The Heavenly Idol Review: Fantasy as a genre has always been about escape, in one way or another. It works as a gateway to the unknown, the fantastical, the one that perhaps can never be…or it just might. We mean, Jules Verne never thought his book about the journey to the moon would ever become a human reality. Not to forget the wormhole theory which makes travel through space and time possible, connecting different universes. Though such things would ideally and formally come into the genre of science-fiction, but we can’t deny such ideas sprouting initially from ideas of fantasy.

It is probably why fantasy as a genre has always been saturated with stories of another world. And so in yet another edition of our Kdrama review, we bring you a story precisely of this “another world” as we dissect the kdrama – The Heavenly Idol!

The Heavenly Idol Trailer

The Heavenly Idol Plot

The Heavenly Idol revolves around two worlds, the world of the mortals as we know it and a different world, a world where good and evil literally are engaged in an eternal war. In this supernatural universe, Pontifex Rembrary battles with the Evil One and just when he is about to finally finish him, Rembrary is transported to a world of limelight, of song and dance, the dizzying and sparkling idol world of South Korea. Worse, he is in the body of a member of a failed idol group, Wild Animal.

The original Woo Yeon Woo is likewise transported to Pontifex’s body, refusing to come back! Rembrary has no choice but to struggle to fit into the role of a failed idol while trying to protect people in the two worlds from the Evil One.

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The Heavenly Idol Review

The Heavenly Idol is a 2023 kdrama starring the fan favorite Kim Min-kyu , the darling that stole quite a few hearts with his performance as a lovable, naive secretary in Business Proposal. He is one of the reasons why most viewers stumble upon The Heavenly Idol. Sadly, even Kim min-kyu’s presence could not really save this series as it ended with an average of 1.8% nationwide ratings in South Korea. The Heavenly Idol is adapted from a popular web-novel of the same name, an entertaining and hilarious story of a priest-turned-idol.

The Heavenly idol begins quite interestingly. A Pontifex in a body of an idol , lusting after any kind of spare chocolates, speaking in a way that characters in period dramas would and frowning every time someone utters the word “sexy”. The incongruity of this out of place character as he struggles to adapt into a completely new universe is a source of amusement and curiosity for the viewers. And this is precisely why the web-novel attained such popularity with the readers.

However, the kdrama is nothing but a massive case of a disastrous attempt at adaptation. The script is so awful that we would love to crumple it and throw it in the dustbin if we could. What were the script-writers thinking exactly? That they could probably hire a few famous faces and make this disaster work?

For once, the plot is all over the place – the supernatural world, mortal world, unrequited romance and then a grim reaper as well? Not to forget the stock and extremely annoying character of the Evil One. Whenever the story progresses, the Evil One comes back to the scene only to disrupt Rembrary and nothing else. It becomes monotonous at one point, the same formula repeating itself over and over after a couple episodes.

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Not to forget the completely unnecessary addition of a romantic interest in the kdrama. The essence of the popularity of the original web-novel is its humor which was entirely lost in the adaptation and replaced by a strained attempt at comedy. The characters lacked depth, as we mentioned with the character of Evil One. Not to mention the sad attempt at translation (Evil One) which made the show close to a caricature.

The finale was probably the worst out of all. It was exceptionally underwhelming with the Evil One quite conveniently being sucked into a ring, the viewers discovering that Rembrary’s deity is an imposer and in actuality a mere seaweed spirit with only powers of a deity. We never know how these spirits are in possession of such a power if they are not deities at all.

Moreover, the kdrama becomes ridiculous at times especially the finale. For instance, while other characters sign their soul away in return for success and start transforming into flesh-eating goblins, the female lead merely loses her memory? That’s it? Not to mention that the kdrama hints at Kim Dal recovering her memories as well by the end of the episode. Fantastic attempt at a shallow plot and characters.

The Heavenly Idol – JAL Rating

All in all, The Heavenly Idol despite it famous faces is a major disaster of an adaptation. JAL gives it a sad 2.5 out of 5. That is it for our The Heavenly Idol review, catch the show on Myasiantv and let us know your thoughts in the comments.