Mirror of the Witch Review

Mirror of the Witch (2016) 

People sometimes wonder why they were born and what is their purpose in life if there’s any. They question if they are a burden and unwanted. “There isn’t anyone in this world who shouldn’t have been born.” -Yeon Hee. This is the first message presented to us in this story. This historical drama will take you on a short yet magical and dangerous journey of self-discovery, and a relationship that transcends reality and time.

This story follows the life of Heo Jun (Yoon Si Yoon), a man known to do anything for money, and a girl named Yeon Hee/ Seo Ri (Kim Sae Ron) who discovers she is a witch and that must break free from a curse. In truth, the story is pretty interesting and it has the material for potential situations, conflicts and twists. Unfortunately, and this is my opinion, the execution of it fell short to its potential. The beginning of the story was engaging, it caught my attention, and it was well-paced, as well as literally the last two episodes of the drama, but the pace in the middle of the story was dragging. I think that part of the reason why I felt frustrated in the middle of the story was due to the over-complication of the situations -too bad they didn’t have walky-talkies in that period. On a positive note, the ending was good and a bit open; and so it left the viewers with the possibility of imagining two scenarios. I would say this story felt like a mix of Faith: The Great Doctor and Gu Family Book because of the element of fantasy, and Seo Ri’s character in wanting to do something; she couldn’t stay still -plus they are historical dramas too.

Seo Ri’s character was very charming and cute before the time skip -no wonder why Heo Jun felt something for her. Still, I would have love a bit more chemistry between them. In general, every character played their role extremely well. It was that good that I ended up hating the king, so he did an excellent job at being a coward and a jerk. I also enjoyed Sol Gae (Mun Ka Young)’ character, and I believe it could have been ore developed. Some characters weren’t necessary or they stayed for too long in the drama. On the other hand, there were other characters that appeared out of nowhere and, again, weren’t necessary. At time, I thought they writers may have forgotten about characters or didn’t keep track of them because Monk Yo Gwang (Lee Yi Kyung) seemed to have disappear -and I missed him; he was funny. Again, the characters were very good, and so I grew to love a couple of them.

I am going to give the drama an A+ on scenography at both Seo Ri’s homes in the forest (the old and the new one) because they were beautiful and different. Not only the set but the locations and the imagery that was created was very fantasy like. Of course, there is magic involve so I was expecting the CGI. It was carried out very well, though the white creature (I don’t want to spoil what it is) in the forest caught me off guard -I would say that was a bit of a miss- but the rest did not disappoint. The last thing I noticed was that the OST wasn’t that memorable, although it was fitting helping se the mood. If I hear the song, I think I would have trouble pointing out from which drama it is from.

Aside from that, all it takes to see this drama is a bit of patience, yet characters like Heo Jun, Yo Gwang and Soon Geuk (Min Do Hee) will captivate you and make you root for them. I did appreciate this characters since they helped ease the mood from all the drama, and hopefully you will too.

My rating for this drama is: ♥♥