Guardian: The Lonely and Great God

must watch

Since Goblin is known as such a classic and must-watch kdrama, I finally decided to watch it - and didn’t regret it.
At the beginning this drama was a lot more mystical than I expected, but I got used to it pretty quickly and it didn‘t take me long to get invested in the story. I guess it‘s fair to say that Goblin has a quite unique story that is very emotionally investing and made me both laugh and cry. This drama definitely has its fair share of laughs and funny moments, but also serious scenes and moments that made me tear up.
I also loved the cast and their chemistry - especially the bromance between Kim Shin and the grim reaper never failed to make me smile. To be honest - I had to get used to the thought of the age difference between the Goblin and Eun-tak, but their chemistry was still great. I don‘t think I even have to mention Sunny and the grim reaper. <3
This drama has a lot of really pretty shots and scenes in Canada and Korea and I also really enjoyed the OST.
Would recommend!

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Tearjerker and healing drama with great chemistry and story

The show is really really good at start storAs fate would have it, Eun-Tak grows up able to see ghosts and is commonly referred to as “Miscellaneously Omitted Person” by this same Grim Reaper who just so happens to be Kim Shin’s best friend. With Kim Shin destined to be joined with Eun-Tak, the former is able to summon the Goblin every time she blows out a candle.
Believing herself to be the Goblin’s bride, this 19 year old is whisked up on an unforgettable journey of love, heartache and laughter across 16 unforgettable episodes.

With echoes of the past life bleeding through, the early episodes work to build up each of our main characters, who are joined by the mysterious Sunny who rounds out this quartet. There’s also a number of supporting players who lend their voice to this one too, including Duk-Hwa whose family have been indebted to the Goblin for years.

There’s also a mystery deity in a red dress called “Birth Grandmother” too. Although the drama doesn’t explicitly tell us, Koreans will recognize her as Samshin, the Goddess of childbirth and life.

The story does sag a little around the midway point though, taking a little too long to get to the crux of the drama. There’s a lot of will they/won’t they surrounding Kim Shin’s fate but as this one moves into its third act, the pacing does get a lot better. It’s also during these middle portion of episodes that an abundance of flashbacks are used to pad out the run-time.However, the chemistry between the actors is absolutely off the charts so it’s easy to look past this. Whether it be the budding bromance between Kim Shin and the Grim Reaper, the doomed romance between Reaper and Sunny or even the romantic angle between Shin and Eun-Tak, every single relationship is given a decent amount of time to grow and evolve over the course of the show.

There’s a lot of bittersweet moments leading up to the ending too, which will go down as one of the best finales of any Korean drama to date. No spoilers here of course but this one is worth persevering with during the slower chapters to reach this incredible conclusion. Be prepared to come with a pack of tissues though – this is one heartbreaking drama.

In fact, heartbreak and humour both go hand in hand here, with Goblin managing to perfectly balance both its romantic and comedic elements. The best moment of comedy comes midway through the show, as Shin and the Grim Reaper walk with shopping while the main theme “Round and Round” plays in the background.

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If you liked “Faith (the Doctor),” then you will really enjoy this drama.

From the very start, I noticed many similarities between the two.

The female leads (FL) in both dramas have a similar acting style, but I found this FL more credible and less annoying. Yes, they pull their hair in both, but it only happens once in this drama. They share the same facial expressions and exhibit a childish, clueless demeanor. However, since she portrays a 19-year-old and then a 29-year-old here, it feels more acceptable to see her naive and innocent attitude. In contrast, in "Faith," she was around 30 but acted like a teenager throughout, which felt ridiculous.

The male lead (ML) in this drama is 12 years older than the FL in real life, whereas in "Faith," the FL was older than the ML by 10 years. I did not mind. Both ML are really great actors.

There are no kisses and barely any hugs in this drama, just like "Faith."

Both endings are similar, but this drama took the time to explain the FL's reappearance. But same “few minutes” to close the dramas. There's the same endless staring at each other and a lack of hugs. I thought this ending was a tiny bit better because we truly see the characters cry. It wasn’t just a single tear from the FL and misty eyes from the ML; this time, the emotions felt genuine.

"Faith" aired in 2012, while "Guardian" came out in 2016.

I wonder if both actresses, who were of similar ages, went to the same school or had the same teachers, which might explain their similar acting styles. In "Guardian," the FL has more credibility, possibly because she physically appears to be 19.

That said, I enjoyed the drama up to episode 8. After that, it started to feel a bit redundant. Both leads fall in love but are reluctant to admit it. I actually found the other couple more intriguing and interesting somehow.

I appreciate K-dramas for their openness to supernatural themes. However, I’m not pleased with the lack of physical affection like hugs and kisses; it feels too teenage-like to me.

I did find many humorous scenes that I enjoyed, and I loved the bromance, which I believe is the highlight of this drama.

It’s not a high-budget production. Interestingly, I was in the same city when they filmed the Quebec City scenes. You will not find CGI special effects. In fact they filmed in 5 places: a field (battle), outside a palace (slaughter), inside a castle (old bricks walls), s-korean street and Quebec city (the crew enjoyed the city a lit as I saw many different places lol). All in all it was well done.

In conclusion, it’s a nice romantic supernatural drama with a somewhat happy ending for all, although it’s not the usual conclusion one might expect.

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It's necessary viewing for a well-rounded K Drama lover

I waited a long time to watch Goblin, for all the reasons people take issue with it. But I finally decided I just needed to jump in and find out what makes it so beloved, despite obvious foibles. I'll mainly address the age gap and why it eventually didn't bother me. As the story unfolded, the way it was reinforced that she wouldn't even have been born if it weren't for him, and that she was born expressly for him actually started to make it feel like she was less of a human and more mythical too. Hence, the age difference ceased to be a problem for me, especially as the series progresses. I'm sure I wouldn't have experienced that phenomenon if it hadn't been a fantasy series, but that's just what happened. Anyway, I was able to overlook things that would normally annoy me and because the cast was so good, I didn't mind the draggy pace. It also felt so novel and unique at times and like it was it's own thing, not trying to copy anything else. I know there were some tropes, but it's hard to explain why it just felt magically original; It was probably the cast and the writing.

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Can finally check it off my list, Mission Accomplished!

For Goblin fans, no need to read the review below.

I tried watching Goblin back when it was the latest hit, but dropped it midway, and never looked back. But since then the internet world has been raving non-stop and making it out to be the greatest K-drama of all time, but only when my scant memory of the reasons why I dropped it at ep12 faded, was I able to give it another go, more than anything just to check the rite of passage that is this drama off my list. Unfortunately as I expected, completing it felt like a mission, nothing more.

I will start with the positives:
This drama boasts awesome cinematography, Great Production and Overall good performances by all. It can be watched at any time in the future and I believe in terms of production quality it will never feel old. As for Kim Go Eun, having enjoyed her later works and appreciated her great performance, although I was annoyed at the beginning by her over-the-top childish behavior, I cannot be sure if that was her own acting that was to blame. The more the story progressed that more I could feel her acting improve midway through the drama and resemble her performance in later works.

Now moving to the negatives, after having managed to push myself past all the blasphemous storylines, I will try to mention some of the main things that annoyed me with this drama.

1- Drama Length: Whoever decided to produce a drama with 16 episodes each running an average of 1 hour 15~20 minutes made a mistake. Even the writers of an epic Sageuk drama with a complicated saga for a story would still choose to extend the episode count keeping the running time of each episode at a normal length. And honestly speaking, the story here by no means required such a long running time, yes it had its lore and it had two romantic couples with a story each worthy of a separate drama, but I feel the drama could have easily fit into 12 or 14 episodes with normal 1 hour runtime, there were a lot of unnecessary scenes or needlessly long shots of people brooding that could have been edited out of cut short, half way through the drama I was watching with 1.25 or 1.5 playback speed for crying out loud. The ironic thing with such a long-run is that for me their romance somehow felt it was never given enough time to properly mature, because she was so young, overly immature and trusting to cohabitate with two fantastical being, and he was so oddly head-over-heels with a 19 year old just by suspecting she was his destined bride.

2- The Comedy: I generally love mix genre dramas, and the comedic parts I believe were needed in this drama to keep things from feeling too heavy or angsty, but sometimes said comedic parts were so over the top and full of eye-roll and cringe-inducing moments, also the characters were acting so unbelievably immature and childlike for their fantastically long age span. I mean I can understand that he lived for 900+ years and had zero romantic involvement but still that doesn't mean that he acts like a mid-school boy going through his first crush, and the grim reaper would sometimes be acting like a 12 year old and other times be all wise and know-it-all. Sometimes the shift mid scene between heavy angst or thriller to comedy was made nicely, but sometimes the shift was too sudden and extreme it felt like being struck in the face with a bucket of icy cold water.

3- The Romance: I know it is an unpopular opinion, but I thought the romance between the main couple felt off from start to finish.

Even if as a viewer we are able to look past the age gap between a mortal human and a 900+ year-old goblin, it was totally unnecessary to choose to make said human a high-school girl, they could have easily made her an adult since the beginning with the exact same circumstances (he having saved her life as an unborn child thus having created his own bride), so even if she was in her twenties and his physical appearance was mid-40s it would have been less icky to watch. And then we would have been spared from watching a high-schooler acting all clingy blurting out “I love you” to a middle age ajusshi she barely even knew, just cause she sees in him her card-out of a difficult life and having been told my numerous ghosts that she was the goblin-bride.

I always thought watching her act more like a 12 year old all giddy and childlike around him, and him giving her swoony eyes or patting her hair, that it all just felt rather predatory, and I believe the writers opted to tone down their romantic scenes early on in fear of giving off pedophilia-like vibes (there was this scene where they were playing in the arcade and he was all dressed up and she was in her school uniforms and as she was calling him ajusshi as usual, I just thought to myself how on earth any onlooker would not be rightfully thinking that he must be her sugar daddy). I wasn’t blaming her classmate who was spreading rumors that she was dating a middle-aged dude because factually speaking she was.

4- The ending (the most frustrating) ####MAJOR DETAILED SPOILER AHEAD###

So, he chose to perish in order to save her, good……He was finally free of his eternal punishment but still chose to remain in a limbo-like existence to keep a promise he made to her, fine……She has forgotten about him but still suffer from strong feelings of depression and bouts of melancholic emotions which she has no explanation for. Then thanks to her heartfelt wishes and their previous contract, we see that he has been given the opportunity to return to the living world once more, okeeeeeey (reluctantly accept the hard to swallow premise). Also bear in mind, he is still back as an undying Goblin in love with a mortal; in other words the main issue with the story is still unresolved. Then in order to sort out the issue with her being a missing soul who was never meant to be born, the writers chose to make her die an honorable death where she sacrificed herself to save others which I thought was very noble and heartfelt.

Now at this point I would say the writers had the opportunity to choose 1 of two options; make her return as a different un-dying entity such as an angel or whatever (may sound a bit laughable I know but bear with me), and then they both would have had their HEA living a human-like life with just the inconveniency of having to constantly move and change identity to hide their immortality.

If that was too much or too tragic from Ji-Eun-Tak’s perspective, then the second option would have been to have both of their “Lives” end in one way or the another and then to reincarnate in their exact same form and preferably have both of them be in the same age group this time around. If they thought writing a script where he was reborn as a human wouldn’t make sense, did anything else make much sense in this heavy-on-the-fantasy story to begin with? And why was it so simple to write it in that exact same way for the second lead couple and not the main lead couple? Considering the fact that a grim reaper; who is supposed to be a dead soul of a sinner, can get to finish his atonement term and cease to exist, then by the same rule shouldn’t Kim Shin who had been spared of his eternal punishment as a Goblin after having his sword removed be given the same chance?

Honestly just want to rant, but what was the writers insistence to keep him as an undying goblin right till the end, and even worse to have his bride be reincarnated and reunited with him while she is still a highschooler! Is there some reason why the writers were so fixated on keeping the starting point of their star-crossed romance between an almost 1-millennium-old undying being and a 19 year old mortal human?

The Bromance was nice and cute, but many times it was too corny for my taste, and still cannot salvage the show for me.

The OST, had some memorable tracks, but there were annoying instrumental tracks that sounded like old SAGA game BGM, and also a couple of tracks had corny English lyrics that tempted me always to fast forward the scenes they played in.

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Painfully beautiful. I still hear “Stay With Me” in my head.

I don’t think any drama will ever top Goblin in terms of impact. It’s been years and people are still referencing it—ads, parodies, new dramas, literally everyone’s trying to recreate that vibe. The rain, the red scarf, the walk in slow motion… iconic. Every single scene felt cinematic without even trying. The chemistry, the humor, the pain, the quiet moments that just sit with you—it all just worked.

There’s something about Goblin that makes it more than a fantasy romance. It feels like a memory, something you lived through rather than watched. It’s emotional, weirdly comforting, and somehow gets sadder the older you get. I swear, no matter how many new dramas come out, nothing has that same magic. 2016 K-drama era was unbeatable—and Goblin is still the standard.

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Bromance! Romance-meh

I watched this after seeing other newer dramas with the male leads in it, so that influenced my feelings a bit. I do want to mention though, that smart phones aside, this did not feel "dated", considering it was 7 or so years old.
Review:
Firstly; the bromance is WAY more interesting than the romance & the male lead (s) interaction with each other are the most interesting parts. I found the female lead's character annoying & yeah, like everyone has mentioned; her being in high school at the start & also at the end puts a damper on how you feel about the main couple. They really tried hard not to cross inappropriate lines, but still, it is very uncomfortable .

This fun overlooked fact gets an honorable mention for being annoying :
it was ALWAYS fall in Canada- like, could the Goblin control that ???

The frequent Product placement was pretty obvious.

***Heavy Spoilers are necessary to explain my low rating.

1) I hated how the grim reaper's storyline went. OK he gets a happy ending, but it was too little too late for me.
2) I Loathe time skips and this drama has a 9 year one near the end. I get why they put it in, but I hated it & wished it had happened around Ep. 4

3) I never really connected /understood how the female lead was a part of the Goblin's past & his attraction to her was inexplicable to me.

4) we get a happy ending once the Goblin came back from the in-between (or whatever that was), But WHY is he still a Goblin ???? He's still immortal, his lover is not! What is his purpose ?

5) They overused Crush's lovely song

6) they give us a happy ending, but spoil it by throwing in the proverbial "monkey wrench" of putting the lead couples through yet more, MORE pain AND separation before they finally let us have the final, final happy ending. It's like pouring gravy on icecream [make up your mind, one, but not both!!] So these things, added to the other misc. annoying bits , just soured the ending feeling.
rewatch; no- and it kinda breaks my heart to say it

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like other drama.

nothing special.
oh there is, in other ddrama the villain end up in jail, in here they live a happy life more happy than the goblin withhout worry and the goblin will help if they meet trouble.

the only good thing about this is the actor/actress, the places and music...as for the story pretty much the same like other k-drama with the villain actually always near ml, the villain forgiven, the villain not regret what they have done, a dark human nature unnfulfilled without resentment just because from all the bad thing there is a little goood thing. the 1st couple cannot have a normal relationship even after all the trouble but the 2nd couple can have relationship with better enviroment and clear mind like they have not done a thing wrong just like that.

at the end this show is like watching top moment in social media, they are addicting because cute/the music good/the dances good/what the person doing interesting but there is no story in it, if there is! it is just a story to make the moment connectng in natural way.

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1st Episode

I feel so confused right now, I just finished the first episode and I really enjoyed the plot and the characters of Ripper and Goblin a lot. Even the visual effects too, BUT and here comes the big but, I didn’t like the almost 20 years age gap between the main couple, it’s so cringe. During the whole episode I was waiting for a time skip or something where we would have an older female lead actress, don’t get me wrong, I really like all the actors, but Kim Go Eun is too young for Goong Yoo (who I'm really fond of), they should have had more of a father-daughter relationship, not a romantic one (very uncomfortable to watch) in my point of view. I still don’t know if I'll continue watching it, I thought it was important to bring this up beforehand, so you can decide, otherwise you would feel as frustrated as I do.

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