Ghost/Phantom
The Love of So Ji Sub
Continues
**********Warning
Spoilers**************
Title:
Phantom/Ghost 유령
Network: SBS
Episodes: 20
Starring: So Ji Sub,
Choi Daniel, Lee Yeon Hee, Uhm Ki Joon
Aired: May 30, 2012
– August 9, 2012
I am going to be
very honest and admit that the only reason I started watching this
drama was because of So Ji Sub. Obsession, I hear your name loud and
clear. Ghost, unlike the
title would lead us to believe, is a drama that deals with political
intrigue in the digital world. For some odd reason, the title, ahem,
I thought this was a drama about the main character being able to see
the ghosts of dead people, I could have sworn there is a drama with
that premise out there, and no not the Master's Sun or
Oh My Ghostess, but I
digress. It is a drama about
how money and power corrupt and how easily one can either destroy or
be destroyed by a simple click of the mouse. And although, this
drama contained no romantic storyline, one side crushes and potato
crushes aside, I kept watching episode after episode and enjoying
each episode tremendously.
The
heart of the story revolves around the friendship of two very
different people. Kim Woo Hyun and Park Gi Young met when they were
both in the police academy wanting to make a difference by becoming
police officers with a focus on cyber crime. Through
a series of events during their time in the academy, Kim Woo Hyun
becomes a lieutenant in the police department while Park Gi Young
seemingly switches sides to become a hacker known as Hades. They
both start looking into the apparent suicide of a well known actress
and stumble upon corruption at the highest levels of politics and the
police department. As we watch Kim Woo Hyun investigate the death of
the young actress, we wonder which side is he really on. How does he
know the murderer and most importantly why is he not arresting him.
Early in the drama there is an explosion involving both friends, of
which only one survives.
Through
a series of circumstances, the survivor is mistaken for the other,
and so for most of the drama we have Hades walking around with a
police officers face. So Ji Sub does an excellent job of playing to
characters brilliantly, and one of those playing a character playing
a different character. And I'm not only saying this because of my
massive hard on for So Ji Sub.
Park
Gi Young pretending to be Kim Woo Hyun must find out the truth about
his old friend and all the secrets he was keeping. With the help of
the rest of the cyber unit, except for the fucking bastard traitor,
Gi Young takes it upon himself to clear his friend's name and bring
down the man behind the corruption.
Ghost does
an excellent job of exploring that very thin line between evil and
doing evil things in the name of good. Hades, Park Gi Young, by all
extents and purposes is a criminal, even when he is pretending to be
Woo Hyun. Even that pretense can be seen as wrong, especially when
one takes into account that he is pretending to be his dead friend to
his dead friend's child. But, in his mind, he is doing these things
to right all the wrong caused by Jo Hyun Min, the evil behind
everything.
Does
the end justify the means? Park Gi Young would like to think that it
does, but as a viewer I'm left with the impression that good men who
do evil things are tinged with that evil. It's not something that
can be washed away or forgotten. One can pretend that he didn't
cause the death of Hyun Min, but it doesn't change the facts that
lead to that death. This is the first Korean drama that I watched
that was not a romance, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
But, fucking shit, a kiss between the main characters would have
made it much better.