Overall Rating: A
Subtitles: Netflix subs that did not reverse name order! A miracle! Actually overall I was a big fan of these subs, there wasn’t anything that felt off or anything I heard that I disagreed with. The subs captured the spirit and emotions of every conversation very well. Strong subs.
Brief Synopsis: A woman who has followed her family around as a ghost for five years has a chance to come back to life briefly. Watch it on Netflix here.
**Full show spoilers below the image. If you do not wish to be spoiled, do not proceed**
Ending Type: The rule of shows that involve ghost characters is that the ending will be, at best, bittersweet. You can’t have a truly “happy” ending when a character is dead because they will have to move on. While this is ultimately a good thing it’s also a goodbye and a parting, which is sad.
This was a very good ending. Yu Ri gets to say goodbye to everyone she loves and leave in peace. She is ready to go, and has accepted her own death and her need to move on. While I would have loved a big ole goodbye hug with Min Jung, the letter was sweet. And the final teaser, with a grown and happy Seo Woo cherishing the Polaroid with a note from Yu Ri, walking under the cherry blossoms with a Gang Hwa who has returned to the OR and a Min Jung who gets to be with her family made my heart feel warm. This is a drama that ends exactly how it should end in the best way, even if you wish there was some way Yu Ri could stay.
Characters:
Cha Yu Ri (Kim Tae Hee)
Jo Gang Hwa (Lee Kyu Hyung)
Oh Min Jung (Go Bo Gyeol)
Jo Seo Woo (Seo Woo Jin)
Go Hyun Jung (Shin Dong Mi)
Kye Keun Sang (Oh Eui Sik)
Full review:
So I will be honest: I had NO desire to watch this show while it was airing. The premise of “a mom gets to come back to life for 49 days” was not in any way enticing to me. I’d heard great things but had no interest.
I decided to watch it on a whim after finishing a pretty dark show and looking for something light and fluffy. I don’t know why in the world I thought this would be light and fluffy but it’s where I landed, and I was hooked immediately.
This show opens with some classic ghost humor and silly, ridiculous scenarios that are still sweet and fun. The emotions hit you hard and pretty quickly, and I was so engaged that I couldn’t stop watching until it was over.
It’s an impossibly difficult scenario for a show: a woman dies but, unbeknownst to any family or friends, remains by their sides as a ghost. She dies in an accident on the same day her daughter is born. Her husband is traumatized and doesn’t want to live, but ends up living for the sake of the child. Eventually he remarries. When she’s been dead for five years, following her husband and daughter and her husband’s new wife around as a ghost, she finds herself miraculously back alive for 49 days. The teaser is if she can return to “her place” (i.e. her husband’s wife and daughter’s mom) she can stay alive forever. The difficulties: her husband is remarried and her presence means her daughter can see ghosts.
At first I was very worried this show was going to do the second wife, Min Jung, dirty. She’s initially presented as cold and detached, she has divorce papers hidden in a drawer, none of the other mom’s like her, etc. It felt like they were trying to present her as an obstacle that we were supposed to want removed, but I never wanted that.
So I was extremely relieved when we slowly got to know Min Jung better and eventually got to see her story and, most wonderfully, see her friendship with Yu Ri develop. The Min Jung/Yu Ri friendship was absolutely the driving force of this show for me. I know a lot of the emotional thrust was in Gang Hwa’s trauma and the way Yu Ri’s return helped him eventually overcome it, plus the mother/daughter relationship between Yu Ri and Seo Woo. However, and probably because it was new so it was developing during the course of the show, the two women’s friendship was much more important to me.
I will not lie, there were huge emotional moments every episode that really got to me. It kept its gentle and fun tone throughout so it was never hard to watch, but it is not a fluffy fun show. At its heart it’s about grief, and wow was there a lot of grief. It was about healing, and living through that grief, and finding hope, but they did not shy away from the pain that loss brings.
I highly recommend this show to anyone who has experienced loss or grief, or anyone who enjoys emotional stories with hopeful and healing messages. Also anyone who loves female friendships– truly a highlight.
Overall this was a big yes for me.
High Points: The relationships. Just very emotional, very powerful.
Low Points: I don’t think there was anything poorly done in this entire show. However I wish we had gotten to see more of Min Jung and Gang hwa’s relationship– there came a point in the story where it was clear this was a critical piece but we got so little of them actually caring for each other that we had to rely on the tell (e.g. “she loves him so much,” “he likes her so much”) and considering how well the show showed everything else this felt like a big missing piece.
K Drama Kween 