Genie, Make a Wish review: Kim Woo-Bin and Bae Suzy’s reunion starts off strong but loses its magic by the end of it!

What could’ve been a promising drama stumbles on its own premise that couldn’t be saved by its iconic leads either!

Genie, Make a Wish review: The last time we saw Kim Woo-Bin and Bae Suzy together as leads was nine years ago in Uncontrollably Fond. The climax of that show was my first introduction to what a ‘K-trauma’ felt like! Still reeling from its ending, when I heard that the duo was re-uniting again on-screen, I wished to see what we couldn’t the last time! The premise was strong, the leads were two of the most popular actors in Korea, and it was both of their combined comeback to the rom-com genre after a pretty long time, so it’s safe to say that the stakes and the expectation were high!

Written by Kim Eun-Sook, who previously gave us K-dramas like Guardian and Mr. Sunshine, plays with fantasy and rom-com in her latest series. The story centers around Iblis(Kim Woo-Bin), a wish granting Genie who struck a deal with God to test a theory. He strongly believes that the human species that God has created is full of greed and corruption. He proves that through granting them wishes and mentions to God that if he comes across a human being who makes a selfless wish, he will forfeit himself. Much to his surprise, that does happen and he is imprisoned inside his Genie lamp for 983 years. This leads to him finding the reincarnation of the human who imprisoned him in today’s world. 

Also Read: Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl is a love letter to falling head over heels in love and so much more!

The latest incarnation of that human is a literal psychopath though! Ki Ka-Young(Bae Suzy) has serial killer-like temptations and lacks any kind of emotion in her body. She is abandoned by her mother for this very reason and is solely left to be raised by her grandmother, who instills in her a set of rules to follow so she does not turn out to be a killer like everyone expects. When Ka-Young ventures out to her annual Dubai trip, she stumbles on a Genie lamp, meets Iblis and becomes his new master. There begins their chaotic relationship which feels part match made in heaven and hell both!

A Genie and a psychopath pairing seems like a rather intriguing story. If only the show wasn’t as complicated as their relationship, it would have kept me interested from start to finish! The series is an amalgamation of so many supernatural forces coming together. There’s a Genie, mythical beasts, an angel, a half human-half spirit who wants to be an immortal like Voldemort, there’s re-incarnation, time travel, a 13 going on 30 sub-plot; you name it and the series has it all! Which is exactly how it gets tangled and overlaps its own arcs to the point where it gets difficult to follow and leaves one confused as a viewer. It’s too Sci-Fi for its own good, if that’s even a thing! As a Kim Woo-Bin loyalist, it feels conflicting to critique a show he is a part of but him and Bae Suzy are wasted potential here and they do the best that they can with what they're given. Unfortunately, Ka-Young’s Birkin collection got more of a reaction out of me than the story at one point!

Meta humour seems to be the choice of the season. There’s plenty of it in Genie, Make a Wish as well! From Kim Woo-Bin dressing up as some of his iconic characters to a special cameo and Bae Suzy talking about the battle of copyrights amongst OTT platforms, there are certain moments in the show that make you grin but not enough to completely fall in love with it! There were certain scenes in the show that also reminded me of Song-Kang and Kim Yoo-Jung’s My Demon. The human girlfriend and supernatural boyfriend is a genre we’ve seen quite a few times before. It has a similar ‘oh I found a loophole to keep my partner alive’ arc as My Demon, but it isn’t even close to how gripping that was! 

This year, with Melo Movie, Squid Game season 2, You and Everything Else, and now Genie, Make a Wish, the streak of Netflix original K-dramas with all episodes releasing on the same day, is simply not fairing well! Whether it’s the rocky execution, a confusing climax or a story that lacks heart, there’s some much needed redeeming that needs to be done here in terms of storytelling! Here’s hoping the next one in line hits bulls eye before the year ends!

All episodes of Genie, Make a Wish are currently streaming on Netflix!

For more reviews, follow us on @socialketchupbinge.