Alchemy of Souls: Episode 1

by alathe

Alchemy of Souls is as dramatic a historical-flavored fantasy as you’d expect from the Hong sisters. Body-swap shenanigans vie with high-stakes magical duels, resulting in a promising first episode. Its real strength, however, hinges on its charmingly homicidal female protagonist and her efforts to survive in a new, weaker body.

EPISODE 1 WEECAP

We begin, as in all good fantasy, with a cryptic prologue, meeting a mage (Joo Sang-wook) who practices the forbidden art of soul-switching — moving one soul to another body. It’s a morally dubious magic: a soul can clash with its host body, causing it to lose energy and attack other living beings, all the while gradually becoming stone.

Our mage has been summoned by his king (Park Byung-eun). Things are tense as the king is deathly sick and cannot stand the thought of dying without an heir. Just one week, he says. Let me switch bodies/souls with you for one week.

This seems not at all suspicious. So, holding out a mysterious glass orb, in a stunning display of CGI theatrics — seriously, the visuals in this show are beautifully bombastic — the mage performs the spell.

Turns out, the king had his own agenda (who’d have thunk?): to seduce the mage’s wife in the hopes that she’ll bear his child. (Side note: I don’t love the way sexual deception is so casually used to engineer drama, but we’ll see if that’s explored in later episodes.)

Alchemy of Souls is set in the fictional kingdom of Daeho. Long ago, the energy of the sky collided with the ground to create the magically supercharged Lake Gyeongcheondaeho, around which Daeho was built. Mages are people with the power to wield the lake’s energy; one of the very deadliest is our heroine, the masterful assassin NAKSU (Go Yoon-jung – for now).

Twenty years post-flashback, Naksu has fallen afoul of Daeho’s higher-ups, presumably due to her inconvenient habit of killing lots of people. Now, she faces PARK JIN (Yoo Joon-sang) – head of Songrim, the most powerful organization in the land – plus a squad of mooks that she swiftly dispatches with her sword. Atop a frozen lake, she battles for her life, though not without taking time to sardonically explain that she’s named after the sound of heads hitting the ground. How droll!

Despite her skill, she’s wounded by a well-aimed arrow from Park Jin. Fleeing, with enemies hot on her heels, she has one desperate means of survival. Grabbing the first woman she sees on Daeho’s streets, she opens up her hand to reveal a glass orb which — you guessed it! — she uses to send her soul into another body, letting her current one slump corpse-like to the ground.

Unfortunately, Jin is wise to her tricks: when he finds her body, he spots the tell-tale blue mark indicating her soul has left the building. However, when they search the other woman they find at the scene, there is no corresponding mark. Park Jin, concluding that the soul transfer must have been unsuccessful, bundles up both body and sword to return to Songrim.

As Jin and his cohorts examine Naksu’s body, we meet SEO YUL (Minhyun), a baby-faced noble who notices a bird-shaped whistle in her pocket. This clearly strikes a chord, for he has wistful memories of a girl he used to know — a girl whom he gifted that very whistle. (Our assassin remembers him too, as it later turns out, but she’s got bigger problems than a long-lost first love.)

We also meet Jin’s heir, PARK DANG-GU (Yoo In-soo), an easygoing party boy who would rather carouse in Daeho’s bars than knuckle down and study magic. He bemoans the loss of his friend, JANG WOOK (Lee Jae-wook), who has been sent away to do the latter.

Time to meet our male lead! Jang Wook is one cool customer, and currently, he has a bone to pick with a monk. He’s been patiently honing his magical theory, but his would-be master won’t teach him a single spell!

Cuttingly, Wook threatens that if the guy won’t tutor him properly, he’ll withdraw the tasty bit of funding his benefactor Jin promised. As the monk blusters over Wook’s shameful parentage, we learn that he is an illegitimate child whose father abandoned him. Hmm… sounds suspiciously prologue-relevant.

Anyway, Wook won’t stand for this slander: instead, he’ll find a better master! Someone powerful! Yeah, that’ll show ‘em!

Cut to Naksu. Except, she isn’t Naksu any longer. Instead, she’s MU-DEOK (Jung So-min), a once-blind girl with all the strength of a wet noodle — a source of interminable woe to her body’s new inhabitant.

Things take a turn for the slapstick as Mu-deok attempts to perform all the killer assassin techniques and death-defying acts of strength that came naturally to her before, only to pratfall repeatedly.

It’s slightly jarring compared to the earlier moody atmosphere, but Jung So-min really sells it: her exasperated glances are reminiscent of a cat with ruffled fur, and it’s very easy to find her endearing as she scarfs meat to pacify her body’s growling stomach and thinks longingly of murder when a passerby makes her drop her chicken skewer.

Mu-deok is still in peril: she must escape the gisaeng house to whom her body’s previous owner has been sold. Here, our leads finally collide. Wook is searching for the notorious assassin Naksu, who — if she survived — might be the only person fearless enough to break the seal his father placed on his magical abilities. Because yeah, as it turns out, there’s more to the monk thing than first met the eye: nobody dares countermand his father’s will and teach him spell work.

In one of this episode’s funniest scenes, an escaping Mu-deok threatens Wook with the first weapon that comes to hand: a crab leg from his nearby dinner tray. Wook, remarkably unperturbed for a guy about to be impaled by a crustacean, merely remarks that Mu-deok has beautiful eyes.

Although Mu-deok manages to tumble out the window before Wook can do something awful like compliment her again (the reproachful glance he sends her after she grabs his purse made me cackle with delight), she is quickly apprehended. After a swift bop on the head, she wakes up in the Jang residence: Wook has rescued her, purchasing her from the gisaeng house.

Here, things get cute. Wook clearly recognizes that Mu-deok isn’t who she claims to be. However, instead of confronting her, his plan is to make her fetch water for his bath, then complain about it being too hot, only to whine that it’s too cold when she adjusts it, ad infinitum until she snaps and resorts to violence. It’s not a terrible plan. She fantasizes vividly about murdering him. However, with no magical skill to speak of, it’s all she can do to grin (unconvincingly) and bear it.

Awkward misadventures abound. When Wook discovers Mu-deok, who was attempting to steal his gate pass, hiding under his bed covers, he remarks, deadpan, that this was not what he had in mind when he brought her here. Her hasty excuse is that she was trying to warm his bed, to which he replies that, if that’s the case, she should warm his bed all night… with this brazier here, where she can fan the fire.

His toneless delivery, along with Mu-deok’s blank disdain at the innuendo, make the scene — and, although Wook’s attempt to tease Mu-deok is a little uncomfortable, it’s clear his only purpose is to psyche her out until she reveals she’s an assassin.

The chemistry between them is blisteringly awkward, and I am here for it. Mu-deok’s incredulous certainty that Wook has somehow fallen for her, paired with Wook’s failure to understand why this cutthroat assassin is being so weirdly polite, hits that comedic sweet spot. The characters are baffled by one another, but the actors know exactly what they’re doing. It’s got delicious potential: eventually, there’ll be sparks, but right now they’re fumblingly alarmed by the other’s existence.

Whilst Wook pretends to sleep, Mu-deok steals his pass in order to escape. She does not, however, get far. Mysterious cloaked figures — associated, it seems, with the man who hired Mu-deok — have set fire to the Songrim building, and in the ensuing chaos, Mu-deok is nearly caught again. She is rescued by – Wook, who pulls her to safety.

She asks him why he’s here. Because, he says, of her eyes. In the moonlight, they gleam as blue as the mark left on Naksu’s body. Mu-deok has been seen for who she is: Naksu’s soul in a new body. And Wook is determined that she be his master.

Whilst the silliness of Alchemy of Souls occasionally misfires, this show has great potential. I was excited by the premise, and my excitement has only ratcheted up after that delightful ending.

Most of all, I love Mu-deok, and can’t wait to see her struggle with her desperate yen to murder people in Episode 2.

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Alchemy of Souls: Episode 1