REVIEW: Oh My Ghost
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Re-watch value: 2 out of 5 stars
Synopsis
*partially taken from Dramafever*
Na Bong Sun (Park Bo Young) may be a skilled chef, but she lacks the self-esteem to shine professionally and socially. Beyond her cooking talents, however, is an uncanny ability to communicate with ghosts. One day, her mystic senses go out of control when the seductive ghost of Shin Soon Ae (Kim Seul Gi) possesses her. Imbued with a fiery new "personality," Bong Sun starts turning heads, including that of Kang Sun Woo (Jo Jung Suk), the hottest chef in town and Bong Sun's secret crush!
Rambling
*Beware of spoilers*
I went into this with zero expectations. In fact, I really didn't even want to watch this show. I just happened to be browsing Netflix, and I just put it on because I was bored. (Being alone after a hurricane will do that to you.)
I wish I could say that the show surprised me or that it's now one of my favorites. But I'd be lying. This show started as a big messy headache, and it stressed me out from frustration. The only saving grace was that the plot drastically improved in the last four episodes, enough to where I was satisfied with how things ended and felt like the show was even a little vindicated.
The Bad
For starters, Park Bo-young's acting: I hate seeing the same actor play the same character over again, and that's what happened here. The possessed version of Bong-sun (aka ghost Soon-ae) was eerily similar to Bong Soon (from Strong Woman Do Bong Soon), and even worse, she felt too generic, similar to every other outgoing/extroverted female protagonist in K-drama. The only thing that set the possessed Bong-sun character apart was her obsession with having sex, and even that was overplayed in the show, to the point where I loathed any moment when Bong-sun was possessed... 80% of the show.
Likewise, Jo Jung-suk is the Kevin Costner of K-drama. He always plays the same character. His delivery and mannerisms, his hair, his clothes—IT'S ALL THE SAME. The only time I ever saw some variety was his character in the movie My Annoying Brother. That's it.
Kim Seul-gi's turn as Ghost Soon-ae could have been brilliant. Instead I found her performance lukewarm and her talent wasted. She's an amazing comedic actor and yet during obviously comedic scenes she fell flat for me. I miss her sleepy, crazy webtoon company manager in Flower Boy Next Door, and I absolutely loved her in the massively underrated TV movie Splash Splash Love (or Pongdangpongdang Love). Anyway, the show never explains why in the first episode every man Soon-ae tried to have sex with would get deathly sick. Was that a product of being a ghost? Was she doing that to them unintentionally?
Most of those episodes had some seriously bleak moments where I was really disappointed in the characters or plot or something else. Here are a few notes from particularly upsetting episodes:
Episode 10: It was all fun and games for Soon-ae until it wasn't. Ugh, she is so annoying! She finally gets what she wants, and instead of following through on her promise, she gets greedy. What the hell? She's totally stealing Bong-sun's man and for what? She's dead! I hate her.
Episode 12:
It's starting to manifest that Chef doesn't know Bong-sun. Everything he knows about her, especially her cooking skills, is based off Ghost Soon-ae. Bong-sun is royally screwed.
Well, once again, it's really annoying how Korean TV blurs out weapons like knives. That just takes me right out of the narrative and makes me question Korean TV censorship.
No, but then Jun's reaction to Bong-sun and Chef coming out as a couple? So good-natured and civil. Classy guy. Can we get a round of applause for this gorgeous second male lead?
Oh, I see, the closer to 3 years Ghost Soon-ae gets, the darker/grayer her complexion turns to represent her descent into demon-hood. I see what they did there.
Whoa, so that dick-face director thinks Bong-sun deserves respect only if she's dating Chef? This speaks to a larger issue about women getting treated like shit in male-dominated industries, but damn. He kept calling for her, saying "Yah!" as if "Hey, you!" was her name.
Chef fell in love with the wrong girl. When will this drama stop floundering and let shit hit the fan?!
My problems all stemmed from the fact that Ghost Soon-ae didn't deserve Chef. She developed romantic feelings for him wayyyy after Bong-sun's long-standing crush, where before, he was just a means to an end. The show wanted the audience to feel pity for the likable Ghost Soon-ae and essentially root for her, too. Even though I understood that while watching, I couldn't get behind her as a character... For 12 out of 16 episodes. Ouch.
I was much more interested in the subplot revolving around Ghost Soon-ae's mysterious death (which took over the last four episodes, thank God). But there were still holes: Why did she lose her memory as a ghost? All the other ghosts thought it was super odd. But then it only took visiting her father once for her memories to return immediately, except for the memory of how she died. Really?
The Good
Ju-hwan's angelic police officer-turned-demonic-psychopath was a fascinating character, more so than our leads. I don't think they focused on him enough given that he did maim Sun-woo's sister (thus making it impossible for her to dance again) and then marry her, murder the one witness (Ghost Soon-ae), attempt to murder Bong-sun... I mean, legit, he was a crazy.
I would have loved to get some more info on how that whole dark spirit possession worked, though. It seemed like Sung-jae remembered stuff that he did while he was possessed—different from Bong-sun's possession, as she could not remember anything that happened while she was possessed. Also, it looked like Sung-jae wasn't always possessed but that the dark spirit lingered around him, pushing him to commit evil deeds, and then on occasion would fully take over his body.
The scene where Sung-jae gets exorcised of the dark spirit/demon was intriguing to me because when that shit came out of him I was like 0_o WAHT. That is one of the creepiest-looking undead things I've seen in K-drama. I was shook. Now, when the demon thrusts himself back into Sung-jae, it's my understanding that Sung-jae struggles with it (à la Harry Potter fighting against a hostile Voldemort takeover)... before the demon dissipates? I'm not sure where that demon could go since it can't die twice? All I know is that Sung-jae seemed to be in his right mind when he tries to commit suicide (because he can't live with himself after all that).
I really, really loved Jun (bless him). He always kept an eye out for Bong-sun, giving her extra care than any of the other ridiculous blokes in the kitchen did. Plus, the way he looked at her? Whipped. In episode 13, when he said some kind words to help mend Bong-sun and Chef's relationship, I literally said, "No one deserves him." He's too noble and perfect for anybody.
Now, I talked shit about Kim Seul-gi before, but she tugged on my heartstrings any time Soon-ae interacted with her dad. The real love story I was rooting for was between Soon-ae and her sweet, sweet dad. I teared up when they finally met as he was heading for the white light of heaven (I kid you not, lol) and they hugged. Bravo, Kim Seul-gi.
In episode 16, we get a handful of good-bye scenes for Soon-ae, and I actually liked her good-bye with Chef. It was an expert move to repeat the same action of Ghost Soon-ae leaving Bong-sun's body while she's hugging Chef (although before, it was a kiss). Very nice touch.
Uhh, episode 16 also had me screaming at the biggest cameo by Seo In-guk (!!) as the new sous chef. That boy is fine as hell.
After suffering through that awful love triangle, I'm pleased to say the romance between Bong-sun and Chef materialized quite nicely. I didn't think they had particularly astounding chemistry, but they weren't incompatible. They managed to make their resolution cute and fitting.
A couple miscellaneous details I liked: (1) the big band music they played any time they got cooking. (2) Park Bo-young singing that slow number on the OST. I see you, girl!
All in all, I would never watch this show again. I wouldn't recommend it either. I finished it with a smile but with the memory of 12 episodes of scowling still too fresh.
Did you see Oh My Ghost? Tell me your thoughts in the comments below!
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