girlfriend is a Nine-Tailed Fox and 내 여자친구는 구미호.

Before I start yapping about this amazing 2010 drama, I think I should try an explain what a Gumiho is. Gumihos are mythological creatures in the folklore of South Korea (and China and Japan etc) that are basically nine-tailed fox who can change into very beautiful humans at will. While in some (and mostly earliest) versions of mythology, gumihos may or may not have been nice creatures, since quite a while now, they have been exclusively portrayed as blood-thirsty and extremely evil beings. As time went by, folklores surrounding gumihos came about that gumihos could change their appearance into a woman of unparalled beauty who would try to eat the heart of a hundred human men. This she did for a variety of reasons, depending on what version you're familiar with but the most popular version declares that a gumiho has to eat the heart of a hundred men if she wants to turn into a human. I have also heard of a version where a gumiho can turn into a human if she reveals her true form to a human (male) and if then that human keeps this secret with him for a hundred days.

Basically there are numerous stories and facts (some of them contradicting each other ever so slightly) surrounding the gumiho legend. The main point is: shape-shifting nine-tailed fox who can change appearance at will into every bit of gorgeous but is Evil.

The earlier stories had gumihos changing into handsome men as well but as time went on, gumihos became almost exclusively women who tried every bit to seduce poor, innocent men. I feel that gumihos and the legends surrounding them were cautionary tales portraying female sexuality has unnatural and evil (where as male sexuality as natural....all those men who get seduced at the slightest provocation are not judged. They are men!). Basically every bit the vixen and a lot worse.

This is where the Hong Sisters turn thr gumiho legend (using the similar legend) and make it so much fun!

The story goes thus:

We see a rich, orphan guy called Cha Dae Woong (Lee Seung Gi)

who lives with his grandfather and aunt and lives on his grandfather's abundant wealth. He is lazy, not caring about his future and spends money like water. His dream is to be an actor, preferably an action hero. Like a true hero, he has his two faithful sidekicks--- Byung Soo (Kim Ho Chang) and Sun Neyeo (Hyomin).

Like, all heroes, Dae Woong has a love interest, a crush. This would be his sunbae Eun Hye In (Park Soo Jin). Hye In seems every bit the perfect girl---pretty and very well spoken but even in the first episode we suspect her to be the vixen (in terms of her inner self).

Meanwhile, in a temple a little away from Seoul,
is a painting of a tail-less fox with an old woman who is called the Three Gods Grandmother. It has its own little legend--- Long ago, there lived a very beautiful gumiho (Shin Min Ah) who desired to be a human more than anything else.
All the men in the village were awestruck by her divine beauty, something that did not sit very well with the women of the village. So one day, the men and women of the village sat down and prayed to the Three Gods Grandmother who decided that the solution to this problem is to get the gumiho married. The women are still jealous and that's when they spread a (false) rumour that the gumiho is so desparate to become a human that she will eat the hearts of a hundred men to get that. We all know how a rumour spreads eailsy and ruins the life of the victim... the gumiho is left heart-broken on her wedding day, dressed up like a bride and no groom shows up.
To further salvage the rumour and gumiho's reputation, Three Gods Grandmother cuts off gumiho's tales and traps her in this painting where she's been living since 500 years.

Dae Woong, in the spriti of rebilious-rich-kid, manages to run away from home and somehow ends up at the temple and on hearing the callings of a mystical female voice, draws nine tails on the painting of the fox, thus releasing the gumiho from the painting.

The gumiho starts following Dae Woong around and due to some turns of many, many events, Dae Woong ends up having to call her his girlfriend.



The story also contains a gumiho-hunter (who himself is half-mystical being but still continues to hunt his own kind) with a lopsided hair cut and a background score of his own. And his obssession with hour glasses and magic potions that remind me of the video game called Prince of Persia that I used to play when I was a child. His name: Dong Joo.



Then there is the secondary plot of the romance between the film director Ban Doo Hong and Dae Woong's aunt Min Sook. Usually I don't like secondary plot lines that much but this drama makes me laugh out loud even here.

The main theme of this show is Mi Ho's struggle to be human which is juxtaposed with the humans acting quite inhuman. While we see humans like the women 500 years earlier spreading crap lies about Mi Ho and then people like Hye In, we see Mi Ho who is a nice person but wishes to be human (incideantally, a scene shows her dealing with two kids the way a human would: by bribbing them!). While our gumiho acquires a human name (Gu Mi Ho) to sound more human, she years to find out if there has been a story written about a non-human/mythological being falling in love with a human who ended up with a happily ever after. Sadly no one is Mi Ho's surroundings has ever heard of the Twilight saga and she ends up with The Little Mermaid, which oddly mirrors what she may end up like if Dae Woong ditches her. In a beautiful scene, we see Mi Ho going up the lift as Dae Woong and Hye In stand downstairs, just as Dong Joo's voice in the background narrates the part about the little mermaid disappearing into bubbles. And just then, we see a group of school children blowing out soap bubbles. Awww.
The mermaid watched the happy prince with the woman he loved, turned into a bubble, and disappeared entirely into the air...


I won't go more into the story line even though I am tempted to do so. But I do adore how the show goes.

Shin Min Ah makes up for a very adorable gumiho...I want to adopt one! So. Cute. I mean, this is one show where I adore the female lead.



I love how the subject of sexuality is treated in this show. First of all, its done with immense respect. Then there is the naturalisation of female sexuality, which...yay. In My Girlfriend is a Gumiho, we see Hye In apparently showing the morality of a typical K-drama heroine... not displaying her heart on her sleeve, being scandalised at the hero showing the slightest bit of PDA and so on. But Mi Ho,  who is truly the more innocent one, happily talks of mating and has no qualms about intimacy. Lovely.

I also like how little little things are indicated in this show. The bond between Mi Ho and Dae Woong is materialised in the Fox Bead and when Mi Ho is in pain, so is Dae Woong.

This show is a romantic-comedy but watch it if you're a sucker for cuteness. I anyways love two things this show has: fox and rain.

My ratings for My Girlfriend is a Gumiho: 9/10

Other K-dramas:

• Boys Over Flowers
• Flower Boys Ramyun Shop
• Dae Jang Geum
• Coffee Prince 
• Playful Kiss
• Personal Taste
• Full House
• Queen In Hyun's Man

--> THIS BLOG POST CONTAINS SPOILERS ABOUT A MOMENT TO REMEMBER AND BOYS OVER FLOWERS.
 
--> Of my list of the most absolute favorite movies, A Moment To Remember definitely comes in the top 5. I am a sucker for good romance stories and this film is an embodiment of that. But more on my views and reviews on the film later… I’m here to talk about memories right now. In A Moment To Remember, the female lead starts losing her memory one by one, the tragedy being that she forgets the love of her life. Of course, the love of her life, devastated as he is, tries to keep their memories alive for the both of them. There is a line in the movie that keeps coming more than once and it goes: When the memory dies, so does the person.

-->
--> The reason I talk about Boys Over Flowers is that in the very last episode, Goo Jun Pyo (ah, definitely one of my fav fictional characters till date…giggle!) meets with an accident and is critical for a while and all that but when he does wake up, he’s fine except that he doesn’t remember his girlfriend Guem Jan Di. Which wouldn’t have been such a big deal had the entire series not revolved around the true love and struggles in love of Jun Pyo and Jan Di. Anyways, I, like the F4 and Jan Di were shocked and vexed when Jun Pyo couldn’t remember her, fretting over their fate (he eventually does remember her…True Love is rewarded in all the K-dramas that I’ve watched till date, yay!). I remember reading a fan blog on that episode of Boys Over Flowers at that time. That post was written on the same date that finale episode was aired in South Korea, the internet was buzzing with the end of a series that had contributed so much in the Korean Wave. The blogger wrote about the part where Jun Pyo loses his memory and fails to remember only one person and I remember her critsising the plot saying that it was a fake disease.
 
--> And at that time, the only reason I didn’t like that comment was because of my loyalty towards Boys Over Flowers and anything that Lee Min Ho is associated with. But I never really did believe that this selective amnesia is a real thing and dismissed as a mere plot device. And I also remember thinking, oh well how convenient! If we could just happen to forget one thing or one event that pains us, or even person that even though we love truly, just is so difficult to keep loving. I had thought that. I wasn’t happy that he had forgotten her, I just wanted it for myself as a defense mechanism, just like I had wanted Son Ye Jin’s character’s Alziemer from A Moment To Remember.
 
--> I should clarify that never for a moment was I serious about wanting any of that. That was just me getting melodramatic and coping with the ongoing shit in my life, that’s all. I tend to do that. This is how I deal with stuff. I watch or read a lot of stuff and imagine myself in highly dramatic situations with the most bizarre and fantastical solutions and then when I’ve let out my steam, I am ready to deal with stuff practically.
 
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Women--how they should or should not be, what they should or should not wear, what they should or should not marry, what line of academics & careers they should or should not take--seems to be one of the most talked about topics right now. And maybe I've turned into somewhat of a pessimist in the last few years, but none of it is making me, a woman, feel any better about myself or my own position in the society I am forced to live in. I have to admit, it is not the easiest thing to be a woman (at least in the time and space I am inhabiting) not because I am powerless or lack resources, but because it is not socially acceptable for me to go and get those resources for myself. You know what I mean? Ironically, it is very much the social acceptable thing to do for everyone to talk about women as independent entities, capable of living their lives their own ways.

I think people are a bit confused over this issue, as is bound to happen with any topic that deviates from tradition even to the slightest degree. I'm not denying that the whole women's' emancipation topic hasn't evolved for the better...I am merely saying that we have a long, long way to go still. Take, for example, the 16th December, 2012 Delhi Rape Case. It was horrifying, inhumane to say the least. And I am happy that now it is politically incorrect to question what the victim in question was wearing, who she was with, and what time she was out. I say "politically incorrect" simply because since that day I have met quite a few people who still ask those questions but when they are safely hidden in their unquotable domestic circle. What did take me by surprise was the number of people--men and women--who seemed to have wanted protection for women because they are apparently weak (as opposed to horrible people roaming about out in the open).

Recently, a new ad campaign against female sex trafficking has got the entire country taking. There are three photographs of three women dressed up as three different Hindu goddesses. These goddesses are battered, they have been beaten up, are bruised. And the campaign has achieved two major objectives: it has evoked a sense of horror among the audience to get everyone taking about it.