Goblin (2016)

Almost paradise but not perfect!

19-year-old girl Eun Tak does her best to survive her monotonous life with her aunt and cousins. One day, she blows out her birthday candle and accidentally summons a goblin. Not just any goblin, but a world-weary 900-year-old immortal Goblin named Kim Shin, for whom she is fated to remove the magical sword from his chest and finally let him rest in peace, or else death will come to her instead. Kim Shin wanted to end his immortal life but in order to do that, he had to give up his only love and then he had to end his life to save her. Now, how can this end happily?

At it’s core, Goblin is a high-stake romance with unsolved past conflicts that centers around death, reincarnation, grief, and forgiveness. Not only it's hilariously charming, it’s also painfully soul-crushing. Watching each scene feels truly magical and for me it is thanks to the God-tier OSTs that are played in the scenes so flawlessly, it amplifies all the emotional beats. Other aspects are also top-notch: acting, characterizations, camera work and cinematography. My favorite part is, of course, all the bromance moments between Kim Shin and Grim Reaper, their funnies and their long-lasting bond. They gave fresh comedies that I love to rewatch and laugh again.

That said, I'll always be a little bitter that they wrote Ji Eun Tak as a high-schooler who wears her school uniform with her freaking bowtie most of the time! I never understand and I feel really bad about it. Plus, Kim Shin is just a very immature rude jerk at first. I see Goblin and Eun Tak as friends more than lovers. This is why romance is not my main enjoyment watching this drama, and while the chemistry between Sunny and Grim Reaper is unmatched, they deserve more couple moments! It’s a bit waste of potential and frustrating to watch them meet and part ways repetitively just for exchanging biodata and unrevealing a tiny bit of mystery. Regardless, I recommend Goblin to anyone as plot is uncomplicated and you’ll be amazed by the beauty of it.

Dec 2023, Yovita
Find me on Instagram: @kdramajudge

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J’ai fini goblin , est j’avoue que , je suis un peu déçu que ça ce termine . Mais bon, sinon on se lasserait non ?
Goblin est une super série , pour plein de raisons .
Tout d’abord ,les jeux d’acteurs.
Les personnages principaux : gong Yoo ( kim shin ) à très bien joué le goblin , je trouve , car on sens les émotions, ce que ça fait d’être « emprisonné  » depuis si longtemps sans pouvoir rien faire , de voir tout les gens que l’on aime mourir etc ... Ensuite, Kim Go Eun ( ji eun tak ) on a très bien compris et vécu avec elle les moments durs, avec la famille ( tante ) le goblin ... ce que j’aime , on voit évoluer, le goblin, et Eun Tak , l’un grâce à l’autre . L’un qui n’a plus envie de mourir, et l’autre qui reprend goût à la vie. Maintenant, Lee Dong Wook .(qui sera tooouujoouurs mon préféré) (le faucheur) je ne suis pas très objective sur lui car c’est mon chouchou et je défendrais toujours,mais je tiens à dire que Lee Dong Wook à très bien joué le faucheur, sans émotion, rien qui passe sur son visage . Très bien joué. ( tant dit que dans Touch your heart il jouait l’avocat timide , dans Stranger from hell le méchant qui donne la chair de poule , dans tale of the nine tailed , le ghumio imposant etc ... )
Ensuite l’histoire. Pas trop de romance , et ça c’est bien car : trop de romance tue la romance .
Je comprends que cette série peut ne pas plaire , en tout cas , moi j’ai adoré ?

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Enjoyable and Light

A lot of drama bite off more than they can chew when tackling plots and after binge watching show after show that couldn't neatly tie their story lines together, Goblin was a happy surprise. Goblin focuses one two couples and their epic stories of growth, tragedy, and just daily life. The plot itself is rather simple and thin, but still enjoyable. The show is full of cute and funny scenes that will keep you watching. Keep in mind, the show feels more like a slice of life rather than a supernatural adventure, so if you're out for some magical battles, Goblin isn't the show to watch.

An issue that prevented me from fully immersing myself in the story was the main protagonists' love story. There is no real build up to help you understand why Eun Tak and Kim Shin fall in love. They both need something from on another, whether it's to end an immortal life or just have the support of someone, but it's not enough to help solidify why they eventually fall in love. There's something lacking in their budding romance leaving it awkward and strange until you simply decide to accept it for what it is and keep watching.

Overall, having simple story lines to follow allowed Goblin's pacing to breath leaving a ton of space for a lot of the funny moments I mentioned earlier. And, like many other dramas, the flashbacks are overused. Couple of ticks on the fast forward button and you've got a light and enjoyable drama.

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A hugh miss from the story to the execution

Since the drama received so much love from the people watching it, maybe I went into with too high an expactation. Nevertheless, I'll try to be as objective as possible, despite the fact that this is still a subjective opinion of a person.
Personally, I find the romanticism of most scenes too cheesy and long. It's not because I dislike the type in general as I'm a regular consumer of kdrama and I quite like the time the show gives for the audience to process the emotions. However, the age gap lead to a large portion of the scene being unused because they can't physically do anything to lovey dovey as it's not appropriate. In the end, I didn't find myself emotionally attached and invested into the character.

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Watch it for the Bromance!

Top notch cast - check
Great music - check
Dramatic (and very well made) background story - check
Bromance - check
Secondary couple - :)
Chemistry between main leads - :(


Started watching for Gong Yoo, who is daebak as always but

*SPOILER AHEAD*

halfway through the series the plot becomes an endless loop of 'when will the sword be taken out'
i was hoping this will be resolved soon but no, it seems to become the main couple's only obstacle and issue

as the main couple circles endlessly around the sword - the second couple gains steam with the ring! the meeting on the bridge! the grim reaper trying enter dating scene!
honestly i continued watching for the second couple instead since the main couple seems to lack spark.
as the series continued, the plot thickens around the second couple and i became so invested in them that i started to skip all the scenes containing the main couple

tried rewatching and found that even the bromance between the goblin and the grim reaper is still more entertaining than the goblin and the bride :(

conclusion: watch it for the second couple beautifully tragic story and the super fun bromance!

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Sometimes it's slow-paced and uneventful, sometime it's so good it's the best Kdrama ever

It's hard to wrap it up in a few words. But i would say this is probably the longest buildup i have ever seen.
It has 16 episodes, and the actions and dramatic parts start at around ep.11 12. Before that it was about character building and bonding (those memories will be used effectively against us later).


The fantasy romance story is intriguing. It has good plot twists and back story. Although the pacing is sometimes a bit slow, overall it sends meaningful messages of love, hate, afterlife, regret, loneliness and forgiveness. It can break your heart and also make you smile

The acting is good, nothing to complain about. The chemistry between the second lead couple is so good at all time. At the beginning the main couple feels a bit lacking, near the end it gets a lot better. But the best chemistry has to be the bromance between Goblin and Grim Reaper!
The characters are well built and developed, relatable and make reasonable decisions. But mostly they are madly driven by love.

The music is so beautiful and sad, wished they had kept the ending song till the end though. The special effects feel natural (the glowing sword and the power of grim reaper), but the flying moments were a bit off.

The atmosphere changes so fast. One moment it's fluff and romantic (with a little too many staring-straight-at-each-other-for-a-century), and a second later it's heart wrenching and full of dramas and actions. It's was well-balanced, i just wished it was more consistent.

Overall, i would recommend this series if you are looking for a romance story sets in the present, with wholesome bromance, fantasy elements and a tragic backstory from a past life, which would now affect the choices and emotions of the characters.

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Complicated

I liked this show. I came to care most for its characters because the actors made them lovable, unlike the story itself, which is sloppy and muddled in its lore.

This is a fantasy romance, which are usually up my alley. However, this one could have been better had the story stuck to its own rules. What ensues are quite a lot of plot holes and overly dramatic performances. I suppose the writers are hoping you will overlook its many flaws and focus on the romance between our MCs. That is fine for some. I like my dramas to be a little better thought out and organized.

A lot is going on here. We have a young, high school aged girl who is lonely and looking to belong. We have a god/guardian who has been living in immortality since a tragedy caused him to be what he is. He is searching for his bride as she will have the power to end his long existence and give him peace. Enter grim reapers with complicated backstories and gods playing with human lives, and the story becomes a complicated mess because it doesn't stick to its own rules. Some things are never really explained and it leaves you with a lot of questions. Above all this, it's still highly entertaining and I am a sucker for a good romance, even though the first episodes exasperated me to no end. Our goblin likes to play games with the girl and their silly banter runs the gamut from idiocy to deep tenderness, once the nonsense between them is cleared away and Mr. Goblin realizes he is in love,

What makes this drama watchable despite its flaws are the beautiful actors that make up this ensemble. They are wholly believable, in the moment and completely invested in their characters. No one does this better than Gong Yoo, our handsome goblin. His expressive eyes make you feel every emotion emanating from within. His despair is our despair, his joy makes us feel warm. (Because of this ability to give himself completely to his role, Gong Yoo has won the top spot in my list of best actors in South Korea. He is also, in my opinion, the most breathtakingly beautiful man I have ever set eyes on.) There are some downright hilarious moments and clear messages of friendship, compassion, loyalty and forgiveness. The soundtrack is amazing. The songs range from typical pop pieces to some very different sounds which fit the drama perfectly. I would watch this again just to relive the dreamy spark of Gong Yoo's eyes.

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who hasnt heard of goblin? if u r here, then chances r u have already heard of all the hype and the positive stuff about it, time for the other side of the coin review,

goblin starts out with a fantasy story that is really damn good, first episodes takes a while so u scroll down to find goblin's episodes r actually 90 minutes long, okay so thats a fancy sneaky way to advertise a 24 episode show being 16 longish episodes,


acting is great , nearly every actor/actress feels perfect for the role except for the little important main lead actress Kim Go-Eun, she feels so wrong casted on so many levels, something just feels off from first time u see her on the screen, 12 years difference between her and gong yoo just adds oil to the chemistry on fire already.., every other single relationship between the characters is perfect, the chemistry is just amazing inbetween the rest of the cast


execution: this drama was amazingly executed but it suffers horribly from the most common trend korea does, IT DRAGS THE HECK OUT, if u thought 90 minutes can be tolerable at first 5 episodes w8 till u reach some filler episodes around 12~ holly molly how can there be literally Many filler scenes in such a drama?

overall: this drama is well written, it drags Alot,if u can get over that and Kim Go-Eun, its enjoyable

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Hard to Ignore Age Gap

I have to be honest, I couldn't get very far into this drama with the age gap. Of course the Goblin is a nearly 1000 year old supernatural being, however there is a difference between this and other supernatural romances with age gaps that make it less acceptable. Firstly, the female lead starts out as *underage*. The actual actors have a 12 year gap and the man looks like he could be her father which makes it much more awkward in the show seeing the male lead essentially watch the female lead as she grows up. I felt so uncomfortable in every scene where she's a highschooler, a literal child, with a grown man the show is hinting at romance with. Regardless if they don't doing anything before she is older, it's strange to wait until it's legal and to even hint at feelings when she is so obviously a child. Unfortunately the interesting main storyline couldn't distract me enough to ignore and enjoy this drama. Yikes.

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As a Gong Yoo fan, I was gobsmacked.

Okay. Let me tell you this, I am a big Gong Yoo fan. I'm part of the older generation where I get to watch kdramas VCD days. And I've watched all Gong Yoo movies and dramas and knew that he will always be that movie and TV star A-lister.

So I watched this while it was still airing and I am already utterly disappointed within a couple of episodes. I already knew what's gonna happen. The pain they're trying to go through for the Tokkaebi to find someone who will actually and finally can kill him. His bride. Nice premise, but you won't get surprised where it took you because it was set up right at the beginning. Even with the characters. The moment Kim Min Jae's character went into the screen, I knew who he is in the present. Because who else would it be? Everything was just so obvious.

What really made me held on was of course, Gong Yoo, and the adorbs KGE, although I'm not really in love with the ajusshi thingy.

So yes, to give it a chance before going here for ratings, I watched it again, and feelings remained the same, if not even lower. I am so sorry.

The cinematography was top-notch.

The music was also so so so so good. The scoring. The OST. Main OST was an earworm,

But that didn't actually save the drama for me.

Will I watch it again?

Maybe not.

I guess I was really not a fan of writer. Maybe the last drama that I liked from her was Secret Garden, which actually took me three years to finish. I dropped it two times in two years, until I picked it up.

But this, I'm not sure why I held on and was disappointed still.

This is my opinion.

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Way overrated

Honestly this was 1/10 for me, the ending was a bit rushed IMO but the last 2eps gave off lots of good feels. I liked the leads relationship so because of that, I will give this 5/10 even though I think it should be less because it was dragging and boring for most of the 16eps. After watching the whole series, I couldn’t see what the hype/rave reviews was all about except the fact that most of the viewers seem unhealthily obsessed with the two MLs especially with Lee Dong-Wook hence the inflated ratings. This is nowhere near a 8.0 rating much less 8.8 rating, IMO.
I swear to God the delusional castle that most K & C Drama fans have built does host a lot of idiotic individuals. People were literally wailing and crying in the VIKI comment section. How the fuck are you wailing and crying in the comment section about Kim Shin putting his hands on the Grim Reaper in Ep13 (let someone kill your whole fucking family and let’s see how well you react when you are face to face with the person, I’m sure you will hug them because OMG *insert sarcasm* they are so handsome and you even got to be friends with them before knowing). This is a fucking tv series you morons. He was not actually trying to kill ya”alls precious Lee Dong-Wook. Like WTF.
K & C Drama fans will be all up in their feelings when their so called popular and handsome actors are MLs. They will stay bashing the FLs of these actors (deluding themselves with the rhetoric that she can’t act, she’s whiny/clingy or because they feel that she’s not good enough to costar with their precious Male actors) but the MLs are always beyond perfect and above reproach and can apparently do no wrong. These male actors don’t even need to do much or have any sort of great personality, they just need to be “handsome & hot” and viola they are all perfect in all their ways. As a lady I love me some handsome actors and I can appreciate the good looking ones but some “fans” I don’t even call them that, I call them delusional people who take it way too far, little wonder the poor actors/actresses and idols in China and Korea can’t publicize their relationships because of the unstable people that claim to be their fans….
FYI to the above delusional obsessive morons, all your revered male actors won’t read your comments, even if they somehow miraculously do, they won’t care for your trifling thoughts and opinions of them and their FLs, especially when most of them are actual friends with said FLs. So keep wasting your useless time bashing all their FLs in the VIKI comment section, VIKI, Youku, IQIYI etc review sections, here on mydramalist and any other tv series review sites, you will end up just being the one dying of anger and frustration while both FL and ML smile to the bank.
People were bashing this shows FL that she was childish and immature, I’m like she’s literally 19yrs old in the show and the MLs were 939yrs and 300yrs and were both acting childish with each other but surprise surprise nobody was bashing them, instead they will praising them, saying how they had such chemistry and people were shipping them (pure insanity). This level of obsessive delusions and inability to have rational/logical thinking because a guy is so “handsome”, lemme tell you, it’s borderline mental. Very unstable behavior.
And what makes it worse is that, It’s mostly females that you see bashing this FLs. It’s really horrible what women do to each other just because they want to praise and idolize a “handsome” guy that doesn’t even know they exist. Very very sad indeed

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