If You Wish Upon Me (2022)

Quick Take: If You Wish Upon Me (2022) starring Ji Chang-wook, Choi Soo-young, and Sung Dong-il.  8.9/10.  16 episodes, 60 min. each.

Synopsis:  In exchange for a lighter sentence, a young thug in trouble with the law agrees to do community service hours at a hospice.  At first Yoon Gyeo-ree is prickly and hostile, but the head of the Genie Foundation insists that he work with them.  The Genie Foundation exists to grant the last wishes of dying patients, and some of the wishes are pretty elaborate.  Nurse Seo Yeon-joo is a loyal cheerleader for Gyeo-ree, who has to deal with dangerous criminals from his past and mysteries from his childhood.

Review:  A lost soul finds redemption in helping others, loosely based on actual events from the Make-a-Wish Foundation in the Netherlands.   Wonderful performance by Sung Dong-il, who plays the director of Genie. It’s a tale of flawed people struggling to be good people, ultimately affirming life in spite of sadness and death.

Rewatchable - 3, Compelling - 4, Plot/ Story/Writing - 9,  Acting/Casting - 10, Production - 10,  Bonus -  3.   Bonus points for celebrating kindness, the people willing to extend it and the people willing to accept it.

Notes:

Ji Chang-wook

This role is a departure for Ji Chang Wook, as was his other 2022 drama, The Sound of Magic. As he nears 40, JCW is perhaps trying to move beyond his typecasting as either an action hero or a rom-com mensch. See him in action mode in Healer (2014) and The K-2 (2016), and in rom-com mode in Lovestruck in the City (2020).

Choi Soo-young

Besides acting, she is a singer and songwriter. She is a member of popular K-pop group Girls Generation. She has been acting since 2003. See her also in Run-On (2020), So I Married the Anti-Fan (2021), and Move to Heaven (2021).

Sung Dong-il

has been active in theater, film, and drama for more than 30 years. His extensive filmography includes more than 70 titles. See him also in several of the Reply series, as well as Legend of the Blue Sea (2016), Prison Playbook (2017), Jirisan (2021), and Curtain Call (2022).