With Netflix K-drama Genie, Make a Wish, screenwriter Kim Eun-sook (Goblin) returns to the fantasy rom-com genre. In the 13-episode epic, Our Blues’ Kim Woo-bin stars as Iblis, a Satanic genie who is utterly convinced of humanity’s inherent greed.
Following humanity’s creation, he refused to bow to the beings, and was banished to hell as a result. However, he made a deal with God: as long as he proved that all humans were corruptible, by successfully provoking their greed in at least one of three wishes, he would be free.
Everything is going swimmingly for Iblis, until he meets a slave girl from Goryeo, the dynasty that ruled the Korean peninsula from 935 to 1392. The girl only makes selfless wishes, and Iblis is banished to his lamp for a millennia for his failure.
After one thousand years of isolation, Iblis is given temporary freedom when Ka-young (Bae Suzy), a small town mechanic who doesn’t experience empathy, literally stumbles upon his lamp during a vacation in the deserts of Dubai. For Iblis, Ka-young is special. She isn’t just another one of his “masters,” but a reincarnation of the person whose selfless wishes sentenced him to a millenium of entrapment. A vengeful Iblis vows to see this new incarnation dead too.
But first, he must grant her wishes. While Iblis is set on getting Ka-young to use her wishes so that he can kill her, the psychopathic Ka-young couldn’t care either way. She has learned how to live as a functioning member of society despite her inability to empathize by carefully following the guidelines taught to her by her grandmother, Pan-geum (Kim Mi-kyung). Pan-geum has raised and loved Ka-young since she was young, and Ka-young trusts her above herself. A trickster genie has no place in Ka-young’s carefully constructed routine.
However, Iblis eventually wears Ka-young down, following her from Dubai back to her hometown in Korea, and the woman casts her first wish…
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Ka-young’s first wish
Ka-young’s first wish is not motivated by greed but rather a desire to defend her grandmother . Ka-young trusts her grandmother implicitly, and her grandmother has always told her that humans are inherently kind beings. Also, Ka-young is bored and curious to see what Iblis will do. For her first wish, Ka-young asks the genie to prove human beings are corrupt.
With the wish, the two make a sort of bet. If a majority of the wishes cast by the next five townspeople he meets are greedy, then Ka-young will lose. She will make her wishes quickly, and allow Iblis to kill her, as he vows to. However, if the wishers do not reveal themselves to be mostly corrupt, then she wins. Iblis will lose his deal with God. He will be killed by his brother, the angel Ejllael (Steve Noh), for bowing to a human.
It’s more than just a simple wish, of course. It’s the frame around which their entire relationship will evolve.
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Ka-young’s second wish
While Iblis goes about proving the townspeople’s (and, therefore, humanity’s) corruptability to Ka-young, she uses her second wish. Worried that her grandmother will die and leave her alone, Ka-young wishes for Pan-geum to be Ka-young’s own age.
Iblis grants the wish, and Pan-geum wakes up in her 20s. Because she can’t tell her friends and neighbors who she is, she assumes a new identity—Mi-ju (Ahn Eun-jin)—and spends much of the rest of the series reveling in her regained youth. She becomes close with Min-ji (Lee Joo-young), a queer dentist who has been Ka-young’s only friend since high school.
Ka-young’s past life as the Goryeo girl
While Iblis may be determined to hate Ka-young and all humans, his time in Ka-young’s hometown slowly changes his view on things. He begins to fall for Ka-young, soon learning that his memory of her previous incarnation is incomplete. The Goryeo girl didn’t die as a child, as he remembered, but grew into a woman he then fell in love with for her selflessness. The woman was killed by one of Iblis’ masters, a pauper who dreamed of infinite wealth and attention.
Devastated at the death of the woman he loved, and convinced even more so of humanity’s inherent evil, Iblis begged God to let him see the Goryeo girl one last time. God agreed, but erased Iblis’ memory of their encounter. It would be a millenium until Iblis and Ka-young would meet again, their souls linked by the Goryeo girl’s final wish: that she be able to share the genie’s suffering.
Genie, Make a Wish’s ending, explained
Iblis isn’t the only spirit wandering this world. He has a “family” that includes angel of death Ejllael and genie Shadi, who has the power to sing the world to sleep. Shadi had a half-mortal child named Khalid, who has spent the last millenium waiting for Iblis to emerge from his lamp again.
Khalid was born mortal, but was given an immortal life when his father placed his soul into the body of Hunbish, a child that the Goryeo girl once wished to save. Iblis granted her wish not simply by saving Hunbish’s life, but by giving him immortality—an immortality Shadi and Khalid stole. Wanting more, Khalid wants Iblis’ lamp, and the wishes it grants, for himself.
In the quest to lure out Iblis, Khalid kills Ka-young’s grandmother, who dies protecting Min-ji. Sade, Iblis’ loyal companion, dies too. With Ka-young’s help, Iblis is able to destroy the Flower of Eternal Life, which had allowed Khalid to live forever (at least until this point), and the villain fades to dust. Still, the damage is done, and Ka-young is devastated by the death of her grandmother.
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Ka-young’s third wish
For her final wish, Ka-young asks Iblis to allow her to experience “regular” human emotions for one day—technically, a selfish wish. Ka-young wants to feel the depth of her grandmother’s loss, but she also believes that, by making a selfish wish, Iblis will kill her and then be free. However, Iblis cannot bring himself to kill the woman he loves. Instead, he bows to her, losing his deal with God. He goes to Ejllael and lets his brother kill him. Meanwhile, Ka-young has become overwhelmed by the depth of her feelings. She wanders the desert, bereft, and eventually dies from exposure.
Does Genie, Make a Wish have a happy ending?
Given the aforementioned turn of events, it might not seem possible that Genie, Make a Wish has a happy ending, but it does!
While Ka-young dies, she is reborn as a Jinniya, a female genie. Ka-young visits Min-ji, who is grieving the deaths of both Pan-geum/Mi-ju and Ka-young, and gives her best friend three wishes. Min-ji uses the first to secure weekly dinner dates with genie Ka-young. The second is used to ensure the town’s children will visit her dental clinic when they are in need so that Min-ji can help them.
Ka-young doesn’t intend for Min-ji to use the third wish, as it will erase genie Ka-young from her memory, but Min-ji sees how much her friend misses Iblis. During the New Year fireworks, Ka-young tears up, no doubt remembering Iblis’ firework display the year prior. The show of emotion notably implies that Ka-young is no longer a psychopath.
Meanwhile, Pan-geum has refused to move on to heaven until she can ensure Ka-young’s happiness. She convinces God to bring Iblis back to genie life. He and Ka-young are reunited, both as genies. They live together in immortal life, happily ever after.
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