As a massive fan of this webtoon, it’s so exciting to see these characters come to life, even if it’s in the form of two or three measly stills at a time. Upcoming fantasy romance Mama Fairy and the Woodcutter (or Gyeryong Fairy Tale) is gearing up for its premiere in a few weeks’ time, and several stills and posters have been released to give us another peek into a quirky and magical world filled with talking plants and shapeshifting children.
The first set of stills involve our resident centuries-old barista fairy Sun Ok-nam, played by Moon Chae-won (Criminal Minds), and her two potential suitors in Jung Yi-hyun (Yoon Hyun-min, Witch’s Court) and Kim Geum (Seo Ji-hoon, Misty). Both are professors who come across Ok-nam’s mysterious cafe on Gyeryong mountain, and the fairy somehow senses that one of them is her reincarnated husband, the titular woodcutter in a former life. Though they’re both candidates for Ok-nam’s long-lost husband (who isn’t as creepy in the webtoon as in the original fairytale, promise!), the two professors couldn’t be more different in temperament. Jung Yi-hyun is irritable and brusque, where Kim Geum is gentle and somewhat naive.
The next two stills are of Gugudan’s Mina (20th Century Boy and Girl), who plays Ok-nam’s daughter Jeom-soon, whose character actually has 3 different forms. In addition to her human form, as pictured in these stills, Jeom-soon was reincarnated into a tiger, and through some magical training, is now able to shift from human to tiger to cat at will. In the webtoon, Jeom-soon doesn’t have a human form, so I do wonder how that will affect a hilarious sub-plot involving her lack of thumbs thwarting her erotica-writing ambitions.
I really like that the show kept her tiger form, though, despite the added CGI expense, as shown in the cheeky posters. Both of the posters feature the two potential reincarnated woodcutters, Ok-nam, and her daughter in an old-school type of family portrait, but one of them shows Go Du-shim (My Ajusshi) and a tiger take Ok-nam and Jeom-soon’s place. If you’re wondering why Ok-nam is carrying a massive egg in both posters, it’s because that egg is her reincarnated son. Though he remains an egg for pretty much the whole story, the son plays an important role in this modern fairy tale.
Mama Fairy and the Woodcutter will premiere in tvN’s Monday-Tuesday slot on November 5, following currently airing 100 Days My Prince.
