Forbidden Love: Gumiho, is a 2004 16 episode Korean melodrama series that centers around the battle between humans and a race of supernatural creatures. It's similar to something along the lines of the "Underworld" movies, with (of course) mandatory various Korean love triangles.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Story: A group of four creatures/beings have sworn to protect humanity against other beings from their own race. They consist of two men and two women who I guess are all Gumiho (or whatever their male counterparts are, since I've always known them to be female). Gumihos are nine tailed foxes who live a really long time, have powerful abilities and skills, and can take on human form. In this story, they once lived in harmony with humans in the distance past but were betrayed and soon driven to near extinction. They still live in small numbers in the present however, and many of them have a thirst for human livers in order to survive.
Our good Gumihos, need to hunt down the bad Gumihos to keep the humans safe, and they need to this without the humans finding out about them. The four of them have varying skills and use different weapons to do their job (various swords and bladed arms and the like). They are also, naturally, all young and incredibly good looking, and each of them love one of the others in typical Korean melodrama fashion. The lone exception to all of these love angles between themselves, is one girl who gets involved with a human police officer. This cop gets assigned to a secret task force that's aware of the Gumiho's existence, and are trying to destroy them.
There's too many story lines involved in this series. In addition to the cops, the good & bad Gumihos, the numerous love stories, and more, the main female charachter also happens to be a special kind of Gumiho that only comes along every 1000 years. She will soon have the power to unite or destroy the two races or something, but must be sacrificed at the next blood moon in order for this to be achieved. Some people want to destroy her, some want to protect her, and others want to use her to provide themselves with everlasting life. There's also ulterior motives between some of the good Gumihos, a traitor among them, some evil mastermind behind the bad Gumihos that has yet to be found, a special Gumiho killing weapon that the cop gets a hold of, etc. This was all a bit much, and I thought a lot of it was unnecessary; it only served to take the focus off the primary story(s).
The stars did a decent enough acting job, but I've seen most, if not all of them, do much better jobs in other movies & shows. The production values drop off significantly after the first episode or two, and it starts to look pretty cheaply made at times. And, even though there are numbers of plot lines and stories involved, it gets bogged down during the middle to end of its run time, and becomes somewhat boring to sit through at times.
This wasn't a terrible show, but it was not what I would call good either. I actually kind of like it some, but it just didn't hold up as being likable enough during its run time for me to fully recommend it. I feel it's merely a little above average, and there are plenty of better KTV shows out there worth watching more than this one. 6 out of 10 stars!
