Daebak Realty/Sell Your Haunted House

 To take a break from my Game of Thrones marathon (I'm midway through season four, which is about how far I got when I watched it the first time) I just binge-watched a Korean drama called Daebak Realty, with the alternative title of Sell Your Haunted House. Ten of the sixteen episodes have aired so far, and I watched all ten over the last few days. The premise is that the protagonist, Hong Ji A (played by Jang Nara)  is a shaman who performs exorcisms to get rid of ghosts that are haunting real estate properties and preventing them from being sold, or lowering the property value. To perform an exorcism, she needs a medium as an assistant, or"psychic"--a young man who is a virgin (explained as: hasn't mixed his yang with yin!) who can be possessed by the spirit. The spirit is trapped in the medium's body and  the exorcist-shaman then stabs him with a special magical needle containing a talisman with the spirit's name on it, thus releasing the spirit. A side-effect is that the spirit's memories and habits are passed on to the shaman, leaving a huge emotional residue. In this framework, we learn that our exorcist is living in a house haunted by her mother's spirit. Brusque, ill-tempered, dressing only in black, Ji A has shut down after years of emotional toil. Her mother was a shaman who died twenty years earlier, apparently in a exorcism gone wrong, when Ji A was a girl. Ji A can see her, as she can see other spirits, but has not been successful in finding a psychic strong enough to exorcise her mother's spirit. 

The story begins when a con man, Oh In Bum, gets tangled up in one of her jobs and they discover that he is a strong medium who can assist her in her work. Each episode has a "spirit of the week" while the over-arching mystery is how Hong Ji A's mother's death is related to Oh In Bum's uncle's death, and how both are related to powerful and crooked developers who use violence to take over properties; they've been trying to dislodge Ji A from her home, Daebak Realty, but she refuses to sell because her mother's spirit is attached. In Bum proves to be such a strong medium that he absorbs the spirits' memories, rather than Ji A, and their shared experience creates a strong bond between them.

The attention to the details of the exorcism rituals, the great casting of guest actors for the weekly spirit stories and the secondary roles, and the charisma of the two lead actors, have made it a good watch. The relationship between the two main characters is complicated and evolves as they discover more and more about how their pasts are connected. A running gag is how her exorcisms require so much energy that she eats gargantuan amounts of food.  After so many recent drama disappointments (even good actors can't save a poor script), I'm glad to have found one that combines its supernatural elements with believable psychological portrayals, and that is not about a serial killer.

The other drama I am watching is called Doom At Your Service, and also has a supernatural twist. It's two main stars are super popular but I am watching for one of my favorite actors, Lee Soo Hyuk. 

OK, back to Game of Thrones!