K-Drama Review: Sell Your Haunted House
This Korean drama is not for Halloween. But if you’re in the mood for a light comedy that dabbles in the paranormal, you’ll enjoy this series.
For Fans of Jung Yong-hwa
Jung Yong-hwa first caught my attention when he played Park Dal-hyang, the 4th swordsman in the Korean version of the Three Musketeers (2014). This actor caught my attention again when he acted as a brain doctor in the 2023 TV series Brain Works.
I enjoyed his performances so much that I searched for more series or movies where he had a leading role. Sell Your Haunted House ended up on my watch list because Jung Yong-hwa was cast as the main character, Oh In-beom.
Jung Yong-hwa has been acting in K-dramas since 2009 and has won several entertainment awards. Specifically, for the 2021 KBS Drama Awards he won the “Excellence Award, Actor in a Miniseries” for his role in Sell Your Haunted House.
THE FAKE EXORCIST
In this series, Jung Yong-hwa’s character, Oh In-beom, is a scammer. He and his friend trick people into believing that their house or building is haunted by using holograms and voice controls. Then he persuades them to buy some expensive equipment. He confidently promotes the equipment as a device that generates energy waves that forcibly push the ghosts away. It is a scientifically proven method for permanently eliminating unwanted spirits. In other words, he’s a fake exorcist.
One day he is about to attempt another fraud when he learns that there’s another person claiming that they can get rid of ghosts. WHAT? He’s got competition! His immediate thought, since he knows he’s a phony, is that there’s another fake exorcist out there trying to steal his customers. That can’t happen! He has worked too hard to find gullible clients and there is no way his competition is going to take over his territory. That’s how he meets Hong Ji-ah. She’s his competitor, i.e. the one claiming to be able to get rid of vengeful spirits. But guess what! She’s not fake; she’s a real exorcist.
A REAL ESTATE AGENT WHO IS ALSO AN EXORCIST
Have you ever tried to sell a home or a building but people won’t buy the place because it’s haunted? The obvious solution to your problem is to get rid of the ghost! No worries. Daebak Real Estate is owned and operated by a real exorcist who ONLY sells haunted houses.
Hong Ji-ah (played Jang Na-ra) is walking in her mother’s footsteps. Her mother was the owner of Daebak Real Estate and she was also an exorcist. When Hong Ji-ah grew up she carried on with the same business. She only accepts clients who are haunted by vengeful spirits. Clients who approach her are upset because their property is haunted and they might have to sell at a low price and lose money. She assures her clients that once she performs an exorcism, she can then sell their property at market value or better. Her success rate is 100%.
WHEN FAKE EXORCIST AND REAL EXORCIST COLLIDE
Oh In-beom is on a mission to eliminate his competitor. He starts snooping around Daebak Real Estate trying to find proof that Hong Ji-ah is a fake exorcist just like him. She catches him going through her trash and confronts him. One thing leads to another and in the process of “getting to know each other”, Hong Ji-ah realizes that Oh In-beom may be a fake exorcist, but he’s a real medium who can channel vengeful spirits.
Instead of being competitors, Hong Ji-ah offers Oh In-beom a profitable partnership. He will serve as a medium who allows the spirits to possess his body. She will use the spirit awl to perform the exorcism and send the ghosts from his body into the afterlife.
WHEN FAKE EXORCIST AND REAL EXORCIST CONNECT
Oh In-beom does not believe in exorcism, nor does he believe he’s a real medium. Nevertheless, he accepts the offer of employment for two reasons. 1) it’s a regular paycheck, and 2) perhaps he’ll figure out how to expose his competitor as a fraud. But there is a 3rd reason Oh In-beom agrees to work with Hong Ji-ah. He noticed that she has a necklace made with a blue salt gem that is the same as the necklace his uncle gave him when he was little. Since Hong Ji-ah has the same necklace, he wonders if perhaps she knows the mystery behind it.
Twenty (20) years earlier Hong Ji-ah’s mother died while trying to perform an exorcism. She was a young girl at the time and her memory of the tragic event is blurred and confused. What is even more pitiful is that her mother’s spirit has not departed from the land of the living. Her mother once told her that when a spirit can not leave this world, it’s like being stuck outside in a winter storm wearing nothing but your underwear. It pains Hong Ji-ah that her mother’s spirit has not yet transcended to a warm place of comfort.
- To perform an exorcism, the spirit is channeled into the body of a medium, and the exorcist pierces the heart of the medium with a spirit awl which disintegrates. When the awl disintegrates, the spirit leaves the body that was possessed and goes into the afterlife.
Hong Ji-ah has performed numerous successful exorcisms. So why can’t she exorcise her mother’s spirit? It’s because she cannot find the right medium that can be possessed by her mother’s spirit. Her primary reason for agreeing to partner with Oh In-beom is because she really hopes he will be the medium who can help her send her mother into the afterlife.
As their professional and personal relationship develops, they both discover that they have a connection with each other. Oh In-beom was a child at the time, but he was at the Daebak Real Estate office the day Hong Ji-ah’s mother died. His uncle had brought him there but he does not know why. His uncle also died at the Daebak Real Estate office on that day. Like Hong Ji-ah, his memory of the tragic event is blurred and confused.
They both desperately want to recall exactly what happened 20 years ago.
- Oh In-beom had heard that his uncle committed suicide but his grandmother insisted that the police report was not true. She said his uncle would never kill himself. But why did his uncle take him to an exorcist?
- Hong Ji-ah believes her mother’s death was all her fault. Based on her recollection, she remembers being too afraid to pierce her mother’s heart with the spirit awl. She reasoned that because of her fear, her mother died.
Although Oh In-beom and Hong Ji-ah have different reasons, they are pursuing the same goal, i.e. to unravel a 20-year-old mystery.
VIEWERSHIP RATINGS
Sell Your Haunted House should definitely not be added to your watch list to celebrate Halloween. But if you like paranormal dramas mixed with light comedy, then add this 16-episode series to your list.
Trying to solve a 20-year-old mystery was a great hook the scriptwriters used to reel in the viewers. Once Oh In-beom and Hong Ji-ah started digging into their past, the viewer had to follow them all the way to the last episode to learn the whole truth of the matter.
Some reviewers wondered why the writers did not develop a romance between Ji-ah and In-beom. Oh! Oh! I know! I know why! Uumm … actually I don’t know why. But I think it’s because there was no way to work in a love triangle. Everybody knows Korean dramas have to have love triangles. That’s my guess. At any rate, they had good onscreen chemistry and the couple worked well together as an exorcist/medium team.
Several viewers gave Sell Your Haunted House 4.9 out of 5 stars; or 9.5 out of 10 stars. I agree.