“Island” (2022) unfolds on Jeju Island in South Korea, a real-life location for Dol Hareubangs, large rock statues that allegedly protect our world from demons invading. This South Korean television series elaborates on the legend, which is a popular tourist site. The series is an adaptation of a graphic novel, which was originally adapted as a webtoon and mobile games, and consists of twelve episodes, which are shorter than an hour.
The Dol Hareubang are crumbling and releasing “lust demons,”—for English speakers, just think demons, who possess unsuspecting victims and go on murderous rampages. When Won Mi Ho (Lee Da-hee), the sole Deahan Group heiress, goes to the titular location to rehabilitate her public image, demons attack her, but Van (Kim Nam-gil), a mysterious, powerful man wielding a dagger that moves likes a boomerang, and later a young, unconventional priest and exorcist Johan (Cha Eun-woo)—Giovanni is his religious name, protect her until she can learn to protect herself from these demons.
I enjoyed “Island.” My friends and I watched an episode per week. If I had to describe, it feels like a mash up between “Supernatural” and “The Wailing” (2016), but the analogy does not do justice to the show’s mythology and strange mix of gut punches and silliness. Demons can possess people and nature spirits, but the latter has a better chance of surviving an exorcism. A volcano formed the island so a demon’s essence looks volcanic, either like cooled magma or its blood like lava, which was a nice geographic homage. In the distant past, a monastery infected lust demon attack child survivors with demon blood so they could become demon slayers, human demon hybrids without emotion, if they survived the infection. Meanwhile the original Wonjeong trained to create the barrier. Wonjeong and the demon slayers grew up side by side in a toxic, abusive environment, which obliterated the humanity of one of the demon slayers, who vowed revenge against all human beings, which included wanting to kill Wonjeong because she could save them and destroy him. Also he feels like she lied to him because of how his llife turned out. The syncretic story uses Christian elements, but if they seem familiar, do your best to abandon the original meaning or context otherwise it will make the story more confusing. Just go with the flow.
To further confound matters, it appears that the translation from page to screen did not convey a lot of concepts such as Yohan’s inexplicable innate powers. He is not powerful because he is a priest endowed with the power of Christ, but became a priest because of his spiritual powers, which his earrings restrain. You read that correctly. The power of his hotness compels you. The television adaptation makes Yohan feel like a cynical ploy to get more girls and women to watch. Yohan’s exorcist skills seem vaguely sexual. He exorcises a woman by jumping on the bed, hovering horizontally just above her while she trembles. “Island” continues to use Yohan for camp effect in a simultaneously genius and jump the shark moment as he uses a phallic water hose to exorcise a possessed high school. He acts like Adam West’s Batman dancing when he prepares to make his sword glow blue. When he is in his vestments and Vans, he looks less like a fetus than when he is in plainclothes, oversized hip hop wear. He is the most anti-climactic character and seems extraneous since most of his fighting ends in failure or further muddying a complex situation whereas Van and Mi Ho’s story is the real driving force towards the denouement.
Here is how I explained Yohan’s role. If the Demon Slayers or hybrids’ dagger and eyes turned red and black then “Island” wanted a cool opposing visual, blue and white thus Yohan’s powers. Reasons! Also Yohan is so confident and bad at his job that it was kind of fun to watch him repeatedly fall flat.
If you can just go with it because it is cool, which I could, there is plenty to enjoy for horror action fans even if some plot points do not make sense or live up to the hype. It looks gorgeous-the locations, the fight scenes, the actors, the wardrobe. It is fun and feels like a live-action anime. It also tackles devastating themes like child abuse with past and present-day stories of child abuse and how it impacts them as adults. The series pulls no punches when it depicts the abuse and makes viewers more invested in the characters even without the battle against demons. The humans are often worse than the demons because of the additional psychological harm. The survivors fall into two camps: protectors or perpetuators of abuse thus the series’ most noble message: mourn for the child, do not excuse actions because of the past.
Mi Ho goes on a credible journey from self-satisfied and absorbed businesswoman who is surrounded by enemies, human and demon, to a self-sacrificing powerhouse motivated to save others and finally finding a family. Less credible was how the police and paparazzi stopped following her around, and there were no news reports of demons.
Forget Johan. My fave was Van, and unlike most brooding, taciturn, deadpan delivery heroes that fans have to twist themselves into pretzels to excuse their bad behavior, I can wholeheartedly say that he is not problematic. Think a demon fighting gift of the magi situation where they are each other’s strength and weakness. Van is fun because he is the first person that is oblivious to Mi Ho’s fame and money, and just treats her according to her character. Also because he is not around that many people, it leads to some humorous fish out of water scenarios. Their dynamic really made the series, and if subsequent seasons do not recognize it, they will not be as good as the first.
The villain, Gung-tan (Sung Jun), a white maned, behind the scenes manipulator, lives up to the hype when he decides to get his hands dirty. His throne room and followers will surprise viewers, but his white cloaked allies are inscrutable and confusing. It appears that they will play a more important role in future seasons, but at this point, I’m indifferent to them. They seem like the standard “I want to cleanse the world of gross humanity,” but what are they? Dunno. I can come around, but right now, I don’t care.
In the good guys’ corner, Granny (Ko Du-shim) has a lot of gravitas, but other than being older than she looks and encouraging, she would have been another anti-climactic character except Ko is a veteran who makes her monotonous prose dumps and pleas more riveting than they are. Ko and Granny deserved more from the writers. I would have happily traded Johan for Butler Chang (Oh Kwang-rok), Mi Ho’s faithful servant. Less impressive in flashbacks, the series waits until the denouement to show his skills, and if he does return in subsequent seasons, I will be a happy camper.
It is not often that a flawed story does not ruin my fun, but “Island” managed to dodge my critical thought and entertain me. The spectacle and dude eye candy were sufficient to mollify me. So if you enjoy watching well executed action fight scenes with adequate CGI monsters and pretty people and do not mind subtitles, check out this K Drama.
