Brief Story Line
Story focused on a group of people who were experiencing strange occurrence and somehow were attracted to a bright Light Shop in the middle of a dark alley, managed by the shop keeper Won-young (Ju Ji-hoon - Kingdom TV series, Ransomed etc). Among them were a man named Hyun-min (Uhm Tae-goo - The Great Battle, My Sweet Mobster TV series etc) who saw a mysterious young woman always waiting at his final bus stop (Kim Seol-hyun - Memoir of a Murderer, Summer Strike TV series etc), a high school girl Hyun-ju (Shin Eun-soo - Homme Fatale, Twinkling Watermelon TV series etc) who always went to the light shop buying bulb for her mother Yu-hui (Lee Jung-eun - The Frog TV series, Hommage etc) and several others.
Meanwhile Young-ji (Park Bo-young - Concrete Utopia, Daily Dose of Sunshin TV series etc), a nurse who was working during night shift seemed to be seeing unusual things in the hospital she worked at. There was also a police detective named Sung-sik (Bae Seong-woo - The 8 Show TV series, The Swindlers etc) who was investigating the death of an old man in his own house which somehow led him to the Light Shop as well.
So what were the connections of those people with the Light Shop and what was the mystery behind it? You could find out in this series.
End of Brief Story Line
I am not sure how it was embedded in my mind that the series would be a thriller, so when I watched the first episode, I was a bit surprised to see that it felt more like a horror. With plenty of scenes that felt scary due to its dark environment and the horrifying music, plus the anxiety of waiting for jump scare moments, it was a bit challenging for me to watch it properly late night (first time I watched at almost 10 PM and my wife was already asleep). So I decided to watch way earlier on the following day and went through the first 2 episodes quite OK. After that, the series actually got more mysterious than frightening and also very intriguing.
There was a huge surprise towards the end of fourth episode which I was able to deduce as there were plenty of hints before. Btw, I could only watch the remaining 4 episodes on the following day at night, but during the day, my wife managed to complete the whole season, so she finished it before I did. Funny thing was, she said it was not scary (coming from her, it was pretty amazing considering she is really not a fan of dark supernatural terrifying movie/series). Anyway she was really satisfied with the series. Now as I continued watching, there were some other surprises along the way. Most were pretty straight forward and easy to guess but few were quite shocking. As usual, my wife was also able to deduce them.
The series itself was based on webtoon of the same title written by Kang Full (his previous works included the hugely popular Moving that was made into web series last year and several others that were adapted into movies as well). My wife and I were in awe of his capability to create those webtoons since the series had a lot of interconnecting plots that you might not realize in the beginning. It definitely took a lot of thinking into making it in such a way. Oh my wife also highlighted that the series was directed by Kim Hee-won in his directorial debut. If you are familiar with his name, it was because he is an actor and had played various roles such as in Project Silence, Han River Police TV series etc.
The cast did fantastic job here with everyone showing off their ability in the emotional scenes. And indeed there were a lot of them, particularly the last two episodes where my wife told me she could not stop crying. In addition to those names I mentioned above, the series had some more cast such as Kim Min-ha (The Call, Pachinko TV series etc) as Soon-hae the writer who just moved to a new house, Park Hyuk-kwon (Brave Citizen, Wonderful World TV series etc) as a mysterious man who seemed to be always in wet condition, Kim Ki-hae (Duty After School TV series etc) as high school boy Jiung who was having problems when passing through the dark alley, Kim Sun-hwa (The Glory TV series, Unlocked TV series etc) the woman wearing red high heels and also wandering around the dark alley. There was even the appearance of an actor who is main cast in that popular Hospital Playlist series.
For a mystery series, this one was very interesting. The first two episodes might give the false idea that it's a full horror, but once you have gone past them, it would feel more like a mystery drama. The smart interconnection among the people involved was the main attraction for us with a strong and great heavy drama especially towards the end. Oh and I also like the different endings for everyone as it gave a more realistic feel, plus everything were pretty much resolved. Although my wife and I thought that if the series is renewed, there are things that could be explored further in the subsequent seasons. So if you are interested in mystery series with lots of drama and a little bit horror, then this one is definitely worth to try. But if romance K-drama is your favorite, then you won't enjoy this one. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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