K-Drama Rewind, Tale of the Nine-Tailed: Lee Dong-wook and Jo Bo-ah's immortal romance is the stuff of legends

If there’s a scene that is seared into your brain from Tail of the Nine Tailed: It’s an anguished ‘gumiho’  Lee Dong-wook, crawling across the bridge of hell, bleeding and battered. It’s his penance, but he needs to do it to save Nam Ji-ah (Jo Bo Ah), a woman who resembles his dead lover. “I don’t care if it’s her, I just need to save her,” he says, as Parting at the River of the Crossing  plays.

 It's the right kind of fantasy melodrama that scratches the particular itch for a particular subset of romantics. It’s scenic, picturesque and drives home the bit of undying love, though, to be fair, in the recesses of your mind you know that they’re yet to actually fall in love. But it still elicits the sighs and gasps.

And that’s the supernatural magic of Tail of the Nine Tailed. The story follows the earnest Nam Ji-ah, who gets entangled with the nine-tailed fox, Lee Yeon, a man who has lived for a millennium. He appears smarmy, snarky and a trifle condescending in the beginning but of course like all fictional men, he carries a wounded and rather soft heart.

The two form a close friendship that invariably blossoms into a universe-bending romance as we slowly unravel the truth about Lee Yeon’s past, his former lover and his connection with Nam Ji-ah. It takes a couple of near-death situations as well as gleaning the truth about Ji-ah’s dead parents too, and the presence of the devilish snake ‘Imoogi’, who possesses Ji-ah.  

In the midst of it all, there are lingering, unresolved tensions involving his younger brother, Lee Rang (Kim Bum), who is nursing a broken heart of his own for very different reasons. All roads eventually lead to the final, life-or-death confrontation with Imoogi, unfolding through a series of twists and turns and culminating in an ending that feels almost inevitable if you’ve watched enough supernatural K-dramas.

Yet, Tail of the Nine Tailed is thoroughly cinematic. It’s almost ethereal to watch, even when it tries to be eerie and haunting.

It sometimes relies heavily on the chemistry and romance of the leads, and honestly it turns that weakness into its strength. Dong-wook and Ji-ah deliver a drama filled with electricity, especially when the plot goes dark. At one point, you would rather watch them play a married couple, if nothing else, or at least to try to live a normal life, if Imoogi would let them.

The music, is the main character: It’s the playlist that also works alongside the chemistry to drive the story forward.  Sometimes it’s soft and calming like Parting at the River, or it’s dramatic and pulsing like Legend of the Fox, which elevates the scenes further.

So, if you’re keen on a really consuming romance to the point that you won’t mind if the plot lets you down at points, this show is for you. Predictable or not, the ending works because the heart of the story never wavers: love, once chosen, is never easily undone.