Oh My Ghostess

Shin Soon-ae, the horny virgin ghost that gets the ball rolling
Click any image to enlarge

When I did my lockdown recap of the Thai TV show O-Negative I mentioned that I had actually intended to do either a Chinese or Korean show, but got sidetracked. Well, I've finally gotten around to a Korean show, the 2015 romcom Oh My Ghostess (that link is to Viki where I watched it, you can also see it on Netflix where they call it Oh My Ghost). There are minor spoilers in this review.

Korean dramas are similar to novellas in that they have a defined beginning and end and a fixed number of episodes. This allows them to get very creative in their premises, and boy-howdy this show has a bizarre set-up and plot. 

The show starts with a fellow being loaded into an ambulance. We learn from a couple of cops that there has been a string of men falling prey to a mysterious illness. The only commonality to the cases is the men were always with a beautiful woman, although each a different woman and none who remembered what happened.

For the viewer the mystery is solved when a ghost, Shin Soon-ae, pops out of the beautiful woman she had possessed. It turns out that, if a ghost has a grudge they need to resolve, they can wander the Earth for three years trying to solve it. Soon-ae thinks her grudge is she died a virgin so she is trying to devirginate herself so's she can move on to Nirvana. Unfortunately for the men, and I suppose the horny virgin ghost as well, attempts at ghostly seduction have only made them sick.

Wait.... possessing a random woman so she can get bonked and solve her virginity problem? Uh... is it just me, or does that sound like some mighty sketchy ethics?

Soon-ae then heads to a temple where the ghosts gather to eat the offerings people leave for their deceased loved ones. We learn that she has an unusual case of amnesia where she can't remember the events of her death. Gee, I wonder if that will figure in the story later?

The Shaman in Seobinggo-dong captures the horny virgin ghost

As the ghosts talk over their food one of them starts giving Soon-ae a hard time for being a bit of a skank. Hard to disagree with that sentiment and thank God there are some ghosts with stronger moral fiber than our horny virgin ghost. As their conversation is escalating towards a fight a rather odd looking woman, the Shaman in Seobinggo-dong, enters the temple. When the ghosts see her they all scatter in terror.   

She's a ghost hunter and she's after Soon-ae. She chases our horny virgin ghost and eventually catches her. The bystanders, not being able to see ghosts, just see the Shaman as a lunatic running around yelling gibberish at nothing.

The shaman takes the horny virgin ghost back to her apartment and locks her in it with the aid of a magic necklace. The shaman isn't really a bad person, she has the best interests of Soon-ae at heart. We find out that Soon-ae is nearing the end of her three year stay on earth and once her time runs out she either has to move on to the afterlife or be doomed to wander the Earth for eternity as an Eeevil spirit. Well, that doesn't sound good at all.

Celebrity chef Kang Sun-woo,
who is soon to be the target of our horny ghost's lust

While that's been going on we meet Kang Sun-woo, the hero of our tale. He is a celebrity chef who runs a successful, upscale restaurant. He's also very demanding of his staff, quick to anger if they make mistakes.

The rich, competent and arrogant male lead is a staple of Korean dramas. For example, in the classic Kdrama Boys over Flowers when we first meet our hero he's entering his school to the squeals of delight of all the girls. One of the young ladies, in a token of her admiration for him, approaches the male lead with a cake she baked for him. His response, by way of rejecting her, is to take the cake and smash it in her face. Yeeesh, this douche-bag is the guy we're supposed to be rooting for?  

Anyway, Sun-woo is nowhere near as bad as that, but he does spend a lot of time snapping at his staff for the slightest mistake. They have to tread lightly around him.

We also discover that his ex-girl friend, who is a TV producer, is both flirting with him and trying to talk him into being on a reality cooking competition show she is launching. However, his status as a celebrity chef is starting to bother him. He thinks the celebrity part is beginning to overwhelm the chef part and he doesn't like that. He wants to run a good restaurant more than anything so he puts her off for the time being.

No Bong-sun apologizing after getting yelled at
for about the billionth time

This leads us to our female lead No Bong-sun who is the dishwasher at the restaurant. She is extremely timid and withdrawn. She tends to make a lot of mistakes and is also very lethargic and frequently falls asleep on the job. As a result the kitchen staff and Chef Sun-woo are continually annoyed with her, further aggravated by the fact that virtually every time she is spoken to she bows her head and, in a voice so soft she can barely be heard, mumbles her apologies.

When we go to her home, which is a single room in a flop-house, we discover her problem. It turns out that Bong-sun is the grand daughter of a shaman, so she can see ghosts and Eeevil spirits. She has her small room plastered with crucifixes, strands of garlic and other mystical items to ward off the ghosts and spirits, but they endlessly pester her anyway, hence her insomnia.

We also learn that she aspires to move up from being a dishwasher to being a cook. She practices recipes in the communal kitchen which gets her yelled at for making too much noise (she gets yelled at a lot), and then posts the resulting dishes to her food blog. All I can say is I hope she gets more traffic to her blog than I get to Flares, not that that's a high bar to hurdle.

Finally we discover that she has a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings featuring Chef Sun-woo. Around all the pictures of him she's drawn little hearts. Whelp, I guess she's crushing on him big time. What could possibly go wrong with that in a Korean romcom?

The horny virgin ghost's Dad and a cop
who's one of his few remaining customers

We're also shown a brief interlude that features the horny virgin ghost's Dad. He runs a little neighborhood restaurant. It had been popular, but since his daughter's death he's taken to drinking and things are sliding downhill for him. Most of his customers are gone, the quality of his food has declined, and the place is falling into disrepair.

This scene is to set up a future major plot line. Eventually, while possessing the timid dishwasher, Soon-ae will encounter her Father. It is bitter sweet, because while she can interact with her Dad, she can't do it as his daughter. He will also reveal some information to her that makes her reevaluate her grudge and wonder if it isn't something different altogether.

Bong-sun getting her hopes and dreams crushed

This has all been in the first episode. As it nears its end there is a scene where a bratty kid knocks a bowl of hot noodles out of  Bong-sun's hands which scalds our timid dishwasher. The kid's mother, ignoring Bong-sun's scalded hand, lays into her blaming her for endangering her little monster tyke. Naturally Bong-sun begins to profusely mumble out apologies. To his credit Chef Sun-woo is having none of it and he ends up tossing the mother and her kid out of the restaurant. 

However, back in the store room he completely blows a gasket over Bong-sun's endless groveling. He tells her that he can't stand her, that her non-stop apologizing is driving him and the staff nuts and that, frankly speaking, she isn't cut out for the restaurant business and that she should look for work elsewhere. 

Oh, the poor girl. Talk about having your heart ripped out and stomped flat.

She goes home to her room, gets screamed at by her landlord for always burning incense, mournfully looks at her scrapbook and writes her resignation letter. She takes it to the restaurant at night to leave it and runs across the Chef who is dropping off supplies. She helps him, but doesn't tell him about her resignation.

The next morning the chef finds the resignation letter and feels pretty bad about being so harsh to her. He also discovers his keys to the store room are missing, and figures that Bong-sun accidently kept them the night before. He and his staff rush out to try to find her and get the keys.

The Chef gets put in his place

Meanwhile, at the shaman's apartment, while Seobinggo-dong is distracted by a delivery boy our horney virgin ghost makes a break for it and escapes. The shaman chases her and Soon-ae, desperate for a body she can possess to hide in spots Bong-sun at a bus stop, She hops into her body and at that moment one of the kitchen staff arrives on his motor scooter and pulls the now possessed dishwasher onto it and heads back with her and the keys.

He takes her to the restaurant where she is completely confused over what is going on. As she is trying to get her bearings they are all yelling at her about keys. The chef reaches to start frisking her, but she, not being a timid dishwasher, isn't about to put up with that so she grabs his arm and effortlessly flips him onto the floor. To put it mildly, everybody is astonished by that turn of events.

The show then moves onto its main story lines. The first being the horny virgin ghost's attempt to bed the chef or one of the kitchen staff stud muffins. It's all very silly, with the crew trying to figure out her crazy behavior (made worse when she pops in and out of possessing the dishwasher) and eventually moves into wackadoodle territory where the chef, the timid dishwasher and the horny ghost possessing the dishwasher end up in a completely bonkers love triangle. Even odder, the two girls become friends rather than rivals in all this foolishness (remember, the dishwasher can see ghosts).

The second main storyline involves the horny ghost's interaction with her dad and brother while she is possessing the dishwasher. This eventually leads to information that makes her wonder just how and why she died, which leads to the final storyline -- the search for answers to the mystery of her death.  Along with these there are some entertaining side-arcs: the ex-girlfriend and her cooking show, the inter-kitchen politics of the staff, and the Seobinggo-dong's reluctant friendship with the Chef's Mom. 

Do I recommend this show? Absolutely. It is a comedy and it milks the absurdity of the situation for a number of laughs. Also, except for the cop, all of the characters are well drawn and acted. In particular, Park Bo-young, the actress who plays the dual role of the timid dishwasher and the ghost possessed dishwasher did a fantastic job. She must have worked closely with Kim Seul-gi, the actress who plays the ghost, because she completely nails her mannerisms, body English and expressions. You always know which character the dishwasher is just by watching her. 

On the down side, Korean dramas mix genres, so when, near the end of the show, it switches its focus from a comedy to a sort of mystery/thriller, it loses some of its pacing. Still, the entire series is worth watching.

On a final note, below is a short clip of the dishwasher early in her possession by the horny virgin ghost.