Disney+’s new K-drama, ‘Lightshop Keeper’ boasts an exciting creative team behind it: the webtoon artist-turned-screenwriter Kang Full, who gave us the Disney+ hit ‘Moving’, and Kim Hee Won, a reliable and excellent actor who is making his directorial debut with this show. ‘Lightshop Keeper’ is a psychological horror that makes full use of its unusual release schedule. The first four episodes drop at once with the last four episodes being released, two episodes every week. It’s a timing that fits the show’s big concept and immersive storytelling. The first four episodes actually plays out like one big pilot and the audience needs to be patient because each episode feels separate from each other until the explosive revelation at the ending of episode four that connects everything together so elegantly.
Each episode centers around one or two characters (with other characters having a minor appearance) as they navigate through their daily lives as supernatural forces seem to hover around them in a near-empty suburb at the outskirts of Seoul. Connecting each story are the supernatural creatures that are haunting each character and a light shop that is open all through the night that somehow manages to draw everyone in. The light shop keeper, played by Ju Ji-hoon (of ‘Kingdom’ and ‘Hyena’ and ‘Jirisan’), who calls the spirits “strangers.”
Interestingly enough, Park Bo Young (‘Strong Girl Bong-soon’) is also always a constant but she’s perennially in the intensive care unit of a hospital but she too is aware of the strangers. For the other characters, there’s a group of students that revolve around Hyun-joo (Shin Eun-soo) who is constantly running into the strangers and is also a regular visitor of the light shop, buying bulbs for her mother (Lee Jung-eun of ‘Parasite’). There’s a man (Uhm Tae Goo of ‘Concrete Utopia’ and ‘Night in Paradise’) who comes home late at night on the last bus and sees a woman (Kim Seol-hyun of ‘Summer Strike’ and idol group AOA) sitting at the bus stop bench every night he heads home. When he finally gets curious enough to ask her, things start to get really frightening. Kim Min-ha of ‘Pachinko’ plays a screenwriter who takes a lease in a house surrounded by unoccupied homes so that she can write in peace but there’s a door in her home that is locked, and a frightening presence is lurking just around her. At night, her peace is ruined by a student played by Kim Ki-hae, who must walk the dark alleys on his way home and he sings to himself to keep from getting scared.
Each one takes center stage in each of the four episodes, except for Park Bo Young and Ju Ji-Hoon, who are a constant in the show. It features each character’s lives as they are hounded by these strangers. What the strangers want seems different for each particular stranger, but the show and Kim Hee Won’s competent direction makes each episode visually stunning and full of suspense and tension.
The show’s slow burn approach, creating the world and developing each character can be quite challenging for some viewers who want things to be explained quickly but the show is confident enough that these frightening scenes and sets up are enough of a treat until it’s ready to unravel for us. Everything makes sense by the end of the fourth episode and while Park Bo Young’s character and her relationship to all these characters become clear, Ju Ji-Hoon’s light shop keeper and his knowledge of the strangers and his own mysterious past is still kept mysterious and in the dark.
It’s a pretty dark story to tell just a few weeks before Christmas but it plays off a nice contrast to any of the more holiday-friendly choices that might be sent our way. It’s very well-made horror and with Kang Full’s exploration of the superhero genre in ‘Moving,’ there’s definitely going to be sound profound explorations on mortality and death that’s bound to happen in this show. With the foundations that have been carefully and meticulously laid out in the first four episodes, I’m sure that the last four are going to be as explosive and as enjoyable.
My Rating:
Light Shop Keeper is now streaming on Disney+! Click here to watch it now.
