If Wishes Could Kill (기리고) Season 1 Review

A typical mixed-gender Korean school. The athlete girl Se A likes her classmate and neighbor Gen U, who secretly has the attention of the rich girl Na Ri. Their mutual friend Ha Jun is into programming, while the goofy C-student Hyun Uk unexpectedly—even to himself—wins a prize in an algebra olympiad. How exactly? Good question.

Hyun Uk tells his friends about the "Kirigo" app he downloaded on his phone: it turns out it really grants wishes. Although, with a small caveat in the form of a life timer set for twenty-four hours...

Netflix series.
About teenagers and school.
With curses and mysticism.
Where at the center of the story is a hellish phone.

It seems like it shouldn’t be anything special, right?
But it actually is.

Because the Korean flavor changes everything.
Yes, just like in this meme:

The content, of course, isn’t exactly top-notch (“take a seat, F!”): typical teenage misadventures with world-level problems like "girls fought over a boy," but through the lens of Korean mysticism and social issues like domestic alcoholism and school bullying. Not to mention the police, who didn’t find anything suspicious in the mass disappearance of children and serial suicides (oh well, just another day).

But sometimes form matters more than content.

In terms of direction, scene structure and pacing, sound design, and overall atmosphere, this show is genuinely, I dare say, cool and tasteful. In some episodes, “If Wishes Could Kill” outshines other tired demon horror shows with jump scares at every turn. The series is made seriously as a mix of the classic Ringu with Insidious and The Smile (especially the latter: those who know, know). It immediately adopts the tone of a creepy fairy tale with its own rules and maintains it convincingly to the end, painting a world far larger and more dangerous than it seems.

The main highlight is the secondary characters, who are sometimes more interesting than the main cast. Particularly successful are the episodes centered on the young shaman-seer Hatsal (Korean "Sun Arrow"), who is so sensitive to dark forces that she cannot leave the confines of her shrine-house, yet is always ready to help, even if it risks her life (or soul). Her storyline enriches the series, transforming it from just another typical possession horror into a tense mystical thriller with its own rules and laws. Atmospherically, these episodes are very close to the excellent, though challenging, film Exhuma with Choi Min Sik (“Oldboy”) and Kim Go Eun (“Tokkaebi”): dark night, rising wind, unseen threats, and danger that only a fragile healer and her strange companion can handle. By the way, as in the film, all rituals and practices in the series are based on real ceremonies with near-documentary accuracy (only the pace of events is accelerated).

In Wishes… mostly unknown young actors appear, which is great compared to American shows (I’m reminded of Ginny & Georgia with forty-year-old “teenagers” at basement parties). Supporting roles are played by actors you may have seen in Squid Game, Price of Confession, and Parasite: Gray, so familiar faces will definitely appear.

The only notable downside is the story itself. It sometimes hints at certain plot developments but doesn’t follow through. The wishes made by unsuspecting students range from harmlessly silly to spitefully mean—but that’s about it: almost all are banal. This is a bit strange, given the enormous potential of the theme and the limitless possibilities of dark forces manipulating reality.

But this may be a deliberate choice by the writers to focus on solving a single problem. If the story gets a second season (which I really hope it does!), the scale of events will clearly expand, and the overall canvas will change. After all, you can wish for anything if you don’t already have it.

Rating: 8/10, albeit generously: not flawless, but a completely gripping Netflix original gaining well-deserved popularity. Definitely watch if you enjoy tense stories in the spirit of Alice in Borderland or Squid Game and don’t mind overlooking some plot conveniences. The key is to know that nothing happens without consequence because—“Your wish is granted. 23:59:59…23:59:58… 23:59:57… 23:59:56…”

P.S. The app’s name carries dark irony. “Kirigo” comes from the Korean word meaning “Read” (user’s wish), but it also sounds like “Remember” (memory of the deceased). Eternal memory, as they say!

P.P.S. And yes, don’t download everything from Github; Android safety rules exist for a reason.