“Tale of the Nine Tailed” (구미호뎐)

By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
February 15, 2023

☆☆☆☆
Lee Yeon (played by Lee Dong-wook)
Nam Ji-ah (played by Jo Bo-ah)
Lee Rang (played by Kim Bum)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

In Korean folk-lore, 구미호 — which literally translates into nine-tailed foxes — are cunning creatures who live to be about 100. As they age, they grow an extra tail. 구미호 are usually young women who seduce men to eat their livers or hearts. But in the K-drama “Tale of the Nine Tailed,” the alpha fox is Lee Yeon. Once the mountain God of Baekdudaegan, he was kicked out for a variety of reasons that revolved around his love for a human woman named Ah-eum.

The woman has been reincarnated as a modern South Korean woman and the viewers will figure it out well before Yeon does. Ji-ah is a tenacious producer at a local station who is searching for her parents, who mysteriously disappeared after a car accident when she was nine. Their bodies were never found.

Meanwhile, he has a contentious relationship with his half brother Rang, who is half human. Rang is obsessively jealous of Yeon’s search for the reincarnated Ah-eum and vows to kill him for abandoning him to search for her. But watching the two brutally fight each other, it’s also clear that neither will kill the other. Their relationship is complicated and tragic, and this is the story arc that held my interest the most. 

Lee Dong-wook is a master at playing humorously morose otherworldly beings (“Goblin“). And he does more of the same here. Kim Bum (“Boys Over Flowers“) is so good at playing his younger brother that despite all of the horrible things he had done in the past (like massacring a village just because), viewers are drawn to him and feel empathy for him. (I know I always say I hate when screenwriters manipulate viewers like this, but it worked so well here.)

Midway through the series, a half man, half serpent named Imugi in the human form of an news intern named Tae-ri (coincidentally also the first name of actor Lee Tae-ri of “The Moon That Embraces the Sun” fame) enters the picture. He vows to kill Yeon and make Ji-ah his bride.

There’s a lot more to be said, but I’ll save that for the spoiler alert below.

Airdates: Sixteen 65- to 70-minute episodes airede from October 7 to December 3, 2020 on tvN. I watched this series on Viki. The second season of this series — tentatively titled “Tale of the Nine Tailed 1938” — is predicted to be released later this year or in 2024. We shall see.

Spoiler Alert: Ji-ah is the reincarnation of Ah-eum, the King of Joseon’s daughter. In order to save her father, who has been possessed by Imugi, she offers a trade. Leave the King’s body and enter hers instead. 

Modern-day Imugi has been split in two: half living inside Tae-ri’s body, but the stronger half resides within Ji-ah. Tae-ri/Imugi tells her that she can live if she offers Yeon to him instead. She was willing to sacrifice herself, but Yeon had plans of his own. He swallows one of Imugi’s scales (hence starting the process for the serpent to inhabit his body) and drags Tae-ri into the river where they both will die, thereby ending Imugi’s reign of terror.

But…Yeon doesn’t die. Rang does. He makes a deal with the Lord of the Underworld to trade his life for his brother’s. Even though he committed unforgivable crimes, he is allowed to reincarnate as a little boy who has a doting mother — something he never had. And Yeon recognizes him right away.

Yeon has been reincarnated as a human male with no memories of his 구미호 past. He and Ji-ah get married.

The question on my mind was: the point of Yeon and Tae-ri/Imugi dying was to kill Imugi forever. Just as Ji-ah had Imugi in her, does Yeon still have Imugi in him?

But wait…there’s more! The last few minutes show that Yeon is not human. He’s still immortal. How? Why? And since the purported sequel will go back in time to 1938, these questions probably won’t be answered.

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