After 'Sweet Home,' Song Kang Is Unrecognizable in Netflix's 'My Demon'

September 29, 2024

The Big Picture

Song Kang's performance in the incredibly popular Netflix K-Drama My Demon showcases the actor's range, wittily portraying a mischievous demon with all the required swagger and gravitas.
The unfolding romance between Kang's Gu-won and Kim Yoo-jung's Do-hee is a sparkling power struggle between clashing personalities.
My Demon subverts expectations surrounding traditional romance K-Dramas, making it one of the year's standout series.

In My Demon, the latest Korean drama to dominate Netflix, characters hail Song Kang's co-protagonist Jeong Gu-won as S.I.C.K: "sexy, innocent, cold, and kind." He’s also a scumbag, which, for a demon, is just par for the course. Most international viewers know Kang from the smash hit horror series Sweet Home. Dubbed “the son of Netflix” thanks to the streamer hosting his most popular ventures, Song's dramas Sweet Home, Love Alarm, and Nevertheless all made 2021's most-watched Netflix K-Dramas of the year. With all that star power, Song is oddly absent for most of Sweet Home Season 2. My Demon neatly fills that void. Not even halfway through its 16 episode run, the series shot to #2 ranking on Netflix's Top 10 most-watched series. Likewise, not even halfway through its run, My Demon has established itself as the singular K-Drama to watch as 2023 comes to a close.

My Demon

A pitiless demon becomes powerless after getting entangled with an icy heiress, who may hold the key to his lost abilities -- and his heart.

Release Date November 24, 2023 Cast Kim Yoo-jung , Song Kang , Lee Sang-yi , Kim Hae-sook Seasons 1

‘My Demon’ Shows Song Kang’s Range

Compared to Sweet Home’s reserved, tormented monster, Love Alarm’s comfortably normal student, the flirt of Nevertheless, or the uncertain professional navigating a workplace romance in Forecasting Love and Weather, My Demon is a radically different role for Song Kang. By interrupting his resume with something new, My Demon is doing him, and us, a favor with an almost rite-of-passage character. Song's Jeong Gu-won is a 200-year-old demon charged with tempting vulnerable humans into Faustian bargains. When the terms of their deal are complete, Gu-won collects their souls to bolster hell's population, a task the demon performs with gleeful malevolence. Such a job title practically necessitates strutting around with his long coat billowing out behind him. His tailored wardrobe — which heavily favors black — fits him just as well as his elitist, spoiled brat temperament.

Song Kang, already preternaturally talented, takes to the part like a duck to water. More than embodying the supernatural lead archetype, that tall-dark-and-handsome romantic rescuer, Song stretches his acting legs thanks to Choi Ah-il's astoundingly shrewd and balanced scripts. (Given their sterling reputation as one of the Mr. Queen writers, we're in reliable hands.) Gu-won isn't as moody and brooding as expected. This demon is a trickster figure, not a navel-gazer. Gu-won prizes his youthful looks. He adores extravagant desserts and fussily prepares pour-over coffee. He's gifted with an impish wit and a legitimately devilish smile. Chaos and exploitation are the dual names of his game. Aside from his two sidekicks (whose presence Gu-won reluctantly tolerates), he disdains humans. There's little point in a conman attaching himself to a potential target. He's powerful enough to liken himself to the devil, the one with a capital D in his title. It's an intimidation tactic realized; one dramatic snap of his fingers, and Gu-won gets whatever he wants.

A delighted joy infuses Song Kang's performance, akin to a lit firework fizzing toward its explosion. There's more to Gu-won than his roguish exterior. However, starting with lighter, mischievous material makes the flashes of solemn sensitivity he’s surprised to feel a break in the established pattern. It's clear character development. The world will never turn away a handsome brooder, but Gu-won's refreshing. He's a natural fit for exaggerated rom-com humor, a style that was new for the actor. Song told Elle Korea via Soompi, "When I read the script, I thought that the comedic elements were very strong. But once we started acting, there were a lot of difficult aspects [to the character], such as the way his tone of voice is overflowing with confidence. Gu Won is a character who truly loves himself a lot." My Demon allows Song to demonstrate his range across a wide spectrum.

What Is the K-Drama ‘My Demon’ About?

No pernicious demon is complete without his dynamic love interest. My Demon gives a certain breed of romance lovers everything we want, i.e., Gu-won's dark entity paired against Do Do-hee (Kim Yoo-jung), the human chaebol heir to a massive company who’s caught in a succession scandal and needs both a bodyguard and a husband. Why, you ask? As the adopted daughter of Joo Cheon-sook (Kim Hae-sook), the Mirae Group corporation's chairwoman, Do-hee's in a pickle. Cheon-sook's blood children are the Roy family in their ultimate villain era: greedy, malicious, and disdainful. Because Do-hee has Cheon-sook's favor, their hatred for her knows no bounds. And all hell breaks loose when someone murders Cheon-sook and Do-hee stands to inherit, as long as she marries within one year.

That last legal hitch, while sly, is well-intentioned. Do-hee is a classic married to her work gal. She may not be cruel unless cutthroat business warrants it, but Do-hee and her fancy heels are too busy for human connection. Plus, the harder she works, the more she can ignore the unresolved trauma of losing her parents at 11 years old. Cheon-sook, meanwhile, wanted her only decent child to be loved and supported. She used some friendly emotional blackmail to push Do-hee onto blind dates. By way of screwball logistics, Do-hee crosses paths with Gu-won on her latest date. They instantly detest one another to the level of Pride and Prejudice's "you were the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry" speech — even though Gu-won's irritatingly attractive.

Later, when a mysterious masked-and-gloved stranger tries to kill Do-hee, Gu-won arrives like a guardian angel. In a shadowy scene straight out of Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (iykyk), he offers Do-hee protection in exchange for her soul. Do-hee, a smart businesswoman, demands to see the contract first. During their ensuing bickering (and an awkward crash into the ocean), Do-hee inherits the tattoo on Gu-won's wrist. Without the mark, he can only access his demonic powers if he's touching her. And if Gu-won doesn’t get his mark back, he’ll die from spontaneous combustion. He turns down Do-hee's revised contract: a marriage of convenience. But after some aggrieved, whining negotiations where he insists he's not a Pokémon, Gu-won agrees to be her bodyguard. Both of these headstrong people are forced into a corner and make concessions. Everything about their combative relationship is against their wills — and therein lies the most delightful, sparkling rom-com clash of the year.

‘My Demon’ Has a Dynamic Romance

For all that Song Kang shines as a solo act, his performance turns up to eleven opposite powerhouse Kim Yoo-jung. Chemistry-wise, their characters are a ruthless match. Gu-won, arguably the world's most powerful being, takes dutiful pleasure in collecting human souls. Do-hee, an intimidating executive, gets dubbed an ice princess for exercising her authority. The clash arrives because of compromise and because of their contrasting morals. Gu-won's actions are too cruel for Do-hee, a woman who's kindhearted if anyone bothers to show reciprocal kindness. It's a perilous power struggle between a corporate heir and a demon from hell. It's also the definition of the "accidentally developing inconvenient feelings" phenomenon going both ways. Neither Gu-won nor Do-hee want to be in this situation with this person, and right on cue, the romance blooms. Gu-won even accuses humanity of “romanticizing” creatures like him, but the text disagrees. His name means "salvation." Quite literally, Gu-won is Do-hee's savior. The question (or the guarantee) then becomes, will she also be his? Can that scorched soul of his reawake into something more human?

Every quality romance needs two to tango (we'll come back to that). Both leads should be strong apart and stronger together. Yet this necessary foundation is too often missed in the rush toward our favorite moments of swelling music and intense staring. With Gu-won and Do-hee, it's a privilege to watch their storied emotional collisions unfold. Their romance rests in its earliest begrudging stage, but with a pairing as stubbornly volatile as Song Kang and Kim Yoo-jung, the demon and the heiress spark off one another with an energy reminiscent of 1930s screwball rom-coms. Their timing and expressions are a modern Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, and the increasingly awkward — and giggle-inducing — situations let the actors just have fun. Gu-won constantly wanting to hold Do-hee's wrist when she's smarting from his very public rejection of her? Gu-won accidentally teleporting them into a cramped office closet as their coworkers chat right outside the door about the allure of workplace romances? It's a physical comedy goldmine. But when the action slows in those time-stopping moments of emotional connection, Song and Kim emotionally tether the audience as much as each other.

Undoubtedly, My Demon has a nefarious blast not just subverting expectations, which many modern romance K-Dramas have done, but tossing the clichés out a moving car while blowing a raspberry. It aggressively cuts off its music cues, inserts explicit innuendo into situations, and boasts the snappiest dialogue to emerge from our television sets in a good minute. The series' rom-com coup de grâce to date, Episode 4, ended with Gu-won and Do-hee fighting off an angry group by dancing the tango. With its mastery of the genre and increasingly active viewership, there's no K-Drama more suited to please right now than My Demon. Especially with Sweet Home's Song Kang at the helm, relishing in an unequivocally classic lead — with a twist.

My Demon is available to stream on Netflix.

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