This fangirl is a full-time student, so it’s been months since I’ve had time to sit down and troll the waters looking for something new to watch “just because”. Since my summer break is just a few days away and I’ve turned in all my anxiety provoking projects, it’s time to clear out my backlog of dramas and see what catches my eye. As I was scrolling through Netflix, I stumbled upon Mystic Whispers. Join me as I see if this Chinese ghost story is something we should all be watching.

Synopsis:

MyDramalist: Mo Xiao Yun lost her sense of hearing in her left ear after an accident one year ago and started hearing strange sounds. She has a hunch that she is hearing strange sounds from another world, but chooses to feign ignorance, hoping that she will be fine if she ignores it. However, on her first day at work in a new company, she sees a ghost. The ghost is her colleague, Ken. Xiao Yun’s colleagues hire exorcist cum mortician, Zhang Ji En, to help exorcize the ghost. Ji En fails and the ghost pesters Xiao Yun.

Plot:

What do you do when your coworker keeps showing up, but he’s dead? To make matters worse, every time you sneeze you see him? Poor Mo Xiao Yun jokes about having super hearing powers, but the reality is that somehow she is able to hear and see dead people. Enter her new frenemy who is the local mortician/exorcist who she fights with daily over the last sandwich at the local coffee shop. In an interesting plot twist, she is able to share her visions with him through holding his hand. It feels faintly reminiscent of The Master’s Sun.  It looks like there will be a series of ghosts show up and our duo will need to help them.

Cinematography:

This drama uses color to tell the story. Mo Xiao Yun wears bright colors, and her headphones are a rainbow design. I’m not sure if it is meaningful yet, but she wears a lot of yellow. Anytime the ghosts appear, they are in a dark cloud of smoke and typically in muted colors. Sound is important in this drama as the ghosts sound like they are speaking in garbled whispers. We also hear Mo Xiao Yun’s music in the background all the time to let us know that she is constantly listening to music to block out the sounds of ghosts.

Characters:

Mo Xiao Yun is a cute and bright young woman who was in a bad accident the year before. The accident damaged her hearing, but it also oddly enhanced it. Now she can hear ghosts. Silence makes her nervous, so she listens to music through her headphones all the time. She has adapted to listening to people through her headphones and music. The voices she hears caused her to leave her family’s home and she now lives alone so as not to disturb her family.

Zhang Ji En is a mortician who plays at being an exorcist on the side. He says he used to be a top salesman for a cosmetic brand, but now his main job is to apply makeup to dead people to make them look more natural. He says God wants him to be a mortician. Interestingly, he also hears ghostly voices, but it’s more a word here and there, and not the complete sentences that they hear as a pair. His ghosts tell him winning lottery numbers.

Should You Watch?

I’m only on episode four, but I’m going to keep watching. It’s a little cheesy and campy, but it’s not scary. The episodes are short, less than 30 minutes and there are only thirteen of them so it’s not a big time commitment. It’s fun to watch these two scaredy cats as they try to communicate with the ghosts. I mentioned before that it vaguely reminds me of The Master’s Sun, and it does in the sense that they have ghosts who are trying to communicate with them to solve the mystery of their deaths.