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.
Ka-young’s first wish is not motivated by greed but rather a desire to defend her grandmother . Ka-young trusts her grandmother…
