Starring:
- Nam Joo Hyuk as Ha Baek (Water God)
- Shin Se Kyung as Yoon So Ah (Mortal servant of the Water God)
- Lim Ju Hwan as Shin Hoo Ye (Semi God)
- Krystal Jung as Moo Ra/ Hye Ra (Water Goddess)
- Gong Myung as Bi Ryum / Anh Bin (Wind God)
Acting: 6.5
Storyline: 6.5
Overall: 6.5
Grade: C+
Following the success of “Goblin”, it is inevitable that many would have high expectations of such Manhwa-adapted fantasy romance dramas. Perhaps it is the pressure of being compared to the highly successful “Goblin”, it turned out that the production crew’s efforts to change the storyline, achieved a reverse reaction.
We have read reviews that this drama is not living up to viewers’ expectations but I decided to give it a go since I am not a follower of the original Manhwa and would be able to watch this as a new drama completely. Despite it being a not so engaging drama that couldn’t leave footprints in your heart even at the end of the 16 episodes, there are pretty funny and entertaining moments that we should give them credit for.
Some reasons that you may wish to watch the drama:
- Nam Joo Hyuk’s 2nd time as a male lead after “Weight Lifting Fairy – Kim Bok Joo” and he’s a water god this time round. In fact, he rocks his image in the Water World much more than his modern outfits.
- To see how the high and almighty water god had to adjust to living in the mortal world without his powers and depending on his servant, Nam Soo Ri and “Human Servant” Soo Ah. There are pretty funny moments that may get you chuckling out loud.
- Love story between a Water God and his Human Servant, Soo Ah
- There are several scenes whereby you can see Nam Joo Hyuk and Gong Myung baring their tops and 6-packs, if that may intrigue your interest
- It is like a fashion walkway with Nam Joo Hyuk, Krystal and Gong Myung donning on all those very pretty outfits that fit so well on them. Krystal’s outfits really suit that of a water goddess.
- The bickerings and chemistry between Mura and Bi Ryeom (They bring us more joy than the lead couple)
- Lim Ju Hwan’s acting is commendable as the main antagonist. Without him, the entire drama might be a bigger flop
The scriptwriter mentioned that the storyline is almost the same as “Goblin”, thus they have made some amendments. Perhaps it is not just because of the low budget production, acting skills of the main leads but also mainly due to the storyline, that did not make “Bride of the Water God” live up to its initial hype.
We do find much entertainment value in the first 4 to 6 episodes, especially when the divine Water God lost his powers in the mortal world and created a fool out of himself and the people around him. He also began to experience hunger which made it so hilarious as he was eyeing chicken wings, etc but refused to admit that it was his stomach growling. This drama probably got us hungry most of the times. It has its funny moments but when it comes to the intensity and engagement of the main leads’ acting, something is just missing somehow.
This tells us that no matter how powerful you are in one place, you may just become a nobody in another world. One has to just constantly learn and adapt to the environment that he is in. Since Ha Baek is a God, he learns pretty fast but it is still funny how he commands his servant, Nam Soo Ri, to take on part time jobs to make ends meet, while he continues to enjoy his bubble bath at home.
However, because he has no supernatural powers throughout his stay in the mortal world throughout the entire drama, except in times of saving Soo Ah, it made the drama a little less interesting. Afterall, we would still like to see Ha Baek’s real powers somehow.
There are some lessons that we do learn from this drama as well.
1) We can see that there is hierarchy in almost every world/environment, be it the divine or the mortal world. There are upper and lower class gods and they receive different treatment. However, as Ha Baek is born to be the King of the 3 Realms of Gods, he is akin to being born with a “Golden Spoon” and he need not do anything but will still have the world.
This makes Bi Ryeom pretty jealous of him, especially when Moo Ra is totally in love with Ha Baek.
While we may say this is unfair, you realise that not everything can be fair and square in life. There are just people who are born lucky.
2) There are many others who are being despised because of their background, no matter how successful they are or how much good they are doing now.
This is best reflected in the role of our main antagonist – Shin Hoo Ye.
He’s half god and half human as his mother is human. He was deemed to be a disgrace and an “alien” and “insult” to the Gods.
He has to go through endless suffering or reincarnations and deaths forever but he tried to do good for the society after he was being adopted by a rich chaebol.
He lived the life as a successful businessman who would donate a lot of money to charity and also give back as much as he could to the society. However, this doesn’t stop the gods from provoking and insulting him.
Does it seem like what we encounter in real life? One’s ability and personality should not be based on his/her family background.
Hoo Ye is definitely Ha Baek’s biggest rival, not just in love but also in terms of powers.
Ha Baek may be the King in the Water World but he is still a noob in the mortal world. In the mortal world, money means power and those with power, authority and status are more powerful than the King. However, the drama fails to bring out the intensity of their rivalry.
I was expecting some very magnificent fighting scenes but to my dismay, it did not happen.
Nonetheless, we could feel Hoo Ye’s anger, inner struggles, feeling unwanted, abandoned, loss and despair and also the greed to want to possess Soo Ah.
Thumbs up for Lim Ju Hwan’s acting.
This is the type of engagement and intensity we were expecting of all the cast. Of course, Lim Ju Hwan has much more experience in acting and that is typically what we would expect but we were not expecting the lead casts to deviate too much from that.
The main reasons that attributed to the drama not living up to its hype are:
- The scriptwriter made amendments to the story line as it is very similar to Goblin’s story, but this intended change may have caused the story to lose its flavour around mid of the drama.
- Lack of chemistry between the main leads or rather, the intensity and engagement of the main leads’ acting is just not strong enough. We can’t be sure if it is due to the limitation of the characters or the main leads could not deliver the depth of the characters.
- Low budget production for such fantasy romance dramas would mean a compromise of some very good visual or CGI effects and also lesser of those very magnificent scenes that we may expect like those in Goblin
I watched the drama for Nam Joo Hyuk but like the cute interactions between Krystal and Gong Myung. Lim Ju Hwan is probably the only one who really lives up to expectations in terms of acting.
Somehow, we felt that the chemistry between Nam Joo Hyuk and Shin Se Kyung is just not quite there yet, though we can see that they are both trying hard. Shin Se Kyung is often attributed as the cause of having weak establishment of chemistry with her co-stars but as she is the “noona” of this drama with much more acting experience than her much younger co-stars, we would have expected her to be able to help them in delivering their roles better.
Perhaps she really does need to brush up on her acting, especially in terms of the facial expressions, or she needs to make a bigger effort to just let go of her image and immense in her character fully.
Shin Se Kyung is probably getting the brunt of the criticisms from this drama but it probably may be a role that is still too hard for her to pull it off well.
As a neuropsychiatrist, we couldn’t really feel her confidence in treating her patients though her character was supposed to be uninterested in really understanding what her patients are going through. She was just going through the motions to earn a living and she has traumas in helping people as she did not want to be like her dad.
However, even this portion was not really portrayed well enough, much less to say the love line between Soo Ah and Ha Baek. We can see that she was trying to take care of him like a “sister” initially but still somehow not so yet convinced by how deep their love is for each other with the level of acting.
As for the love line, I couldn’t help but wonder at times, if it is just that Shin Se Kyung couldn’t establish chemistry with Nam Joo Hyuk, if someone else could have done better or is it really because of the script?
For Soo Ah who is supposedly so madly in love with Ha Baek, we couldn’t feel that impact in their forbidden love that has so many obstacles right in front of them. She may have many crying scenes but none really made the mark to making me feel like tearing with her except during the final episode. Much as she was trying so hard to make ends meet and live her life hating and missing her dad, it just somehow doesn’t pull at your heart strings the way it was meant to be.
However, I do applaud her professionalism to continue filming the drama despite the demise of her grandmother. As she is the main female lead, it seems pretty unlikely for filming to continue without her presence. She would only take time off after filming to pay respects to her grandmother and also help out with the necessary arrangements.
Perhaps, that is also why you felt more tinge of heart ache when you see her bailing out loud in the final episodes.
As for Nam Joo Hyuk, I do admit that he is pretty young at the age of 24, just like Krystal and Gong Myung, but there’s a lot of brushing up required if he’s gonna take on more lead roles in future.
He’s still pretty weak in terms of his facial expressions and body language but I do like the scenes in the final episode whereby both Ha Baek and Soo Ah were sacrificing in their respective ways for each other in order to have Ha Baek returning to the water world safely while Soo Ah being able to live her life well on Earth after his leaving. It almost brought some tears to my eyes.
Nam Joo Hyuk has no qualms in showing the playful, wilful and childish side of his character but there’s some difficulty in showing his 威严 as a future king. The best rendition he could do was to show a poker face and probably command people around. I feel there’s just so much more depth he could add on to his role.
It may be due to the lack of life experiences of having to take on such roles before but he may suit the normal rom-com dramas more than a fantasy rom-com at this point in time.
Because he couldn’t establish that kinda of camaraderie with Shin Se Kyung, we couldn’t feel that much of an impact for all the sacrifices that he has done for her, though you would feel a little touched.
By right the part whereby he came back to the mortal world for Soo Ah and the reconciliation scene would have earned tears with his “好好相爱，是为了好好的分开” rationale, but well… we could tell what he was trying to bring across, just that their chemistry is still quite shallow or hollow.
He’s a walking wardrobe by himself, definitely a lived-up-to-his-name model but as an actor, he still has a long way to go. He is still one of my favourite princes from “Scarlet Heart” but his chemistry with Seo Hyun and Lee Sung Kyung was definitely much better.
If you ask me, I think the rationale as to why the Yoon descendants had to become “servants of the water god” is really something that we may not be able to understand. Much as her ancestors had betrayed the Water Realm, it is not really fair for their descendants to have to pay for that mistake for thousands of years. Nonetheless, if there is no such story line, Ha Baek wouldn’t need to meet and find Soo Ah since she is the descendant of the Yoon family.
However, there are some wise words that may come from the water god sometimes.
For instance, what he felt about human beings with this quote “Believing what you want to believe is your truth. Because that’s easier and less tiring.”
It does make much sense and truth in everyday life. What we choose to believe in is our truth, be it whether it is the cold hard truth.
It may or may not be the actual reality.
It may be because we want to make ourselves feel better or less miserable.
Even for Krystal’s character as Moo Ra, one would expect a cold-hearted, emotionless Water Goddess but she delivered a better performance than expected. At least you could feel her anger and jealousy when she saw how Habaek fell for a mortal woman and how much she wanted to drive off her rival. She is a goddess who is unable to shed tears but even without those tears, you could feel what she was trying to bring across. At the very least, you could somehow feel she really likes and admires Habaek and has his best interests but also her own interests at heart.
She may seem oblivious to all material wants in the mortal world but she would secretly keep the gifts that fans gave her. While she may love Ha Baek, we could tell she was slowly opening up to Bi Ryeom who never failed to be by her side for thousands of years.
Their bickering does add some laughter to the drama as well. They are a pretty aesthetic and cute pair.
Gong Myung as Bi Ryeom the Wind God on the other hand, felt more like a passing supporting role in the beginning, who is a playful god and up to a lot of mischief.
However as time goes by, you can feel that he is losing his patience and temper while watching how Moo Ra doing so much to make Habaek go back to the Water World. There are also things that he would do in order to get what he wants. He is a God who is not afraid to show his personal interests and not afraid to fight for what he wants. He portrays a god who is not as perfect as everyone else would expect of one.
We could feel the gradual build-up in the transition of his feelings over the episodes and I think that’s pretty commendable for a supporting role.
The ash white and gold hair colour suits him pretty well and he does have some trendy clothing that suits his character’s playful nature.
Well, I wouldn’t divulge too much of the story here but you should watch it to unravel some of the queries that you may have regarding some of the mysteries in the drama, such as where exactly is Soo Ah’s dad and what is the rationale behind having Ha Baek find the 3 God Stones in mortal world before he can assume his role as the Emperor of the God Realms? How far could their love go?
The story would get a little dry halfway and it may seem a little draggy. However, the final episode was a little unsatisfying as they tried to cramp in some “answers” to the mysteries that surfaced earlier through the drama. It was like rushing to fit all those in at the last minute.
However, at the same time, I would like to commend the 2 leads’ efforts to bring out the heartache in the final few scenes. Those were some of the better scenes we have watched up to date and could at least stir some emotions in us.
That said, this drama also tells us that even though we may always feel the grass is greener elsewhere, we should appreciate what we have.
While a mortal may envy a god’s longevity and never ending lifespan, a god may also envy mortals for being to laugh, cry and going all out for what they believe in.
It is to live life to the fullest, given your limited lifespan and not to live with regrets.
You love, you hate, you cry, you fall but you get up again.
Life may be tough but it is with the support of your loved ones that would make you pull through ultimately.
While human beings may have many wants such as more money, so that it can bring them “happiness”, you would learn from this drama that love in all forms, is the one thing that may bring you real happiness.
What would your 1 wish be, if it were to be granted by your god?
We see how Soo Ah has put it into good use.
The biggest lesson from the drama is probably that it goes to show love transcends all boundaries, which I guess this is one area whereby most viewers couldn’t feel.
There are some supporting roles like Nam Soo Ri, Soo Ah’s friend Yum Mi, Secretary Min and Hoo Ye’s cousin whom you may find adding a tinge of fun to the drama.
Much as the “Bride of the Water God” not living up to majority’s expectations, I think it is still worth a watch if you need your fix of fantasy romance idol dramas and if you are a fan of any of the above cast.
It may not be one of my most favourite dramas, but it wouldn’t be the least favourite as well.
Perhaps what they could have done was to strengthen the storyline and add on to some intensity with some CGI and fighting scenes, to make up for the lack of emotional engagement.
Nonetheless, I am sure this would still be a drama that the cast would keep in their hearts and minds for a long time. It is a memorable one for young stars like them and it would also help them to strive harder in their future dramas.
