I've been so excited for this series, as it marks Lee Jun Ki's return to dramas after serving his 2 years in the military. It's an interesting premise, taking a more supernatural-approach to a historical drama. But regardless of the particular story line, it should be a good fit for Jun Ki, who captured my attention in "The King and the Clown" and "Iljimae". Yay, he's back!
The choreography looks like it will also be a major draw for this series. There are a ton of fight scenes among otherworldly and supernatural creatures, which lends itself to a lot of impressive wire-work and impossible-looking moves.
Summary:
Show text
Arang and the Magistrate starts with a government official (Kim Eun Oh, played by Lee Jun Ki) wandering in the forest with his manservant. We learn from the manservant that Eun Oh is looking for his mother and his quest is particularly ill-timed--they are traveling through a forest known for its ghosts, toward a town that had lost its three most recent magistrates to ghosts. The manservant is terrified of ghosts, but Eun Oh scoffs that they don't exist.
In the same forest, a lone girl, Arang, is cursing because she's become separated from her band of ghost-buddies. She finds her ghost-buddies as they begin harassing a troop of living travelers. Because they've interfered with living humans, they've called down the otherworldly ghost-catchers upon themselves. Her ghost buddies quickly are captured and dissipated by the ghost-catchers, but Arang flees and is followed by a single ghost-catcher. She runs past Eun Oh and his manservant and it becomes apparent that Eun Oh could see her, while his manservant could not.
We get some exposition in the beginning of the episode--Arang is apparently a virgin ghost with no memories of her previous life. She does not know her name or how she died and refuses to pass on to the next world until she finds the truth. Eun Oh is the (presumably illegitimate) son of a retired official who still holds a great deal of politicl clout and a slave woman. His mother sent him to live with his father years ago, but all Eun Oh has ever wanted was to live with his mother. He secretly posesses great shaman-powers to not only see, but also touch, ghosts.
Arang and Eun Oh first meet in a tiny shack in the woods, where both had taken shelter from the rain. Eun Oh pretends not to see or hear Arang, as it has been his experience that ghosts will immediately ask for inconvenient favors if they know a human can hear them. They don't interact until the next day, in a town, when Arang catches Eun Oh shooing away some persistent street-ghosts. She nags him persistently, asking him to find out who she was and how she died. He argues that he's not a magistrate and has no responsibility toward her. She gets him to agree that if he were a magistrate, he would help her. He has no intention of ever becoming a magistrate, so he quickly makes the promise.
Arang, having haunted around the area recently, knows that the town is desperately looking for a magistrate. They've lost the last three magistrates to ghosts on the first night of their appointments. (In reality, Arang had attempted to appear before each one to ask their help and she had scared each one to death...) She blackmails a weak female shaman into helping her and soon three low-ranking government officials are kidnapping Eun Oh to become their new magistrate (just for the night, as they believe he too will be killed by ghosts).
The next day, Eun Oh is still alive. Eun Oh has no intention of sticking around as the magistrate, until he realizes that Arang is wearing a hair pin he had given to his mother. She had the hair pin since before her death, so the only way to learn how she acquired the pin is to help her recover her pre-death memories. He resigns himself to sticking around as the magistrate until the mystery is solved.
The three low-ranking government officials are upset because they don't actually want a functioning magistrate in the area. They are corrupt and in service of the evil local official, Nobleman Choi. Choi was sent to the area after a demotion, but he rules over the town as if he were king. He and his son, Joo Wal, are up to some very shady activities and feel threatened by the new magistrate. They refer to the next full moon (a "rotten moon" that comes once a year) as an impending deadline. Joo Wal needs to acquire enough girls by the full moon for some seemingly otherworldly purpose. Throughout the episodes, rumors hint that bad things happen to young women around this time of year. It's the same time that Arang died, three years ago, so it seems that Joo Wal and Arang's death are linked.
We learn that the late-Magistrate (presumably 4 Magistrates ago, since Arang killed the last 3) had a daughter who went missing around the time of Arang's death. Eun Oh investigates and finds that the needlepoint on Arang's dress matches with the needlepoint-in-progress of the late-Magistrate's daughter. Although Arang doesn't feel like the identity is the right fit, they proceed to investigage. The late-Magistrate's daughter had been engaged to Joo Wal, so Arang & Eun Oh plan to go meet with him to learn more about her. When Arang spots Joo Wal, she has a major panic attack/heart-palpitations, which they chalk it up to her having been in love with him.
Meanwhile, Joo Wal had been looking for a particular girl that he must find before the full moon. He goes to a gisaeng house, but doesn't find anyone appropriate.
Throughout the episodes, we see the King of Heaven and the King of Hell playing a game of Go and talking about recent troubles with the souls. Many more ghosts are staying on the earthly plain and a number of souls have gone missing altogether. They reference Arang several times and the King of Hell asserts that he has claim to her, since she's disobeyed the order of things by walking the earth as a ghost.
Scenes of Note:
Episode 1, end, where Arang fights the townspeople, the ghost-catchers descend, and Eun Oh comes to her rescue on horseback.
