Letter #163: The Haunted Palace

Good morning, Erin.

I have this writing exercise I like to do, where I take a show or movie that is completed and self-contained and neither has nor in any way calls for a sequel…and then I come up with a pitch for its sequel.

The point, more than anything else, is a bit of mental calisthenics, something to keep my imagination limber. Consider it practice at creative problem solving: how do you come up with an answer to a question that you know doesn’t need an answer because it shouldn’t be asked?

I can’t say that every scenario I’ve come up with has been a solid-gold idea, but I think I generally do a pretty good job of presenting stories that, for lack of a better way of expressing it, work. Really, it’s just a matter of considering what a sequel can be—not what it has to be. That is, it does not need to pick up directly where the previous story left off, nor does it have to be about the main character from the original story…nor does it have to be the same kind of story. Once you can get past thinking you are restricted to telling a direct continuation of the original, I think it becomes a whole lot easier.

Essentially, you just start with one thing that would have to be there for the story to count as a sequel, then you think about what that would require or imply about other details…and then you go from there. I might be oversimplifying to say it’s a simple flow of logic from there, but…it certainly feels a lot like that’s the case, from my perspective. 

I actually gave you a taste of this, awhile back, when I described my quick pitch for a second season of Hotel Del Luna. I was working off of the…well, I don’t think I’d call it a tease, but that last little segment about the hotel being under new management. The idea was to do a recognizable structure from the first season (human manager comes to work at the supernatural hotel), but to twist it just enough so that it was its own thing rather than just a useless repeat of the original—which, for me, meant making the new owner’s personality jovial and friendly, making the romance not between the leads but between the manager and someone outside the hotel, and—wait, I don’t remember if I had this part explicitly in the blurb I gave you…well, anyway—the owner working to help the manager leave the hotel (because she’d be working there because she couldn’t not work there (as though she would die if she didn’t, for example) and be with her external love interest. So, it’s similar, but it’s also different enough that it could be its own show, if not for the fact that it’s very much the same broad setup. 

…which is not to say that this is a particularly stellar idea, just that it is probably the most easily recognizable example I could give you about this concept.

Which, of course, I only mention because we have reached yet another transition point in our thematic bloc, and, of course, I have carefully chosen how to follow up the pop star bloc with the most logical, same-but-different “sequel.”

That’s right: we’re heading into the used-to-be-on-a-dating-show arc! 

“...how is that the most logical follow-up to the pop star blo—”

THERE’S NO TIME, ERIN! We have to talk about The Haunted Palace!

1. We are going to start with the list of everyone I recognized, I think—if only to satisfy your curiosity about why this show is the transition point between the current and subsequent blocs:

• the rival fencing girl from Twenty-Five, Twenty-One as Yeo-ri, our female protagonist

• the “nephew” from Goblin as…uh, Kang Chul…sort of…the male protagonist (I’ll explain later)

• the second male lead from Love to Hate You as the king

• little girl Seok-ryu from Love Next Door (and literally everything else) as Yeo-ri’s future-daughter

• gossipy Chinese restaurant owner from Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha as the male protagonist's mom

• the wheelchair guy from Sweet Home as the blind shaman

• Seul-ki from Single’s Inferno 2 as…um, I only refer to her as “Seul-ki” in my notes, so…

• the jerk boss at the news station where the mom worked in 18 Again as Seul-ki’s dad

1A. So, there you have it: Bona to close out our current bloc…and Seul-kito ring in our new one. And that is how you make a sequel!

1B. Also, Bona and Seul-ki were in Pyramid Game together, so…mini-reunion! 

1C. Actually, Bona goes by Kim Ji-yeon when she acts, so…Kim Ji-yeon and Seul-ki were in Pyramid Game together, so…mini-reunion!

1D. Hang on…there’s an anime adaptation of Pyramid Game?! WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME ABOUT THIS?!

1E. …but to explain the whole thing with the male protagonist: he’s—oh, um, minor spoilers for Episode 1 (if you care (which…should you? More on that soon!))—more than one character, but not more than one person. That is, he plays Yeo-ri’s childhood friend but also Yeo-ri’s childhood friend’s body being possessed by the real male protagonist, Kang Chul, an Imugi (that is, a gigantic serpent that aspires to be a dragon) from Korean folklore. He spends most of the show as Kang Chul in the childhood friend’s body and not as the childhood friend, so…I think it’s best to call him Kang Chul, then specify when he’s not Kang Chul and is being the childhood friend. 

1F. Which is, in and of itself, complicated, in that Kang Chul is portrayed (in human form) by a different actor for the first two episodes, so I generally don’t think of the dude from Goblin as being the character of Kang Chul but as the hyphenated Kang-Chul-inside-the-childhood-friend (or as just the childhood friend, which is who he is when we meet him). And I’ll get into exactly why that is in a little bit, but just know that, as much as I am going to simply refer to him as Kang Chul, in my head I’m calling him that hyphenated string. Because Kang Chul is another dude. And…anyway, that’s the deal. 

1G. Also, for the record, “Kang Chul” is just how my subtitles spelled his name. In trying to figure out how he was not a dragon despite very much looking like what I would expect an East Asian dragon to look like, I have seen it written as Gancheori, Gang Cheol, and Kangchuri. (And probably six other ways I didn’t bother to make note of.) But, for our purposes, he’s Kang Chul, and I will refer to him as such. 

1H. Oh—Seul-ki is playing the daughter of a noble. Just FYI. I didn’t specify that, before.

1I. And…wait wait wait, she’s the secondary lead in the new Jung So-min romcom?! Holy smokes! How did…who is her agent?! 

2. So, the important question: is it any good? And the answer is…it’s okay. A little boring. (Actually, I found it frequently boring, but I can’t say for certain it wasn’t just my work-frazzled state of mind being unable to settle down when I’d click on an episode, so…we’ll settle on “a little boring,” officially.) It wasn’t bad, exactly, but it didn’t catch my attention with much, even when it was at its most compelling. All in all, it’s fairly generic: a supernatural historical romance with some comedy elements—and it plays out pretty much exactly how you’d expect. There are some decent performances, some questionable storytelling decisions (including issues of tonal whiplash), and it is ultimately both inoffensive and forgettable. I don’t recommend it, but I also wouldn’t stop anyone from watching it—particularly as background viewing. And, as such…spoilers ahead, probably. 

3. The best thing in this series is Seul-ki. She’s genuinely amusing as the lovesick third wheel, and her persistent, emotional knife fights with Yeo-ri over (childhood friend-possessing) Kang Chul are delightful—especially how she frequently refuses to even look at Yeo-ri when speaking to (or about) her. I cheered every time she walked on screen, because I knew that meant something entertaining was about to happen, and she was not in the show nearly enough, for my money. I don’t yet know that she’s any more talented than any other actress, but, based on this, I am definitely excited to see her (presumably) flex her comedy chops some more in that Jung So-min romcom. 

4. …actually, no, the best thing in this series is Kang Chul while he’s the other actor in the first two episodes. The dude is 100% uncut charisma—and the worst decision the show makes is to sideline him in favor of the younger dude who plays the childhood friend. I mean, don’t get me wrong: I like our favorite nephew from Goblin well enough, and he does a decent job as Kang Chul in the childhood friend’s body…but he’s a noticeable downgrade from the original Kang Chul. Playing a godlike character is not an easy task to pull off in a way that feels authentic (rather than generically unemotional, for example), but this guy’s Kang Chul felt genuinely otherworldly: superior, frightening, entrancing, amused at the insignificance of humanity, clearly having the weight of thousands of years of life. He’s absolutely fantastic, and downshifting from his performance to…well, to the rest of the show was a mistake, no matter how much story sense it makes for him to “disappear.” Because I spent the whole of the series missing him. 

4A. There is a universe where this show is about the original Kang Chul and Seul-ki having an adventure exorcising demons, and I bet it’s magical.

5. But actually the best thing in the series is this shot:

…which I really wish was more emblematic of the series overall. There is more art and drama in this gif than in the series overall. 

6. Kim Ji-yeon (Bona) is awful at facial expressions. I’m sorry to say it, because I’ve seen her in interviews, and I think she’s pretty cool, very laid back and witty. But whatever skills she might have as an actress, emoting is not one of them. Which…is not great. 

6A. Y’know, I went back and watched the main cast of Twenty-Five, Twenty-One play that quick version of Mafia where everyone has to describe a word that the mafia player doesn’t know. And it was a lot of fun. I was both surprised and unsurprised to find that Nam Joo-hyuk is so shy—and I was especially charmed by the guy who plays…uh, the other male character, the one who is sort of benignly self-aggrandizing. He’s the total opposite of all the characters I’ve seen him play, which means I liked him quite a bit. And, of course, the three girls were also great, just in different ways.

6B. I also watched Kim Ji-yeon do a thing with Roh Jeong-ui (on the KODE YouTube channel, where two celebrities text back and forth trying to figure out who they’re speaking to), and she was there to promote this show. As I said, I really like her: cool, sharp, and very dry. And we know Roh Jeong-ui is a bubbly delight. It was great. Really recommend it. 

6C. Amusingly, Roh Jeong-ui was there to promote her show, which aired at the same time as The Haunted Palace. What is this show, and will I be watching it? I dunno. Maybe there’s a supernatural arc on the way where we will find out. Maybe not. Who’s to say.

7. For the record: I hate dragons. And I especially hate snake-dragons. And I especially-especially hate underwater snake-dragons. So, yeah, I had a real issue with the opening of this show. Even in the cartoon titles, I had to close my eyes. No me gusta.

8. You know I like the actress from Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha who plays the childhood friend’s mom, but…I don’t think I’m being biased when I say that she was too good for this show. 

9. According to this…they had soccer in Joseon. Which I’m pretty sure is anachronistic.

10. Once he is inside the childhood friend’s body, Kang Chul’s otherworldly abilities are terribly ill-defined. Some of it owes to the plan for his character; most of it owes to convenience for eh writers, who want to have him be able or unable to do things at whatever moment they want for dramatic effect. 

10A. …except for his ability to turn a magical knife into a magical spear-sword, which he is never not able to do. It’s a really simple effect (he swings his arm behind him with the knife in hand, and then they cut to another shot from behind where he’s completing the motion with the sword-spear now in his hand), and it looks awesome every time. 

11. Of course, I’m also not entirely sure they explained how it is that Yeo-ri has shaman powers without her also having a spirit/deity within her, so…it’s not like Kang Chul is the only area the show sort of hedges its bets with. 

12. That the theme song starts out sounding a lot like the theme of Batwoman amused me. 

13. I’m slowly piecing together how all the roles work in the Joseon palace…but I cannot for the life of me figure out what the Queen Dowager’s role is on any of these shows. Which continues here. Not just because I’m not super-duper clear on her political rank, as it were, but because her motivations were very hard for me to figure out. Like, I knew what she wanted to do, more or less, just not exactly why she wanted to do them. Some of which I’m sure was down to cliche scheming that we get in these kinds of shows and, as such, didn’t “need” to be explained, but…I’d have appreciated an expositional monologue, even if no one else needed one.

13. One of the first things one of the villains of the show does is murder the childhood friend because he doesn’t like him—and this murderer villain then spends the rest of the show being a clown for Kang Chul to embarrass for comedic effect. It is such a weird choice. 

14. For as much as I praised Seul-ki, earlier, I think it’s only fair to point out that, though she is a noticeably more expressive actress than Kim Ji-yeon, she’s not exactly great at it, either. 

15. Speaking of Seul-ki: my favorite thing about her character is that she thinks (Kang Chul as) the childhood friend’s repeated rejection of her is just owing to him being a bit of a tsundere. Hilarious. 

16. Fun fact: I have a note early on that says I trust the evil dragon man (Kang Chul) more than I do Yeo-ri’s childhood friend. And, turns out, I was right to do so.

17. I did not care for Kang Chul’s little brother, and you will never be able to convince me he wasn’t introduced into the story just to pad things out. 

18. Kang Chul and Yeo-ri’s first kiss is not very good. Though, canonically, it probably should look as awkward and childish as it did. But…we rate by steam, not realism, so it’s a no from me, dawg. 

18A. That said, there’s a later scene where they’re both about to lean in for a sly kiss—but then Yeo-ri’s magic inadvertently repels Kang Chul, essentially giving him a mystical whammy to the face. She immediately apologizes and offers to set aside the magic for a bit—at which point he teasingly questions why she’d want to do that, what she’s hoping to gain from doing that, which was very cute. 

18B. …at which point she gets mad at him for calling it out and teasing her, which is also very cute. 

19. The guy playing Seul-ki’s dad is also pretty good. And the guy playing the blind shaman. I don’t know that I’d quite put them in the same “too good for the script” category in which I’d set the childhood friend’s mom, but…they give not just decent but legitimately solid performances. 

20. I don’t have any thoughts in one direction or another about the performance of the actress who played the Queen, but I definitely thought she should have been around a lot more.

20A. “I’ve taken a look at your notes, Daryl, and I wonder if this point about wanting to see more of the Queen has anything to do with you consistently referring to her as ‘Queen Hottie the Firs—’”

THERE’S NO TIME, ERIN!

21. When Yeo-ri is kidnapped by the bad guys, she drops her big box of eyeglass-making equipment on the side of the road—and no one notices or acknowledges that this happens. They do this so that, after the kidnapping incident is resolved, Kang Chul and Yeo-ri can have a romantic moment when he looks for it and returns it to her. Which is sweet and all, if you ignore the fact that I spent that hour and twenty minutes absolutely freaking out that no one was concerned about this very rare and expensive box of equipment that is central to Yeo-ri’s ability to support herself. It was Bert’s bottlecap collection all over again!

22. So, once Yeo-ri gets her job at the palace, she, not unlike Kang Chul (as the childhood friend), has a uniform she needs to wear. Neither of them wears their uniforms when they walk to or from the palace. But, as soon as we see them inside, they’re absolutely in uniform. So…when do they change? Do they keep their uniforms at the palace? Is this standard practice? Is this a continuity error? I HAVE QUESTIONS, SHOW, WHY WON’T YOU ANSWER ME?!

23. Boy, the king sure does cry a lot, in this show. 

24. For a show that focuses pretty heavily on evil spirits having grudges against the people whose needless actions led to their deaths, the recurring evil spirit of the peasant that haunts Seul-ki’s family is just about the least sympathetic “wronged in death” candidate you could have chosen: he blackmails Seul-ki’s dad, who gives in and pays the blackmail, at which point the dude decides he should double the blackmail amount, which causes Seul-ki’s dad to attack him—which leads to a struggle in which Seul-ki’s dad, trying not to be strangled to death by this guy, shoves the blackmailer away and inadvertently causes him to have his leg impaled on a piece of gardening equipment. The injured blackmailer then threatens to expose Seul-ki’s dad for the blackmail and his injury (and starts to physically attack him from the ground, as well), at which point Seul-ki’s dad just cracks his skull open with a nearby plank of wood. Now, should he have killed the guy? No. But, at the same time, what did this idiot blackmailer think was going to happen when he threatened a nobleman? Was he not aware of the societal structure in which he existed? How did he not realize that he was lucky as f*** that the nobleman he was blackmailing actually gave him the original blackmail payment and didn’t, y’know, come with a cadre of guards to hack him into a million pieces for threatening their master? And the show wants me to feel bad for this guy? Come on. 

24A. Of course, I leave room for the possibility that there was some kind of implicit social code about the entire situation that I am not inherently familiar with and explains why his feeling wronged isn’t totally ridiculous. 

24B. Ironically, though, the king is the only one who acknowledges that the blackmailer was a scumbag—and then officially forgives Seul-ki’s dad for the crime, calling it an accident. Which, again, we explicitly see in flashback was absolutely not the case. So. There’s that. 

24C. And, of course, my favorite part is that, to exorcise the evil spirit, Yeo-ri holds a big “off you go to the afterlife!” ritual at which Seul-ki’s dad must admit what he did and apologize to the evil spirit. Which he does. Which I find so amusing because Seul-ki is present for the ritual, but at no point do we see her be privy to the secret about her father killing this blackmailer. So, as far as continuity is concerned, she discovers that her father killed a man at this ritual. 

24D. Now ask me if she acts at all as though this is a revelation to her.

25. Speaking of strange continuity points: the childhood friend’s mother has a wonderfully-acted dramatic scene where she recognizes that, though Kang Chul had temporarily lost possession of her son’s body to the actual spirit of her son, the son’s spirit pretty soon thereafter crosses over into the afterlife, leaving Kang Chul once again as the one living in his body—and she completely breaks down. It’s heartbreaking to watch…until you start to wonder at what point she realized that her son’s body was being controlled by an ancient Imugi and not, y’know, her son. Because, yes, she thought he was acting weird—as did everyone who knew the childhood friend—but at no point do I remember her knowing that her son had been killed and replaced by the essence of a giant snake-dragon. Which, to me, seems like a narrative oversight. 

26. There is a sidekick old monk with dementia in the story whose presence serves literally no purpose. I kept waiting for him to be some kind of payoff, a body for the big evil spirit to use or maybe a secret weapon because he regains his sense of self for a moment in the climactic battle and is able to save the mom or something—but no. He’s just the silent old dementia monk. For no reason. 

27. For whatever else I could say about this show: it is not afraid to kill a baby.

And with that, we bid farewell to the popstar bloc—and wave hello to the used-to-be-on-a-dating-show bloc, which I’m sure is going to be at least as exciting as everything that’s come before. Or less exciting. I really can’t say. Because I haven’t watched the next thing, yet. 

But I will. And then I will tell you about it. Because that’s our thing—and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

…I wouldn’t trade it for most things. Many things? Okay, for probably a great many things, but definitely not a plurality of all things I could conceivably trade it for within the hypothetical context we’re discussing, whereby magic allows the forgoing of one thing you really like for the gain of another, totally separate thing you also really like but did not previously have.

Because this…this is special.

[reassuring wink]

I hope you’re having a wonderful start to your autumn—even if the many weeks leading up to autumn felt more autumnal than any of the days since we officially started autumn. I mean, it cools off a bit at night, right? Enough that you can curl up with a warm drink and a blanket, I bet. If you try. And I hope you do.

More soon.

—Daryl