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Bulgasal: Immortal Souls korean drama review
Completed
Bulgasal: Immortal Souls
3 people found this review helpful
by K-lover61
Feb 10, 2022
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 8.0
Story 8.0
Acting/Cast 10.0
Music 8.5
Rewatch Value 4.0

Emotional ride of 1,000 years

I love supernatural, fantasy and folk lore, so together with a dream cast, I was waiting very impatiently for this drama.
Overall, I really enjoyed it a lot. I thought the acting was very good, with neither Lee Jin Wook nor Lee Joon overplaying their roles. Lee Joon gave wonderful facial expressions and could make me feel such sympathy and sorrow for him, just with his eyes. He had great presence in this role and really made OK Eul Tae come to life.
LJW lent very subtle humour to his role, when called for, again with facial expressions alone.
A lonely, bitter, vengeance-led character whose childhood scenes really pulled at my heart strings.
Gong Seung Yeon was also excellent and a character who possessed great strength, I thought, even though she couldn't exercise it in the earlier time lines.
I didn't have a problem with Kwon Na Ra's acting at all, but found her character a little too 'goody-goody' in the present day. She could be quite naive and at times just didn't seem to grasp aspects of the Bulgasal's history or dynamic (and that had nothing to do with memory loss). She did display guts on many occasions though. In fact that's one thing this drama didn't do... present weak, inferior female characters.
The only character that infuriated me (in all his lives), was Jung Jin Young's. He was a total idiot, especially in the present day. His reasons for hating the Bulgasal were just ridiculous and his inept actions constantly put everyone at risk ~ really irritating!
A lot about this story is very sad and tragic, spanning timelines ~ the most important events happening 1,000 and 600 years ago, and the the main story taking place in the present day.
This obviously means there are flashbacks and that is one of my few criticisms.... the same ones were used far too much. In the final few episodes these were thankfully enlarged on, as the true events emerged of the Bulgasal's origin and curse.
The reincarnation of characters I found quite fascinating.
It was not always obvious who was telling the truth and who was lying, either; especially when one character made me feel sorrow for how he ended up the way he was.
The ending didn't really surprise me, but I found it slightly confusing in some respects... hard to explain without any spoilers!
There were some scenes where I felt like the drama was written as the story went along. If less time had been devoted to playing the same flashbacks multiple times and more to developing the ending, I think it would have been an even better watch.
The cast and their acting definitely propped up the less than perfect script, but I would watch it again one day, just for that.
OST was pretty good too and suited the drama well.
I'd recommend giving it a watch and deciding for yourself whether it's a love, hate or indifference vote.
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