As my fellow fangirls can attest, I’ve been tunneling down the K-pop rabbit hole pretty seriously obsessively these days. But, promotions for my favorite group have tapered off and I’m coming back up for some air. And K-dramas! I’m ecstatic that my favorite novice actor, Kim Sun Ho, is back and has taken on the leading role in a new tvN drama. Join me as I check out Catch the Ghost – will this romantic cop drama be a keeper?
Synopsis
First, a quick rundown of the story from My Drama List: “Catch the Ghost” is a romantic investigative drama about a woman named Yoo Ryung who solves cases with her overflowing sense of justice and exceptional spatial perception but always gets herself into trouble because of her rash actions. She meets the Wangsimni station constabulary chief, a man who avoids cases and seeks stability. However, he always ends up cleaning up after the problems caused by Yoo Ryung and holds the key to solving the cases.
Characters
Go Ji Suk is a subway station police captain who likes order and going by the book when it comes to apprehending criminals and enforcing the law. So far, I’m delighted with Kim Sun Ho’s portrayal of this charming and earnest cop. However, I fear for his sanity (and health) as he teams up with his new partner. . . In the meantime, I’m swooning over his kick-donkey fight scenes and heart-warming interactions with his mom.
Yoo Ryung. Oh goodness, where do I even start?!? This girl’s inability to follow the rules is driving me bonkers. Yes, she’s had first-hand experience with the police not taking action to help her in the past, but that does not even begin to justify her ‘act first, think later’ approach to everything. And can we please have a mid-drama make-over? Because that hairstyle is most definitely a miss. I’ve not seen Moon Geun Young in any previous dramas, so I’m really hoping it’s just this character that annoys me and not the actress.
While I love seeing some familiar faces in the supporting cast, the characters themselves aren’t very striking. There’s the usual collection of police force members, bad guys, and victims. But the focus in the first couple episodes has really just revolved around the main leads.
Plot
It’s a Korean police drama. So, of course, the main story is focused on our token serial killer, aka the Subway Ghost! There are also drug smugglers and a gang of pick-pockets helping to keep the story pacing moving along at a quick clip. The story itself is at times serious and then there are scattered comedic scenes, accented with campy background music, to help keep things from getting too heavy. I appreciated the concisely laid backstory and am most interested in the evolution of the main characters as we move forward.
Final Thoughts
Catch the Ghost is billed as a romantic drama, but the lack of chemistry between our leads has me worried. Also, I have some reservations about a couple of characters with mental handicaps. Korean dramas have a history of misconstruing or poorly handling these stereotypes. Hopefully, that doesn’t happen in the storytelling here – only time will tell.
So, will I keep watching? I’m definitely going to give it a couple more episodes to see where things go. But I’m not fully committed to the long term with this drama just yet. How about you, drama fans? Share your thoughts on Catch the Ghost with me, in the comments below.
화이팅!
MiataMama
Dramas With a Side of Kimchi
Disagree with you about chemistry..They’ll have overflowing chemistry..end of discussion lol
I’m only on episode 2 and am already dropping this–the female lead’s character is dreadfully annoying. I’ve rolled my eyes far too many times already bc of her. And thank you, her hair style is horrible. I thought she was wearing a wig (can’t the production team see that it is a problem?)
Yoo Ryung was a bit much for me in the beginning. . . It took some time, but as her story unfolded I had a greater sympathy for her and also came to love our OTP very much!
That hair though – the stylist for the drama really let her down!
I just finished watching the drama yesterday and I felt a little bit unsatisfied with the drama. CTG marks Moon Geun-young’s comeback after a long hiatus so I was expecting something big from her (she’s actually the reason why I watched the drama). But the character she played kind of annoyed me so I shifted to looking forward to Seon-ho’s character instead. Nevertheless, I loved their chemistry. There were no stiff romantic scenes for me. They’re really cute together. But plotwise, there were some scenes that were illogically annoying (ex: when Ji-seok already caught the Grasshopper aka the ghost but Ryung jumped off between them, making Ji-seok loose his grips on the perpetrator, thus Grasshopper ran away. I mean she already saw him catch the perp, why bother pull off such reckless stunt?!). Maybe for the sake of comedy. The writers did well with connecting the events to the existence of the subway ghost but I’m sure there are plot holes that I didn’t help notice. Overall, the drama is still worth giving it a shot. Just don’t expect highly like how I did or it may give you the feeling of unsatisfaction towards the end.
You’re right — I would definitely go into this drama knowing that it’s not a classic. Nevertheless, when I got a chance to watch it, I ended up loving it. 😀
OMG, I thought I’m the only one. I too never watch Moon Geun Young prior Catch The Ghost and her character here is just soo annoying! I’m on eps 9 and still can’t sympathize with her character arc. And that hairstyle is soo soo bad, Moon Geun Young has such cute face but that hairstyle definitely doesnt suit her (I too did thought it was a wig!!) And I also feel there’s no chemistry between her and Kim Seonho.. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not (because from what I know, the teaser for this drama mentioned about how they are NOT match for each other) but compare with Kim Seonho chemistry with other female cast in his previous drama (Waikiki, Strongest Deliverymen), CTG is definitely the weakest.
i though i was the only one! this is the first time i’m watching moon geun young and she’s sooooo sooo sooo annoying! same with a commenter here – i’ve rolled my eyes too many times because of her, and have decided to stop watching at ep 2 – the first ever drama i’ve dropped at ep 2. she’s THAT annoying. and yes, the hairstyle, goodness.
i wanted to know more about her so i’m reading reviews etc – to make it at least bearable to watch her, as i’m a kim seon ho fan, and i think his acting here is great. (but i agree that they don’t have chemistry. )
so sad. i can’t even fast forward to KSH’s scenes coz she’s always there too.