♥♥♥♥/♥
TITLE: Devilish Joy / Devilish Charm 마성의 기쁨
ORIGINAL AIR DATE: September 05 - October 25, 2018
WIKI: asianwiki.com/Devilish_Charm
SEASONS/EPISODES: 1ssn/16eps
US AVAILABILITY (as of 2019-01-01): Viki
ORIGINAL AIR DATE: September 05 - October 25, 2018
WIKI: asianwiki.com/Devilish_Charm
SEASONS/EPISODES: 1ssn/16eps
US AVAILABILITY (as of 2019-01-01): Viki
Gong Ma Sung is a brain doctor who gets brain damage and loses his memory... how's that for an interesting plot? The day leading up to his accident, he meets (in a case of mistaken identity) and falls in love with Joo Gi Bbeum, an actress who has run away from a photoshoot. They spend the day avoiding her staff and then share a kiss. It's getting late though and she has to go check in with her staff, but promises to come right back. Gi Bbeum has trouble sneaking out again after going back, and Ma Sung kills time while he waits by getting a tattoo on his hand of a flower he was telling Gi Bbeum means "memories." Something to commemorate this sudden love story? While he's in the tattoo shop though, he overhears a plot to do harm to Gi Bbeum and runs out to stop it and save her, chasing the villains up and down random streets until he crosses a street where he gets hit by the speeding truck of Kdrama Doom, spends a very long time in a coma, and loses his memory every night while he's asleep of that whole day and every day that comes after. Meanwhile Gi Bbeum was finally able to sneak out again and Ma Sung is nowhere to be seen. While he lies bleeding on the street a few blocks away, she thinks he was toying with her and stood her up, and goes to drink her broken heart away. Unfortunately the villains slip her a roofie and due to twisted circumstances she winds up being blamed for a person's death and losing her entire career.
Thus, in the span of one day, they meet, fall in love, and are parted. Gong Ma Sung loses his short-term memory and Joo Gi Bbeum loses her fame and career, and they both lose touch with one another for 3 years. When they meet again by accident, Ma Sung doesn't know he's ever seen her before in his life and acts like a stuck up jerk. Gi Bbeum thinks he toyed with her on purpose so many years ago and can't believe he doesn't seem to remember her at all now! Meeting her again triggers something in Ma Sung however and as he continues to run into her, he begins to wake up each day with snippets and flashes of memory of Gi Bbeum. Why can he only remember this one annoying woman?! Despite his best efforts to forget her, each day his memories of her are the only ones he has, driving him to seek her out again and again, and the recent memories of Gi Bbeum are starting to even trigger tiny fragments of memory from that day so long ago when they met and fell in love.
Can they recover from all the lost time and lost memories? Can they unravel the secrets of that fateful day and clear Gi Bbeum's name?
Can they recover from all the lost time and lost memories? Can they unravel the secrets of that fateful day and clear Gi Bbeum's name?
Cast/ Characters/ Acting:
Choi Jin Hyuk is one of my favorite actors, ever since I saw him in Gu Family Book. His portrayal of Gong Ma Sung in Devilish Joy was so good. Gong Ma Sung is at times in the deepest grief and absolutely terrified, doesn't know who to trust, finding out friends/family are enemies and strangers are friends... and all the while he maintains a confident and self-assured air, convincing not only the world but also those closest to him that nothing at all is wrong with him. It takes a good actor to portray a character with these layers and not make them too understated nor too obvious.
Song Ha Yoon did a good job playing Joo Gi Bbeum. The character was sweet initially, when she first met and fell in love with Ma Sung, but after the flash-forward, she was quite annoying for a while, IMPO. She was displaced and disgraced and this seemed to have somewhat crippled her previously sweet and kindhearted personality and left her a bit... not sure what the words I'm looking for here are... maybe desperate and self-depreciating. It does come back, after she spends some time with Ma Sung and gets over the abandonment issues a bit.
Honestly our lead couple looked really awkward with their height difference as often as they looked really cute because of it, IMPO. It looked especially awkward when they were kissing, like her neck might snap from craning it so hard, and like he might be becoming a hunchback. Okay I might be exaggerating a little...
Hoya played Ma Song's beloved younger cousin Sung Ki Joon, whose mom thinks he should inherit the family business instead of Ma Sung. Ki Joon doesn't want to run a large corporation however, he wants to be a star. He starts his own company behind his mom's back and basically this character is hilarious. He's a puppy. A goofball. Sweet and mostly happy but at times moody and petulant. It's impossible not to love his character. He adores his cousin Ma Sung. He's got a mad crush on Gi Bbeum for the longest time, having acted opposite her once long ago before Ma Sung fell in love with her and lost his memories! But Ki Joon eventually winds up falling for actress Lee Ha Im instead! Hoya seemed quite natural in this part, I thought he did very well.
Lee Joo Yeon perfectly plays Lee Ha Im, Gi Bbeum's rival actress. Ha Im's heart isn't in the acting so much these days as she really just wants to get married and settle down. The most appealing prospect at first sight is Gong Ma Sung. When she gets accidentally locked in a wine cellar with Ma Sung's feisty younger cousin, they both annoy each other half to death, but they wind up being attracted to each other despite their protestations. They both play hard to get, much to each other's annoyance (and interest), and their little flirting/anti-flirting moments became something I looked forward to when the main characters' story was in less cheerful spots. While the character Ha Im annoyed me from time to time, Lee Joo Yeon's acting was good. I appreciated how she played this character who seemed to not even know herself very well, coming across as a stuck up brat but then showing a slip of a vulnerable side when Ki Joon came into the picture.
Song Ha Yoon did a good job playing Joo Gi Bbeum. The character was sweet initially, when she first met and fell in love with Ma Sung, but after the flash-forward, she was quite annoying for a while, IMPO. She was displaced and disgraced and this seemed to have somewhat crippled her previously sweet and kindhearted personality and left her a bit... not sure what the words I'm looking for here are... maybe desperate and self-depreciating. It does come back, after she spends some time with Ma Sung and gets over the abandonment issues a bit.
Honestly our lead couple looked really awkward with their height difference as often as they looked really cute because of it, IMPO. It looked especially awkward when they were kissing, like her neck might snap from craning it so hard, and like he might be becoming a hunchback. Okay I might be exaggerating a little...
Hoya played Ma Song's beloved younger cousin Sung Ki Joon, whose mom thinks he should inherit the family business instead of Ma Sung. Ki Joon doesn't want to run a large corporation however, he wants to be a star. He starts his own company behind his mom's back and basically this character is hilarious. He's a puppy. A goofball. Sweet and mostly happy but at times moody and petulant. It's impossible not to love his character. He adores his cousin Ma Sung. He's got a mad crush on Gi Bbeum for the longest time, having acted opposite her once long ago before Ma Sung fell in love with her and lost his memories! But Ki Joon eventually winds up falling for actress Lee Ha Im instead! Hoya seemed quite natural in this part, I thought he did very well.
Lee Joo Yeon perfectly plays Lee Ha Im, Gi Bbeum's rival actress. Ha Im's heart isn't in the acting so much these days as she really just wants to get married and settle down. The most appealing prospect at first sight is Gong Ma Sung. When she gets accidentally locked in a wine cellar with Ma Sung's feisty younger cousin, they both annoy each other half to death, but they wind up being attracted to each other despite their protestations. They both play hard to get, much to each other's annoyance (and interest), and their little flirting/anti-flirting moments became something I looked forward to when the main characters' story was in less cheerful spots. While the character Ha Im annoyed me from time to time, Lee Joo Yeon's acting was good. I appreciated how she played this character who seemed to not even know herself very well, coming across as a stuck up brat but then showing a slip of a vulnerable side when Ki Joon came into the picture.
Writing and directing:
Overall it was a very interesting story. Not 100% unique to have a character with short term memory loss, but the way they formed this story it was pretty unique and I appreciated the side stories too.
I found a few places in the storyline to feel a bit out of place. Thankfully the actors and actresses did such a good job that they covered well for any oddnesses in the plot.
Overall it was a very interesting story. Not 100% unique to have a character with short term memory loss, but the way they formed this story it was pretty unique and I appreciated the side stories too.
I found a few places in the storyline to feel a bit out of place. Thankfully the actors and actresses did such a good job that they covered well for any oddnesses in the plot.
However, the ending was also very "out there" as far as believability, and not even the great acting could save it entirely from leaving a few questions in my mind. Maybe if they'd explained what happened a bit better, I wouldn't feel like it was quite so farfetched, and would have been able to enjoy the sweetness a little less distractedly.
Happy Ending Factor?
9 out of 10 Happy Ending Points.
(SPOILER SECTION! SKIP to Final Summary if you don't want to know how it ends!)
All the good-guys get a happy ending or good resolution or are pointed in the direction of a happy ending in the future. So why only 9 and not a perfect 10? Because, trust me, I'm a total stickler for a happy ending, but when there's literally no logical or sane way to expect a happy ending and then you get one, you want it explained well and believably, right? If you don't like endings that are happy despite being impossible to be happy and they don't explain very much (if at all) the whys and hows involved in getting from "impossible" to "happy-ever-after" then you may be bothered by this ending. It's not as unexplained as, say, the unexplained-ness of the ends of Goblin, or Habaek, or When Time Stopped... and I'm eternally thankful that it's nowhere near the level of weirdness, loose ends, and unexplained everything that Evergreen was(!!) but it was still not as satisfying of an explanation as I would have liked, so I can't give it a perfect 10. Someone did have to have amnesia, but hey that's technically what the whole drama is about not just a plot device for a happy ending, at least nobody had to die and be reincarnated, right?
Basically we viewers find out not too far into the drama that Ma Sung's brain is literally dying a slow death from the accident trauma, and the more strain it's under from remembering things, the faster it will atrophy and die. I.e. the closer he gets to remembering things that could solve both the mystery of his accident and the mystery of what happened to Gi Bbeum that day (and clear her name once and for all), the closer he comes to his inevitable death. Not only that but as is the case with almost every good vs. evil story out there, the closer Ma Sung comes to ferreting out the villains, the more the villains resolve to destroy both him and Gi Bbeum. Ma Sung won't give up and leave his love a falsely-accused social outcast and his tenacity in clinging to his love for her is what will kill him for certain in the end because it's what triggers the memories. By the end, he catches all the villains, clears his beloved Gi Bbeum's name, and goes off to die alone. Some long time later he shows back up and we find out he found medical help for his condition in a foreign country and now his prognosis has reversed: He can't remember Gi Bbeum specifically but he's able to retain more and more of his memory each day until one day he goes home to Korea and has to meet and remember Gi Bbeum all over again. Again again. But this time he's not dying? And they live happily ever after? But none of that is really explained. The ending is sweet and romantic, I cried happy tears, but the not explaining drives me a little nutty, like how we went from his memories are killing him, the more he remembers the more his brain dies, to oh hey he's cured-ish but back to square 1 with the amnesia thing, but don't worry this time his memories won't kill him.
Basically we viewers find out not too far into the drama that Ma Sung's brain is literally dying a slow death from the accident trauma, and the more strain it's under from remembering things, the faster it will atrophy and die. I.e. the closer he gets to remembering things that could solve both the mystery of his accident and the mystery of what happened to Gi Bbeum that day (and clear her name once and for all), the closer he comes to his inevitable death. Not only that but as is the case with almost every good vs. evil story out there, the closer Ma Sung comes to ferreting out the villains, the more the villains resolve to destroy both him and Gi Bbeum. Ma Sung won't give up and leave his love a falsely-accused social outcast and his tenacity in clinging to his love for her is what will kill him for certain in the end because it's what triggers the memories. By the end, he catches all the villains, clears his beloved Gi Bbeum's name, and goes off to die alone. Some long time later he shows back up and we find out he found medical help for his condition in a foreign country and now his prognosis has reversed: He can't remember Gi Bbeum specifically but he's able to retain more and more of his memory each day until one day he goes home to Korea and has to meet and remember Gi Bbeum all over again. Again again. But this time he's not dying? And they live happily ever after? But none of that is really explained. The ending is sweet and romantic, I cried happy tears, but the not explaining drives me a little nutty, like how we went from his memories are killing him, the more he remembers the more his brain dies, to oh hey he's cured-ish but back to square 1 with the amnesia thing, but don't worry this time his memories won't kill him.
Final Summary:
This drama was certainly a more serious drama, not a lot in the way of overt fluff. Basically all the cheerful silly fluff after the first episode was carried by Hoya's character, and even he had some heartbreak moments to cry over. It was a satisfying romance, the chemistry was good, and the acting was good. I would watch it again, so I'm glad it looks like Viki is going to be picking it up! I would recommend it to my sister or friend. I think it wouldn't have held the interest of my husband or daughter however, so I wouldn't suggest it for teens or guys. The plot was more romance and mystery than action and comedy. We get so many of the classic Kdrama cliches: The White Truck Of Doom, Amnesia, Crying in the Rain, Kissing in the Rain, Hero saves damsel from gang of thugs, Someone thinks someone is dead but then they're not, Major romantic misunderstanding, Second lead who never stood a chance but broke our viewer-hearts a little, The LMC is rich and the LFC is poor... and probably more I didn't think of because it's 3am my time. Not to mention, Choi Jin Hyuk's smile is a show-stopper, every time. Like some people when they smile it makes you happy all the way to your toes just to see it, and Choi Jin Hyuk is one of those people who has that kind of smile.
Check out {Devilish Joy} on Viki!
Check out the OST on Spotify!
(Above links based on US availability. Dramas may not be available on certain sites for certain countries. It depends who acquired the license for a specific drama for your country and who did not. Drama may be available on Netflix in your country but not even show up in mine, so check there if you have a Netflix acct. Ditto for Viki- may be available in your country but not mine. Click HERE for a list of legal Kdrama streaming sites and what countries they work in.)
Check out the OST on Spotify!
(Above links based on US availability. Dramas may not be available on certain sites for certain countries. It depends who acquired the license for a specific drama for your country and who did not. Drama may be available on Netflix in your country but not even show up in mine, so check there if you have a Netflix acct. Ditto for Viki- may be available in your country but not mine. Click HERE for a list of legal Kdrama streaming sites and what countries they work in.)
