First Impression: Joseon Exorcist
Update: My life is great and wonderful.
I’m just going to go ahead and post this since I’ve been working on it all morning. So disappointing.
I was going to write more about Joseon Exorcist when more episodes had come out, but seeing as the recent controversy is delaying production, I thought it would be interesting to talk about my first impressions of the drama now, and then later on I might come back to it.
This will be on the first two episodes of the drama, and will not talk or mention anything past that, so if you are worried about spoilers only worry about those two episodes.
Native Title: 조선구마사
Release Date: March 20. 2021 (was to air Mondays/Tuesdays)
Episode #: 16
Platform: SBS (Viki)
Director: Shin Kyung Soo
Writer: Park Kye Ok
Genre: Horror/Historical
Starring: Jang Dong Yoon, Kam Woo Sung, Park Sung Hoon. Rest of the cast can be found here.
The drama is set in the Joseon Dynasty where an evil spirit is possessing the villagers. The king and the royal family are tasked to figure out how to stop the evil spirit and protect its people.
On a whole, I really like the drama. It’s creepy and dark, and the first two episodes actually really explore that darkness pretty well. This is a horror drama, and there’s no reason to hold back for the sake of those who aren’t into the genre, and I felt that it really presented that well (despite a few out of the blue nonsense comedic parts). There was a lot more blood than I was expecting from an SBS drama and a whole lot of death. A lot a lot. The deaths were gruesome and messy and they really didn’t hold back on how much of it was there. I breezed through the first two episodes easily. I actually had to wait a day inbetween the two for subs, and found that I really didn’t like that. Which might be hard for next week since they are suspending next week’s airing episodes because of the controversy.
I am admittedly not much a historical watcher, but it’s usually due to the amount of politics that are present. It’s not my thing, and luckily that really isn’t that present in the first episodes. Yes, it still has a level of politics out of necessity (there is already tension outside of the situation and before the events happen started happening), but a lot of the politics has to be there. And it’s entertaining. It’s kind of got that same feel as a political drama like They don’t know what is going on, how they are supposed to fix anything and are just as clueless as everyone else. Especially when presented with the situation affecting not just the people they rule over, but family members.
There’s so much blood in these first two episodes and I freaking loved it.
My biggest complaint about the drama is how much it wants to be a zombie drama…when it’s technically not. With the rise of zombie dramas and movies lately in Korea, it would have been nice to see it not be that and not so obviously trying to hang on to that popularity. I think it would have been really great to see this drama at this level focus more on the possession itself, as opposed to making the possession seem like it is some sort of virus. I do get that it’s probably more to focus on the possession being more realistic and a threat to all, but it just wasn’t working for me for the most part. It’s hard to follow what they want the “monsters” to be and it creates a little bit of an identity crisis.
There’s also just this one really great thing about zombies that just makes them cool: zombies don’t care about Christianity. They don’t care about any god. That’s not why they are evil and that’s not going to stop them from being evil or trying to attack. They are mindless and don’t think. They don’t actually have any sort of motivation other than pure hunger. And I think that’s really cool, but when you place the power of prayer as their kryptonite…it just falls flat. It’s kind of like your forcing a zombie to be a vampire to actually be an evil spirit that’s inhabiting a body (because none of the bodies die before they change) and that’s just a lot of boxes to force them into.
Who knows. Maybe I’m reading too much into everything and we’ll find that this entire drama is about the first documented cases of rabies.
But honestly, even with those gripes…I loved this. I am concerned about how it’s going to turn out in terms of the issues it is having with audiences about inaccuracies going forward, though (insert cry laugh gif). I only hope that it is something minor enough that it can recover and won’t be affected too much because I am very much here for all of it. And if it wants to live in this 19+ world past these first two episodes, I welcome it with open arms.
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