ReviewK-drama Island: Kim Nam-gil, Lee Da-hee lead hokey fantasy-horror-action drama that makes for a confusing mix

2/5 stars Two major Korean dramas began streaming on December 30 to close out 2022. One of those was a new spin on an old concept, while the other dressed up a new idea in old K-drama clichés. The former is the Song Hye-kyo-led revenge drama The Glory, the latter the fantasy-action-horror series Island, starring Kim Nam-gil, Lee Da-hee, and Cha Eun-woo of the K-pop boy band Astro, and based on the popular webtoon of the same name by Yoon In-wan and Yang Kyung-il. Island, whose first, six-episode season concluded last weekend, is the latest Korean drama to be set almost exclusively on Jeju Island, following the likes of Our Blues and High Class. The setting off the southern coast of South Korea is an appropriate one, as Jeju’s volcanic terrain and subtropical climate give it a verdant but tempestuous aura, which suits the show’s dark mix of horror and fantasy. It’s a shame, then, that so much of the scenery is blurred out by an overabundance of frantic visual effects and that the show relies so much on ornate but incongruous sets. 8 new Korean drama series to look out for in January 2023 Calling to mind his role in the hit action-horror series The Fiery Priest, with all the flash but none of the dash, Kim plays Van, a half-human, half-demon who has served for centuries as an all-powerful but begrudging protector of the isle. Wearing an all-black suit and a perpetually pained expression, he stalks and broods through Jeju’s lush green forests, eradicating “lust demons” that prey upon humans. Leaving aside the curious raciness of the English translation of their name (“ghosts of desire” is closer to the mark), the provenance of these “lust demons” is a little hard to deduce, but they are connected to the traditional dol hareubang volcanic rock statues found around the island. These statues are said to represent protectors assigned by the gods to ward off demons from the island, but counterfeit statues give rise to a wave of demons that are terrorising Jeju. Won Mi-ho (Lee) is the eldest daughter and heir of a chaebol (a family-run corporation in Korea) but when she flips over some scam artists with her judo skills and they catch the incident on tape, her father sends her away to Jeju, where she is to work temporarily as a teacher while she repairs her public image. Mi-ho’s life in exile immediately becomes more eventful when she finds herself chased down by several lust demons. Van intervenes in the nick of time on each occasion. He zooms in like Superman, stands still long enough for a hero shot, before proceeding to punch the demons through the nearest tree. Unable to leave the island and with the demons still on her tail, Mi-ho engages the services of Van as her personal bodyguard. He reluctantly assumes the position, but not for the reasons she thinks – at one point Mi-ho bizarrely turns to the camera to explain to us that “of course, money controls everything”! The real reason is that Van recognises Mi-ho as the reincarnated spirit of a woman he knew in his youth all those years ago. Mi-ho is oblivious to this past, but retrieving her past memories and powers may hold the key to saving Jeju from its present demonic scourge. Also staying at Casa de Mi-ho, a luxury retreat built into a cliff face that would make many a Bond villain jealous, is her protective butler Jang (Oh Gwang-rok). Three’s already a crowd but Jang makes it four when he welcomes the devilishly handsome young Catholic priest Johan (Cha) to stay with them. Johan is a hip young priest who wears trendy clothes and listens to hip hop with his big headphones, as well as being a brilliant exorcist. As such he’s very much like Gang Dong-won’s young exorcist in the supernatural horror The Priests, except that Johan can also fight demons with a magic sword. Despite only comprising six episodes, Island takes a while to build out its story, and the villain doesn’t really appear until the second half. Before then, we largely follow Mi-ho, decked out in an array of uniformly awful costumes, as she goes about her day teaching at school and her evenings squeezed between her handsome housemates Van and Johan. These drearily dramatic and quasi-romantic stretches of the show are broken up by several major set pieces, but these are thatched together with video-game aesthetics, weightless physics and loud music which occasionally calls to mind the Wonder Woman soundtrack. There’s quite a lot of money invested in the show, which is easy to see through the liberal use of CGI. However, the problem with these scenes doesn’t lie with the effects, which are relatively good, but rather with the ropy staging of the action. Fans of the original web comic have largely been disappointed with this adaptation, which tries too hard to appeal to a broader audience by shoehorning in K-drama tropes. This gambit has so far made for a confusing mix, in which a dense mythology fights a losing battle with other elements. Season two of Island, which was shot together with the first season, is due to begin streaming on February 24. Island is streaming on Amazon Prime.