Connected fates, backfired curses and revenge goals sum up the intricately woven opening chapters of Bulgasal: Immortal Souls.
There’s a lot to process in the beginning episodes of the new tvN series, to be honest. What stood out is the solid entrenchment of the hero’s vengeance-driven story.
abbyinhallyuland watches Bulgasal: Immortal Souls on Netflix
Opening Week Rating:
Episode Recaps: 01 & 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 & 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 – Finale + Series Review |
Bulgasal: Immortal Souls Opening Week Story
Spanning over 600 years, Hwal, the main hero of the story endures a harrowing journey. A curse has made him immortal. To break the curse, he searches for the reincarnation of the person who caused his deathlessness.
The Cursed Boy
Even before being born, Hwal was already marked carrying a bulgasal’s curse. Bulgasals are human-eating monsters that mercilessly kill people. They can’t be killed and they thrive ceaselessly. At a time when people in late Goryeo fear Japanese invaders and monsters, his mother even attempted to offer him to a group of monsters. However, the monsters depart seemingly afraid of the pregnant woman. Tortured about her situation, Hwal’s mother hanged herself up, but her son survived.
Explaining the baby earned bad blood from his previous life, the tribe’s sage warns about the trouble to be brought by the cursed baby who will be chased by the bulgasal who holds a grudge against him. 10 years after, the baby survived without a name. Abandoned by his tribe and father, he leads a solitary life.
But when the villagers start dying from the attack of a monster, they put the blame on the pitiful boy they already ostracized. Running for his life, he fell on a frozen lake and was later rescued by what he thought to be his father. When he wakes up, he looks for her. Instead, he finds a mysterious woman.
At that same moment, the raging villagers also locate him to kill him for good. But the mysterious woman shields her body from the fatal attack. On the brink of death, a Goryeo general stops the villagers from ganging up the cursed boy. He later adopted him and gave him the name, Hwal.
Hwal Lost His Family
Despite proving his impeccable fighting skills, Hwal still struggles with the “cursed” stigma he has been carrying all his life. Even after killing vicious monsters, his reality of being a lowborn raises contention from soldiers of noble birth.
Sadly, even his wife who is also his adopted father’s daughter blames him for losing their second child for passing on the curse he is branded on. Out of love for his firstborn with bloodied eyes, Hwal decides to kill the bulgasal to put an end to his misfortune. Bringing his family and his troop to the old village of people who cruelly treated him when he was young, they begin searching for the monster.
However, upon confronting the monster, he realizes she’s the woman who died for his sake when he was young. Thus, letting her go when his troops came to back him up. Hoping to end the curse for the sake of his son, Hwal goes to the mountain forest to settle the score with the bulgasal. But the woman he pursues is on a menacing streak at the base camp.
Hwal’s wife Sol escapes with their son to the forest. However, the monster tracks and kills them. Holding his fatally wounded child, and seeing his lifeless wife from a distance, Hwal agonizingly grieves for his son. Just then, the bulgasal pierces him with her sword taking his “soul” in the process.
Her action reverses their fortune turning Hwal into a bulgasal. Quickly reviving to life after the sword stab, Hwal stabs her.
Fortunes Exchanged
Transforming to a bulgasal, Hwal vows on his dying adopted father that he won’t eat human blood. After burying his family, the tribe’s sage bows down and wishes for him to stop the vicious cycle of killings. With their switch fates, Hwal promises to chase after the bulgasal-turned-human in her next lifetimes.
On the flip side, a monster Hwal once killed made a curse to hunt his lifetimes as well. Since reversing his life with the bulgasal, the latter’s soul attracts the monster’s incarnations as well. Hwal also learns how other beings are in search of her because of the soul that she has acquired from him.
For years, Hwal patiently thrives for the moment of meeting her next rebirth. He was finally close to getting Sang-un, a high schooler. Unfortunately, her twin sister and mother were murdered by another monster, who like Hwal is chasing after the twins. Evading death, she follows her twin sister’s instruction of not trusting anyone and living as remotely as possible.
On the death anniversary of her family, she visits their old house. Crying and sharing how she has lived her life as she requested, she confessed forgetting her last instruction. That is to find a way of obliterating a bulgasal. Her emotional breakdown gets interrupted by the sound of the door being opened.
Bulgasal: Immortal Souls Opening Week Musings
Wielding a solid story, Bulgasal: The Immortal Souls packed its debut with a lot of questions that would be answered in the remaining seven weeks. That’s good enough to gamble on weekly watching the series despite its complexly daunting story.
Expect reincarnated characters that will fortify its supernatural premise. The people from the past whom Hwal cherished would definitely resurface for the retribution they deserve in the same way that the villains might make his life harder. We cannot also cross out the possibility that who used to be his allies might become his enemy and vice versa. But let’s earnestly hope for a second chance of filial love with his reincarnated son.
Hopefully, the timeline will now be fixed in modern times. Like Hwal, there’s a lot of bad memories from the past we’d rather not take a trip on.
Eventually though, trips to Hwal’s previous lives would reveal what warranted him to be cursed in the first place. His being a “curse magnet” can make any viewer gravitate to his journey. It better not be a “love grudge” that spurred his tumultuous existence. If it be, it better has a polished argument.
After layering the narrative with the concept of karma through Hwal’s unfortunate life, his looping pursuit emphasizes one of the core messages in the series. That is reaping what you sow. Doing good begets good, doing evil begets evil.
Notably, his pursuit to get the answer and revenge on Sang-un, the bulgasal-turned-human who cursed him, is not an easy feat owing to the result of interconnected curses they share. Accordingly, the complicated link they have makes his goal harder since he’s not the only one who wants her dead.
Cap off your weekend with the entrancing story in Bulgasal: Immortal Souls on tvN. International fans can watch it on Netflix.
Photos/Videos: tvN
[wpedon id=”3227″ align=”center”]
