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Pierce Conran

This article contains spoilers.
3.5/5 stars
Lead cast: Bona, Yook Sung-jae, Kim Ji-hoon
Latest Nielsen rating: 11 per cent
With stories that bounce around palace walls, regal dramas set in the era of Korea’s Joseon dynasty have a tendency to bite their own tails, but The Haunted Palace bucks that trend with a satisfying story that avoids such confines.
The series began with a bit of mythmaking, describing a dragon’s attempted ascent to the heavens a century before the main events of the story. This is Kang-cheol, an imugi – a creature that must endure 1,000 years in a cold pond before becoming a true dragon.


His ordeal complete, he emerges from the water, but his flight is stalled when he is seen by a human, causing him to crash back to Earth.
Generations later, Kang-cheol attempts to latch himself to Yeo-ri (Bona, Twenty-Five Twenty-One), a young girl with shamanistic powers, hoping to possess her to complete his ascent.
She fends him off constantly, and Kang-cheol winds up possessing the body of palace scholar Yoon Gap (Yook Sung-jae, The Golden Spoon) after witnessing his murder. He then heads to the palace in human form with Yeo-ri.
The court of king Yi Sung (Kim Ji-hoon, Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economy Area) is possessed and haunted by various spirits and ghosts. This allows Yeo-ri, who makes her living as an artisan spectacles maker, to embrace her true calling.

The main supernatural foe confronting this ghost-busting pair is eventually revealed to be the malevolent Eight-Foot Spirit, who is specifically targeting members of the royal family.
The Eight-Foot Spirit engages the help of the blind shaman Pung-san (Kim Sang-ho, Sweet Home), occasionally possessing him to directly address members of the court.
The full scope of the story begins to reveal itself when the possessed Pung-san confronts Yoon Gap, and the Eight-Foot Spirit reveals that he was the one who saw Kang-cheol 100 years ago, prompting his fall to Earth.
A village was being pillaged that night, and this spirit clearly bears a grudge against the royal family for the massacre.

Before long, a book is unearthed which tells the hidden story of that night. Yi Sung’s ancestor was escaping from an enemy and sacrificed a village to make his getaway, against the strenuous objections of one of his generals, whose family lived there.
Although the general was among the victims, the Eight-Foot Spirit is actually a manifestation of all the souls who perished that night.
Things come full circle when the Eight-Foot Spirit reveals that he also bears a grudge towards Kang-cheol, a powerful being who ignored a village’s desperate cries for help while he focused on his desire to ascend to the heavens.
The Eight-Foot Spirit finally manages to possess Yi Sung, taking over the court and forcing Yeo-ri and Kang-cheol into hiding.

Fearing that Kang-cheol will use up the last of his Yagwangju – the spirit life force from which he draws his supernatural power – to save them, Yeo-ri heads to the palace alone, summoning the power of the Fire Spirit Reaper.
But when this isn’t quite enough to vanquish the possessed king, Kang-cheol shows up. He saves her and the kingdom by using up his life force, just as she had feared he would, and collapses lifeless at the end of the battle.
If The Haunted Palace had any major weakness, it was in how its steadfast good humour and refusal to believe in true evil or lasting consequences took some bite out of the otherwise epic proceedings.
Most of the villains of the story, including the queen dowager and the many supernatural foes that Yeo-ri goes up against, among them a one-legged spirit, are ultimately redeemed and the story winds its way to a happy ending.

Only a few minor characters truly die, among them Kang-cheol’s soul-eating spirit Bibi and the queen, who is slashed by the Eight-Foot Spirit during an attack on the king.
After Yi Sung is freed from his possession, he apologises to the slain villagers, soothing their vengeful spirits during a special shamanistic ritual in which Yeo-ri dips her shoes in black ink and dances on a large white sheet, appearing to tap out the shape of a butterfly.
Meanwhile, Kang-cheol’s loved ones cry their hearts out for him and hammer him into a coffin, from which he promptly emerges. He goes on to have a child with Yeo-ri and they continue their work in the palace.
Will we see any more of their exploits in this haunted palace? Solid ratings for the series suggest that is not out of the question.
The Haunted Palace is streaming on Viu.


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}K-drama The Haunted Palace’s story involving death, ghosts, a dragon and possession ends in redemption. Does a second season beckon?

K-drama The Haunted Palace’s story involving death, ghosts, a dragon and possession ends in redemption. Does a second season beckon?