What will you do if you will have a phone application that can grant you a wish? The catch is, after the wish is granted, you will have 24 hours to live.

This is the new series released in Netflix entitled, If Wishes Could Kill, and the directions is, if you got a wish, you should use the Girigo app, write a saju (This a traditional Korean fortune-telling system, often called the “Four Pillars of Destiny,” based on an individual’s birth year, month, day, and time) and make your wish as you record yourself in the app.

The only weird thing is that once your wish is granted, a timer is going to appear in your phone and you only have that time until you kill yourself, or that’s what everyone will see when you finally get a 10 seconds remaining of that timer.

The story revolves among five Seorin High School students, after they witness how their friend, Choi Hyeong-wook, killed himself inside their school, without them knowing that the Girigo app which he first introduced to them after passing the Math exam with high score, has mysteriously killed him.

Before Hyeong-wook died, one of them used the app as well, thinking that he is just using a simple app. It was Geon-woo, wanting his secret girlfriend, Yoo Se-ah’s training to be cancelled. By the time they figured out that the app is the one killing the users, they tried to stop the timer from running out of time by trying to go kill the root cause of the app but failing to do so, Se-ah tried to save her boyfriend form dying by wishing that he will not die, in return, she’s the one who got the timer up and running while Geon-woo’s already stopped.

Little did they know that before even Geon-woo wished his, Im Na-ri, one of their friends wished something as well while she was out and drunk with other friends, wishing Hyeong-wook to die. By the time he died, her timer started, making her and Geon-woo having the timers running in their phones and when Se-ah’s got her wish, she actually stopped both of Na-ri and Geon-woo’s timers which making the mechanics of the app, that whoever wishes will get the timer, making him/her the latest target of the app. Make someone wish in the app, to save yourself, basically that’s the mechanics.

Knowing all this mystery now, Se-ah and Ha-joon, their techy friend, consults to Ha-joon’s sister who is a shaman and they discovered that the app is actually cursed.

Another mystery is how the person with the app receives weird calls talking shit about them, making them believe it, and making their death to look like suicidal. Which brings us to the second part of the series where they try to figure out who made the app, who is killing them, who cursed it and how they will make it stop. Surprisingly, it started with students who created the app and these students were previously from Seorin High as well and it was a little easier for them to catch on the mystery with the help of Se-ah’s astral body travelling to the past.

As the mystery reveals slowly in each episode, Se-ah needs to save her friends while saving herself from the curse and by doing that, she needs to face all the demons lying in her past and needs to face the scariest part of her life, which is losing love ones. Se-ah and Ha-joon with the help of Ha-joon’s brother in law was able to face the ghost who cursed the app and figured a way to stop it, however, it’s suicide plan but they need to make sacrifices to save everyone.

The series ended by….alright fine, I won’t tell, I won’t spoil at all but this is what you should remember, every episode has its own side of the story and by the time you are in the two episodes, you will discover who the culprit is and how it all started.

The Verdict

All in all, I would give this a 91% wonderroanne rating. There were some loopholes but I focused more on the plot twist even though it was really predictable at some point. I love how they managed to connect the story by not sacrificing anything. Most of the time, flashbacks makes it hard for series to go back to the main story because it is actually making the viewers to focus on the flashbacks but this one, it survived that test.

I would definitely recommend this to people who loves mystery and horror at the same time. This is like a puzzle, making it more interesting to follow the story and how it will end up.