Hotel del Luna (2020)
호텔 델루나
Starring: Lee Ji Eun (IU), Yeo Jin Goo, Shin Jung Geun, Bae Hae Sun, Pyo Ji Hoon, Kang Mi Na
Seen: May 2020
I found this drama when I was googling Lee Ji Eun after having watched Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart: Ryeo. The picture was of here dressed in a very beautiful royal purple blouse and a hat and I liked the colour so I clicked on the icon. Weird way to find your way to a new show to watch, but that's truthfully how I found it. I loved it just from the description. Like I mention in my review of Legend of the Blue Sea, I love everything supernatural and mythical - ghosts absolutely included. A hotel for ghosts, with IU as the madame owner? SIGN ME THE HECK UP!
Storyline summary:
The "Guest House of the Moon" is not like any other hotel. Old beyond measure, the hotel has stood for millennia, an ever-present testament to the fact that things are not always what they seem. Its staff and customers are all souls coming to terms with unfinished business in their former lives before they pass on to the afterlife and cycle of reincarnation. The exception to this is the hotel's general manager, which has been filled by a succession of human "passerbys". Their job is to interact normally with the real world in instances like paying bills or fulfilling ghosts' requests with still-living relatives or friends, things the ghosts cannot do themselves. The owner, Jang Man Weol, is a greedy, suspicious soul who a millennium ago committed a sin so great she was cursed, bound by her soul, to cater the dead at the Guest House of the Moon. Her only hope of escape the hotel is to find someone who has committed a worse sin than her own but after a thousand years, she’s beginning to lose hope. Afterall, she doesn't even remember what sin she once committed. Things start to change, however, when Gu Chan Seong comes along. He's being forced to become the hotel's new manager due to a deal his father made with Man Weol 20 years prior, that saved his life but sold his son. Being firm for following rules and regulations, he's a perfectionist to the extreme who may be precisely what the hotel and its cursed owner needs.
First impression:
I was hooked within 15 minutes.
The beginning of the drama throws you right into an ancient time of Ma Weol's deepest despair. It gives us an immediate look into her background and how she became he owner of Hotel del Luna, even if the reason isn't explained until later on through out the drama. She is seen as someone desperate to right her wrongs, and as the time shifts to modern time she's seen as greedy for money and luxury as well as set on seeing to her customers every need. She has lones just to be able to spend a fortune on champagne, designer shopping and cars, something I found completely ridiculous the first I was this drama (it's so good I've had to rewatch it). The main focus throughout the whole drama is the goal of Man Weol's redemption, being allowed to pass on to be reborn, which will be helped along by Gu Chan Seong. The story is therefor mainly about those two characters, naturally.
In the beginning it looks like Man Weol wants him to fail, wants him to be terrified of the ghost and prove himself "weak" - as she calls him. It's quite clear, however, that it's all just her tests to see if he's worthy of the gift she's given him. She doesn't wish any real harm upon him, she just wants to "warm him up" while being able to giggle at him. Scare him a little. Her world is more or less nothing but ghosts, afterall. The abnormal and supernatural is scary for a lot of people. She's always close by if he needs help. In the second episode when he runs form a vengeful ghost, with her advice in mind about learning to see the difference between the different kinds of ghosts, she's there in the last moment to save him. Like he keeps saying, "You'll protect me".
I loved watching Gu Chan Seong's journey of acceptance towards the ghost world. He starts out being confused and terrified of the spirits he suddenly can see, but it doesn't take him long to settle in with his new perspective of the world. I think the starting point for his change in view of the ghost is the tiger. He didn't like it's story and how it had been taken from it's home and died alone. He didn't like how it was being treated even after death.
After his empathy for the tiger has settled in him, he really started warming up. He was terrifed of them to begin with, naturally, but after having helped one himself he suddenly started seeing them as people. Whether they be alive or in fact dead.
Gu Chan Seong proves his willingness to work with his new gift when he stops running away from the lady with the burt eyes. Instead, as he says himself, he apologizes for not asking her why she follows him around. She realized he was a human who could see her and who could help her. I understand her sorrow in having him afraid of him, when she wasn't even intent on hurting him. I love his smile in the taxi when he's dropped her off at Hotel del Luna. He felt proud of having realized what he could do to help, instead of being scared. It's heatwarming in episode 4 when he comes back from sending her away to the after life and first, he asks the author if he'd like more coffee, then he greets the guest with black eyes and flies swarming her whom he had to meet after angering Man Weol. Man Weol keeps saying he still hasn't come to his senses after what he's seen, but I think that's just beacuse she has a hard time realizing and accepting that his "coming to his senses" is actually his acceptance for her and her guests. He's been invited to a whole new world. He tried to ignore it, it didn't work so what else could he do than start working with it? And thus, he becomes the new manager of Hotel del Luna. At the same time, he makes it super clear that he is not afraid of Man Weol, something everyone else in her staff comments on being. It's as brave as it's amusing. He teases her, pushes her and denies her the overflown luxury she wants but can't afford. He doesn't give in to her, it's something she's not used too and it's great.
To shift focus to the other characters for a bit, I'd like to say how much I absolutely adore how the three main staff's stories are highlighted. All three of them have painful past, one way or another, and I'm immensly impressed by the writer's ideas of character background. The story of a scholar, an unwanted mother and a brother killed in war and replaced in life are all very different. They're not "common" ones, like a rich kid, a bullied but smart kid and a kid who took the wrong path. They all get tested at one point or another in the drama.
My heart aches for Hyun Joong when you get to see the flashbacks from his last time alive, how he sacraficed himself to save his little sister and how his best friend both betrayed him and helped him for the rest of his own life. It's heroic, but completely genuine. The pain you see in his eyes in episode 7, when he's with Yu Na at the hospital after she fainted in fear of the hauting ghosts at school, when he sees his sister is so prominent I felt my chest tighten. It was so obvious, and yet Yu Na didn't catch on. His test was having to admit to Yu Na, someone he'd grown to care a lot for, that the owner of the hospital with the same name has him is his impersonater. He has to explain and verbally accept while he's waiting for his little sister before going to the afterlife, his little sister has lived her whole life thinking her brother was alive. Thinking that the man who took his name, was him.
I think a lot of people who think that having to leave Yu Na behind also was a test, but I disagree. I loved so much how they fell in love despite their situation. It's the most heartwarming and heartbreaking thing at the same time. It's simply pure. How sad she is, teared up to the core over him. It's a love beyond bounderies and I admire it so much. Two ghosts, yet one alive and one since long ago dead. Ji Hyun Joong has since long settled in the thought of leaving with his sister. He knows he's dead and forgotten to the human world, besides Man Weol and eventually Yu Na. He, just like his collegues, is litterally history. He knows that, and he's fine with that. He knows he can't stay forever, even if Yu Na wants him too. No matter how much he loves her, he loves his sister more. He's smarter than a loved stricken fool who clings onto an irrational sliver of hope that two spirits can stay together when one has a living body and the other does not. If anything, that's Yu Na's test - accepting that she has no other choice but to let him go and continue living as someone she's not.
(But of course, this is the case of Chan Seong too. He also has to let his love go. )
Choi Seo Hee's story is grusome in the way that her story probably wasn't quite unique. I'm sure her situation occured for more women than her, and for every woman it was as hurtful and visious. When she realizes there's another baby coming to the family tree of her murderes, her own past family, I understand her breakdown in frustrated rage. That was her test. She's waited patiently for centuries to see them all gone so she can find peace, and then finds out they will continue to live on. I would've snapped, too. However, the strength she shows when she stops herself from becoming an evil spirit and despite her grudge meets the mother to be, is incredible. The bravery is undescribable, when she chose to help the mother to be instead of leaving her and her baby for dead all alone. I can't imagine the relief she feels when the mother says her baby will be hers, and not take the father's name. I think Seo Hee needed that other woman to be able to let go. She didn't need to see the family of her murderes dead after all, but she still got to see them end.
Kim Seon Bi is a lovely character and he actor fits him so well. Seon Bi's test was of course finding out his story was in writing of becoming a book, a book which painted him all wrong. His test wasn't fighting against becoming an evil spirit, but the test not to give in to the shame. I love how he was instead able to help correcting his own story for the finalized mauscript of the book and at the same time get credit for the notorious novels he wrote, which the modern Koreans love but the Joseon scholar's despised. He wanted to have his story justified, and he got it. Just not in the way he had expected too.
Man Weol's test, obviously, starts with seeing Mi Ra - Chan Seong's friend who is the reincarnation of her enemy. That's where it starts, and it ends when she starts doubting if Chan Seong's might be Chung Myung after all. While we realize soon enough that Chan Seong is still himself, the deity Ma Go intentionally confuses Man Weol into thinking that he is actually the reincarnation of Chung Myung. I do believe that Chung Myung temporarily inhabited Chan Seong to help him out of the tunnel, it was indeed his hand that reached for Man Weol's head. However Kim Seon Bin's slap on the shoulder snapped him out of it, and Chan Seong has no recollection of how he got out of the tunnel. It's alomst poetic. A human would be trapped in the tunnel is entering it, but since Chung Myung is a dead spirit he could lead him out unharmed. He did that for Man Weol. That's the inveitable test Man Weol faces, the test the dieties has been holding on too until Chan Seong came around. She is confronted with the choice between avenging herself on Chung Myung and keeping Chan Sung alive. "Who will you see him as? Chung Myung, kill him and cease to exist, or Chan Seong and be saved?" As it turns out, she cannot let the past go: her 1,000-year resentment against Chung Myung is so huge that, as much as she loves Chan Seong, she still wants to see harm come to him if he is Chung Myung — although she admits that she cannot bring herself to do it by her own hand. It's chilling to see Man Weol confront her past self when she creates the curse intended for Chan Seong in the form of herself from the time when she first got cursed. It’s clear how much resentment Man Weol harbors against herself not only in the present for falling in love again, but also in the past for being blinded by love in the first place, as well as for having such strong ill will and hatred that she cannot shake it off even after 1,000 years. The realization she faces later, when getting to witness the scene from the past, that Chung Myung's decision was based on Yeon Woo's last wish, was the end of her test. She was no longer tangled up in her vengful emotions, but had finally got some answers to her unspoken questions. She was finally released from her hatred against Chung Myung and was able to open up to the grief over Yeon Woo instead, the grief which had only intensified after seeing him reincaranted and well as a cop.
Chan Seong's test then? Well, we'll probably never get to see that. I think his test is the price he has to pay for helping Man Weol, as the dieties sisters say - time. Time without Man Weol. Time wondering, hoping, longing and waiting for her to return.
I know everyone who has watched and loved Hotel del Luna has their own favorite Ma Go sister. Mine is the pink one. I love how they're all in some ways the same person, and that that's how it's supposed to look like. I'm still very curious though who in fact they are, considering how they've been around for even longer than Man Weol's time. I've been thinking if perhaps they're some kind of oracles. They know everything, past, present and future and they have separate roles in maintaining a balance in the world and between the time line. They're the ones who cursed Man Weol, but they're also the ones who will help her go. Very interesting. In the drama Man Weol and the Grim Reaper call them "dieties" which is another word for Gods in a polytheistic religion. He bans her from numbering them, calling them "first Ma Go /.../ forth Ma Go" instead of acknowlaging them as individual dieties who works as one force. However, if they're supposed to be Gods - what do they represent? In polytheistic religions the different gods usually stands for something or are connected to something, for example the ancient Greek religion; Zeus is the god of the heavens, Poseidon of the oceans, Aphrodite is the godess of love, Artemis the godess of hunt and so on. I can create a theory that the Ma Go with the flowers perhaps is some kind of destiny/faith god. A god of choices, good wills, good thoughts and the belief in humanity's redemtion. The black dressed Ma Go could be a reaper god, like the Grim Reaper played by Kang Hong Seok, since her mission is to find evil spirits and eliminate them from existence. In episode 13 when Man Weol and Chan Seong bump into another Ma Go, the Ma Go with the stylish lipstick, she says she is a diety of wealth. Perhaps that makes the pink Ma Go the diety of love? The other two I'm a bit conflicted over, but they sure are interesting characters!
The parts in any historical-modern drama which I look forward too the most, are all the flashbacks. Especially in this one, as Man Weol's been around for a thousand years, you get to see so many different eras and so many different "versions" of her. Way of life, fashion, class system, world situations and countless ghosts throughout this forever-long time. It's an exciting twist when Gu Chan Seong gets to go back in time to meet Man Weol, but several hundred years ago. It's even more curious how Man Weol is suspicious of him, but at the same time doesn't question him. It simply must be one of Ma Go's tricks, and she's used to those old crones.
The 10,238th (give or take) thing I love with this drama is that it in between the story of Man Weol and Man Weol and Chan Seong, you get to see more than just those characters. You get to see Sanchez's life, like the reunion with his former classmates at his restaurant and the flashback of his ill encounter with Seol Ji Won, Yu Na's adapting to living in her new body and her and Hyun Joong's growing affection for each other, you meet other kinds of spirits than the good or evil ones at Hotel del Luna - like the well spirit and it's all divided perfectly and you get to meet Chan Seong's mother (which was quite sweet though, a loose end they didn't need to tie). Of course the two main characters have more screentime, but focusing on the other characters' stories and perspectives you get to see them all equally. It's never too much, neither too little. Especially when the serial killer comes a long, the old classmate of Sanchez's. I felt that he was quite unnecessary to the story, but since without his character Yu Na hadn't seen the ghost in his car, found all the victims and her and Hyun Joong's kinda-forbidden romance hadn't gotten the affect it did. Yu Na hadn't accidentally confessed. So despite how I find some parts and some characters less interesting and less necessary, they play their part well.
Cultural imput:
Though I love the idea of an afterlife and that a soul can live several lives throughout history, I'm not sure how much I believe in it for real. I am not a religious person, but I am open to listening and learning more about how other people think. Considering this drama is completely built on ghosts and their time between the living world and the afterlife, I'd say this story is based on quite religious grounds even if no religion is specifically uttered in the drama. I think it's a beautiful story, what this drama is all about, and I find it clever not to bring religious belief into it but just keeping it as it is. Ghosts being nurtured for a life lived. Everyone has different lives, some good and some bad. Of course that's going to affect your spirit, which is why I love how they always have different ghosts as guests. All ages, no matter how heart breaking, all kinds of deaths, brutal or natural and all kinds of "things left to do, which they could not do in life". Some people seek revenge, other's comfort. It's complicatedly simple and simply complicated.
According to statistic research, Korea is a quite "loosely" religious country with a lot of inhabitants who consider themselves atheistic or agnostic. The same goes for my country, however even more so. Between 30-50% of Korea's population consider themself non-religions and 50-85% of the inhabitants in Sweden do the same. From a 2015's calculations (read on Korea.net), less than 50% of the Korean population has a religion, the biggest being Protestantism and Buddhism. All the world's major religions coexist in Korea, Buddhism and Shamanism being two of the religions which have existed in the country the longest. Though I don't know a lot more about religion's statues in Korea, I do know that freedom of religion is guaranteed by the Constitution in Korea. That's the case for the people in Sweden as well.
Another, a little more detail specific, thing I realized the second time I watched the drama was the meaning of "the room for humans". In Korean culture (as well as other East Asian cultures) the number 4 is very unlucky. This is a superstition called Tetraphobia, the fear and avoidance of instances with the number four. The reason for this is that the word for "four" is "사" (Sa) is also the word for "deceased" or "died". This superstition is less extreme in South Korean compared to other countries, of which I have no lengthened knowledge. All I know is that the word for "four" in Mandarin is the same as the word for "death", which concludes the same relation to the number as Korean.
The number four is usually avoided if possible. In buildnings and hospitals the 4th floor is usually marked "F" in the elavators instead of using the digit. Apartment numbers containing multiple fours, such as 404, are likely to be avoided by customers. The room in which Hotel del Luna lets human guests stay in, is the room 404. I realized this when Man Weol tells Chan Seong in episode 11 about a newlywed couple in the 80's who concieved a child while staying in that room. The hotel for ghosts have assigned the unlucky numbered room for the unwanted guests - humans. Quite whitty, if you ask me.
In many other cultures around the world there is a fear and avoidance of the number 13 - Triskaidekaphobia (wow what a tongue twister). There are several theories to why this number has become believed to be unlucky, among one reason rooted in Christianity and one in Asatrú (the belief in the old Nordic gods). The theory based in Christianity is that Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus, was the 13th to sit at the table during the Last Supper. Due to his ill bringing on Jesus, people started considering the number 13 unlucky. The theory based in Asatrú is similar. It's a Norse myth about twelve gods having dinner in Valhalla and Loki, the trickster god who had not been invited, arrived as the 13th guest and raised a little hell. This caused the number 13 to be considered unlucky, as it had been a bad, unlucky day.
On the finishing note, I'm definitely stopping by Hotel del Luna when I've died and need to recharge before moving on. Lets hope Kim Soo Hyun is still the owner ;) Knowing he's one of my favorite actors, you can guess how angry I was of him only having approximately 15 seconds of screen time. AND THERE STILL IS NO HOTEL DEL LUNA 2!! Sigh. What do you think of Hotel del Luna? Who do you think the Ma Go's are? What are their purposes? Let me know your thoughts!
Leave a comment on the blog or on the Instagram and please share with others you might know who loved Hotel del Luna, too~
Until next review~
(Also, can we all agree on how pretty Lee Ji Eun is? Okey. Awsome. Thanks. Set in stone. 100%.)
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