Let's Fight, Ghost

Let’s Fight, Ghost

6.5/10

Let's Fight, Ghost

Genre:                                Episodes: 16                          Year: 2016

Romance

Comedy

Supernatural

Synopsis:

Park Bong Pal has been able to see ghosts from a young age, and exorcises ghosts in order to earn money. While on a job he meets Hyun Ji, a young girl ghost who has no memory of her death and no idea why she cannot pass on to the afterlife. After regaining a memory while fighting with Bong Pal, Hyun Ji decides that the only way she can discover what happened to her is to stick close to Bong Pal and regain her memories.

Cast:

Taecyeon (Park Bong Pal)

Kim So Hyun (Kim Hyun Ji)

Kwon Yool (Joo Hye Sung)

Kang Ki Young (Choi Chun Sang)

Lee David (Kim In Rang)

Kim Sang Ho (Mong Myung Chul)

Baek Seo E (Im Seo Yeon)

General Thoughts:

The drama definitely had a lot going for it, but strangely it didn’t snag me the way I expected (and hoped) it would. It’s not bad- looking at the series there’s not really a huge flaw that prevents the drama from being enjoyable, but rather it has nothing new in it that surprised me and kept me hooked. 

This drama is veeeery similar to another drama

The twists that I think the writers were hoping would catch the audience off-guard were fairly predictable and unsurprising. Not only were they plot-turns that were easy to predict purely from the viewpoint of this single story, but the plot also seemed to borrow some ideas from other supernatural rom-coms. 

I HAD NO IDEA HE WAS EVEIL! Lol jks, I did.

Hyun Ji always looked different to the other ghosts and knowing that there’s a love-line between her and Bong Pal, it’s fairly obvious to guess that her real body is actually off in a coma somewhere rather than dead (similar to Taecyeon’s last supernatural drama ‘Who Are You?’). Also the pretty man with an endearing job who was possessed by an evil spirit that went around killing people was something we all watched last year in ‘Oh My Ghostess’. In fact, I found that much of the plot reminded me of ‘Oh My Ghostess’. There’s this evil guy who kills (or attempts to kill) this girl. Her spirit has no memory of her life or accident. There’s romantic interest between the ghost and a living man. For the climax the evil spirit kidnaps our heroine and our hero must come and save her and then everyone lives happily ever after. The only real main difference between the stories is that in one the ghost possesses a human girl and in the other the man as the ability to see ghosts. While Kwon Yool delivered a spectacular performance as our villain (and probably one of his best performances to date), I couldn’t help but feel a little underwhelmed as I’d seen Lim Joo Hwan give almost the exact same performance the year before. Which is no fault of the actors- they just happened to play basically the same character in two dramas that were very, very similar to each other. 

Even the creepy black mist is the same

Sadly, due to the vast amount of similarities, I really couldn’t help but compare the two dramas- and when you do that it’s not ‘Let’s Fight, Ghost’ that comes up on top. Ignoring the not-so-novel plot, the rest of the drama was pretty darn good. The acting was pretty solid all around. Kim So Hyun was never any concern as she’s such a great actress, and Taecyeon fared far better than expected. I thought that he’d put it a decent performance, but get completely overshadowed by Kim So Hyun’s excellence. But that didn’t happen. Taecyeon and Bong Pal meshed in a nice way where I think Bong Pal had enough similarities to Taecyeon that he could connect with the character, but enough differences that it wouldn’t seem like Taecyeon was acting as himself. 

They were super duper cute

Whatever it was, Taecyeon managed to give a delightful and entertaining performance, and hold his own next to Kim So Hyun. Kang Ki Young (who just happens to also be in ‘Oh My Ghostess’) gave a phenomenal performance as our eccentric yet loveable Sunbae. He quickly made his way into being my favourite character, as he was so funny and was a bit of fresh air in a drama I felt I’d almost already seen. Lee David was a good buddy for Kang Ki Young to interact with and bounce off of, and the two made a truly loveable set of characters (though I can understand that these type of character’s aren’t everyone’s cup of tea). 

10/10: totes adorbz

Kang Ki Young has some experience acting as a bit of a goofball with slapstick tendencies, so while a couple of times Lee David did come off a tad stiff (purely because of how relaxed and natural Kang Ki Young’s goofiness was), he did a commendable effort and was always an enjoyable character to watch. The bromance between the two boys was definitely one of the drama’s highlights. The only thing that really caught my eye casting-wise or character-wise or whatever, is that it was a very heavily male dominated drama. Our heroine Hyun Ji is really the only female character that is relevant to the story. Im Seo Yeon is around for a small while, but never does anything important and disappears pretty swiftly. It’s more an observation rather than an actual criticism- there just happened to only be one female of importance in this series. The drama as a whole hit a really sweet tone, maintaining its quirky, comic-book feel throughout. The focus on our ghost-human relationship was very cute and enjoyable, and our leading actors made for a very convincing couple despite the large age gap between them that had initially caused worry for some viewers. The main plot-line is definitely where the drama had a bit of a stumble.  

What Was Great:

Main Leads:

Taecyeon and Kim So Hyun were adorable individually and together. They smashed their roles and were totally believable in every aspect of the drama. 

I must say, this was a great looking snog

Kim So Hyun did an excellent job at acting older than she is, and it was totally believable that she was a similar age to Taecyeon, even when she’s actually so much younger. I find she always acts with a great amount of depth and maturity, and that was really shown in her performance here. 

Cutest fights ever

Hyun Ji hardly ever needed to actually verbally express her sadness or discomfort as Kim So Hyun was always able to express that through her emotions. It made Hyun Ji a very likeable and understandable character without the need of constant monologuing. Taecyeon was believable in the romance, comedy and even the more emotional scenes. I’d expected that he’d be great in the comedy and the romance- but it was the more emotional notes that had me worried. However, he managed to deliver wonderful sadness and fear in the scenes that required it, and it ever felt awkward watching him- which is what I’d feared. And together they were just all kinds of adorable. They seem to have a pretty cute oppa-dongsaeng relationship in real life, but they were able to shift that into a really sweet romantic relationship on-screen. They had great chemistry together and nailed the bickering-to-teasing dynamic perfectly.

Backup Boys:

Chun Sang and In Rang were hilarious and adorable and so, so loveable. I was oh so glad when our little team all joined up to fight ghosts together. The two boys and their bromance were always entertaining to watch, but were also characters of relevance rather than simply being there for the laughs. 

Love da boiz

Ghost of the Week:

While I’m not always a fan of the one-conflict-an-episode dramas, it worked really well for ‘Let’s Fight, Ghost’. 

Our heroes were very good at getting beaten up

Rather than being episode-long fillers disguised as set-up, the smaller ghost stories actually contributed a fair amount to our central plot. While hardly ever having actual impacts on the mystery or villain plots, ghost-hunting always helped in exploring the main characters’ personalities. Something was always revealed about our main characters in each of the smaller ghost stories- whether it was about Bong Pal and his family, Hyun Ji’s loneliness and longing for a human life, or how our couple perceived their relationship. Also it was just fun to have ghost fights. The fight sequences themselves were always very entertaining to watch. They were excellently choreographed and beautifully edited to give that spooky feel. Even if they did tend to go for a tad longer than they probably should have.

Smart PoPo:

Ohhhh my goodness, for the first time ever our K-Drama police aren’t idiots. They are smart people that are fully capable of coming up with their own suspicions and deductions- which definitely reduces the frustration that is often felt when police bypass obvious clues because they weren’t looking hard enough or ‘he seems like an upstanding citizen so he clearly can’t be a murderer’. It was nice to see smart policemen actually trying to catch the bad guy. Woohoo! 

Just look at them actually doing their jobs

What Wasn’t:

Unimaginative Plot:

There were no surprises. It was all painfully predictable from the villain, to the coma, to the attempts at Noble Idiocy. Everything went the way I thought it would, and while that’s not necessarily always a bad thing, I did occasionally find myself getting bored. Which isn’t exactly what you want. While the main pairing were cute and the bromance boys were fun, I was left wanting in regards to the main plot. Because I honestly felt like I might have seen this drama before- there was nothing new presented.

Must try and distract you with the cute, cuz there ain't much (new) plot

Annoying Side Characters:

Monk sucks and Mum sucks. Monk sucks because he basically has all the information needed but refuses to tell anyone that they’re actually in danger. He knows that this guy's been stalking Bong Pal for the good part of a decade. He knows that he’s Hyun Ji’s new psychological helper doctor person. 

Just...siiiiigh

But he decides that neither of them need to know that this dude is flat out evil and wants to kill them both. Nah, that’s not pivotal information at all. While he can sort of be given a pass earlier on in the season (because while secrets are annoying, Bong Pal didn’t actually have much to do with the Professor at that point, so telling him may have rocked the boat), as the series goes on his silence becomes even more unjustifiable. He tried to kill Hyun Ji once. He’s now in a position of relative power over her where he sees her one-one-on on a regular basis. Yet Monk still refuses to give her a heads-up that she might be in danger. That’s just pure idiocy and asking for trouble. Though he was pretty bloody badass in the final fight against Hye Sung. Hyun Ji’s mum is just a flat out b*tch. She has no reason to dislike Bong Pal, yet does so openly. You’d think if your daughter had been in a coma for five years you’d be kind of glad that there was someone her own age keeping her company. But apparently not. How dare Bong Pal help Hyun Ji after she fainted. What an outrage. It’s only made that much more infuriating when Mum is all for Hyun Ji hanging out with Hye Sung- the guy who has actually tried to kill her on multiple occasions. Even after Hye Sung kidnaps Hyun Ji and Bong Pal is the one to save her, Mum’s still unimpressed with him and thinks he’s bad news and wants Hyun Ji to basically sever ties. What the actual f*ck. 

How is Taecyeon subpar in any way, shape or form?

If that was my mum she’d be moving me to Seoul and telling me to marry the dude. Because that’s what normal mothers do when nice, handsome men like their daughter and rescue her from evil ghost murderers. It also didn't help that so much interest stemmed from the cohabitation between Bong Pal and Hyun Ji. As soon as she's a human again and mum's around, not only is the living together a thing of the past, but so is all Hyun Ji's sense of agency. She's gone from a spunky girl ghost who can do what she wants when she wants, to a girl who is coddled by her assey mother and can hardly do anything lest mum gets mad.

Re-watch?

Nope. While fairly cute with the romance and the bromance, the main plot was lacking. It was way to similar to drama’s I’ve seen before.

What a fab team