The Sound of Magic is a musical drama about a mysterious magician who opens the eyes of a young boy and girl who seem to have lost sight of what life is all about. The series is now streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
A couple of students are sharing a rumour about a strange and handsome magician that lives in the abandoned amusement park at the top of the hill. He seems to perform real magic and starts every trick with the phrase “Do you…believe in magic?”.
It the first day of school and Yoon Ah-yi and Na Il-deung are late to class. However, Since Il-deung is the topper of the school, he is forgiven along with Ah-yi. Il-deung is the best in all the subjects except math, the one subject that Ah-yi is the best at.
Ah-yi narrates her day to day life to her mother without reply. She’s living a tough life, scrapping for food and money to care for herself and her younger sister. She see’s a vacancy for a part time job at a store and as she walks in, her classmate Seo Ha-yoon walks out.
After her first day of work, she’s admiring her earnings when a gust of wind blows the money out of her hand and takes her all the way to the amusement park. There she meets the strange magician who has the money in his hand, but before he can give it back she runs away in fear.
Baek Ha-na is one of their classmates who likes to put down other people. She wants to find out what the story is behind Ah-yi and is constantly condescending towards her. Il-deung on the other hand, has developed a crush on Ah-yi and looks for ways to spend time with her.
Ah-yi goes back to the amusement park to get her money and has a conversation with the magician. He tells her all about his magic and how it’s very real and can spread happiness. Ah-yi says that she’s got too many worries in her life to focus on magic.
The shopkeeper who had given Ah-yi a part time job offered her money when she told him her plight. But immediately after he tried to force himself on her but the magician showed up just then and made him disappear.
The magician wants to teach Ah-yi magic and while she’s initially reluctant, she gives in. Il-deung learns that the two of them are spending time and he becomes jealous. He’s convinced by Ha-na that the magician is her sugar-daddy so he tries to take his place by offering her money for bringing her scores down and doing his school projects.
Meanwhile, Ha-yoon goes missing and Ha-na becomes more and more suspicious of the magician so she plants a spy camera in quarters and captures him arguing with someone and almost stabbing them with a knife.
On his first encounter with the magician, Il-deung is apprehensive of his persona but after some time begins to realise that there is some method to his madness. He’s been focused on studying and getting to the top all his life that he’s forgotten how to be happy.
He joins in on Ah-yi’s magic learning sessions and the two of them form an appreciation for the magician. Ha-na is not satisfied with Ah-yi and Il-deung standing up for the magician so she confronts him and ends up hurting his parrot which cause him to choke her before she escapes.
The police have their suspicions about the magician and begin questioning Ah-yi and anyone else who was close to him. They believe that he’s responsible for a mugging, kidnapping and possible murder.
A woman jogging by the lake is horrified to see that there is a body lying in there as she screams in anguish. The body turns out to be that of Seo Ha-yoon.
If you have any doubts about the ending, here’s a complete breakdown.
The Sound of Magic ending explained in detail (Episode 6: The last performance):
Believeing in one’s innocence
The police are now actively looking for the magician as Seo Ha-yoon’s body has been found and her belongings were found somewhere near the amusement park.
Ah-yi goes ahead to warn the magician and finds him in distress, caring for his parrot who is ill. She tells him that the police are coming and he replies that he has nothing to hide and as long as one person believes in him things will be alright.
The detectives arrive and take the magician, whose real name is Ryu Min-hyuk, back to the station for questioning. Il-deung arrives later and Ah-yi tells him that there is someone they need to meet and talk to.
The story of Ryu Min-hyuk
They meet with a woman who often visited Min-hyuk at the park. She tells them that she was his classmate in high school and he was her first love.
Min-hyuk was a brilliant student belonging to a brilliant family. But over time, the pressures of being so perfect all the time finally got to him as he began to lose his mind.
He was involved in an accident that caused him to drop out and be checked into a mental institution from which he escaped.
At the police station, Min-hyuk tells the detectives that he doesn’t know who killed Ha-yoon but it wasn’t him. While they’re looking at evidence, he disappears from there.
Ah-yi is informed and she and Il-deung rush back with Ah-yi going to the park and Il-deung going to the school to get his backpack.
The detectives and Ah-yi show up at the park where Ah-yi says that she has a few words for Min-hyuk before they take him in. She then tells him that he’s a real magician because he got her to believe in magic once again.
Justice prevails and new beginnings
Ah-yi then performs her first ever magic trick by making Min-hyuk disappear while the police go searching for him. A few weeks pass by and the police find new footage from an old camera at the park.
The shopkeeper who had initially disappeared is on the feed and he comes out with the truth. He had tried to take advantage of Ha-yoon after he caught her trying to steal from his shop.
However, she was one step ahead of him and caught him on video and decided to blackmail him. He lured her to the park and killed her, then proceeded to get that magician’s fingerprints on the murder weapon to frame him.
Il-deung applies to drop out of high school as he feels that he’s done travelling the smooth path his parents laid out for him and wants to bloom like a flower on a dirt filled road.
Ah-yi is doing better as she has picked up a job as a magician entertaining guests at a fancy restaurant while she’s also in touch with her father on a regular basis.
Ah-yi attributes all this to Min-hyuk who made her believe when no one else in the world was able to.
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