Despite its 12-episode format, tvN’s Spooky in Love has an old-fashioned charm to it. Its tone and aesthetics — its strengths and weaknesses — remind us of the K-dramas of yore, with their blend of romance, comedy, supernatural, and chaebol intrigue. That should come as no surprise considering that the series was loosely inspired by Hwang In-ho’s Spellbound (2011) and penned by Choi Jung-mi, whose last released drama was SBS’s Jang Ok-jung, Living in Love in 2013.
Spooky in Love seems to exist in a tiny, timeless bubble as an example of the archetypal Korean drama. It’s a little naïve, a tad convenient, and certainly flawed, but it’s so sincere and so unabashedly tender-hearted that you can’t help but fall for it.
Director Lee Min-soo, whose filmography is considerably more contemporary (with KBS2’s Heartbeat and tvN’s Resident Playbook in the early 2020s), holds together the series’ interconnected (and undeniably commonplace) moving parts with a predictable yet gentle flow humming with kindness. Spooky in Love then becomes a journey of profound optimism, a portrayal not of what we really are, but of what we have the potential to become — if only we were courageous enough to empathise with what is unfamiliar.
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What Happens When Loneliness and Empathy Cross Paths
In Spooky in Love, Cheon Yeo-ri (Park Eun-bin) is the heiress to one of Korea’s biggest conglomerates and the capable CEO of the luxurious Reina Hotel. Wealthy, intelligent, and beautiful, Yeo-ri should be perfect — and still, her employees can’t help but find her strange.
Yeo-ri refuses to touch others and is always wearing gloves. She goes home before sunset as a rule of thumb, requires her staff to keep their distance, and doesn’t seem to have any friends. Is she a snob? Germophobic? Misanthropic? Oh, no. It’s quite the opposite, actually. Yeo-ri is a sensitive, compassionate, and lonely woman who yearns for the warmth and the companionship of others. She’s carried a secret for many years, one that she refuses to share even with her beloved grandmother (yes, a nice chaebol grandmother, what a sight for sore eyes!), for fear of the consequences: Yeo-ri can see ghosts and her hands can curse those she comes to touch.
So, Yeo-ri lives her days alone and does her best to keep her distance, because she can’t bear the thought of causing others pain or suffering. Instead, she dedicates herself to her job and, in her spare time, she helps the ghosts that haunt her find peace and move on.
Of course, helping ghosts that might have been murdered will put her in the way of official investigations. That’s how she crosses paths with Ma Gang-wook (Yang Se-jong), a righteous, clever, and unbelievably empathetic prosecutor.
How Yeo-ri and Gang-wook grow from quarrelsome acquaintances to loyal friends and finally caring lovers constitutes the beating heart of Spooky in Love. The more time they spend together, the more entertaining the series gets, because this narrative isn’t about crimes, jump scares, or business machinations. It’s about how Yeo-ri and Gang-wook’s bond can break Yeo-ri free from the prison she’s been living in.
Spooky in Love & the Joys of a Gentle Narrative
In that way, Spooky in Love is a modern fairy tale in which love is a transformative, liberating force that emboldens two people to work toward the same goal. That loving connection will not only defeat the nefarious individuals standing in their way but also bring joy to our protagonist couple and to those around them. That’s why the series is at its strongest when it holds on to the genuinely lighthearted fare it sets out to deliver: having Yeo-ri and Gang-wook help ghosts move on through a process that will inevitably bring them closer and encourage them to fall in love.
When the script focuses on that storyline, it works in a similar vein to SBS’s Phantom Lawyer. This is a journey of “humane” ghost stories that aren’t about fear, but about empathy. Both Yeo-ri’s and Gang-wook’s characterisation and, consequently, every decision they make are motivated by an attempt to understand realities they aren’t acquainted with, emotions they don’t often experience, and fates that aren’t theirs.
Their overarching quest — to solve the case that caused Yeo-ri’s curse — gives our protagonists their ultimate objective: to conquer the supernatural. Yeo-ri and Gang-wook must refuse their preordained destiny and defy those who believe in it to reassert their agency. Throughout the series, our characters are often inspired to make their own choices. For instance, there’s an element of typical rom-com coincidence in how Yeo-ri and Gang-wook keep happening upon each other, but also of volition. Their lives intertwine because they choose to do what they believe is right, persist despite the obstacles, and show compassion instead of hatred or indifference.
Spooky in Love then establishes itself as a tale about grief, autonomy, and sheer kindness. This is a story whose protagonists’ loneliness and hurt never make them bitter or inconsiderate — I especially love the (very) mature exchange between Gang-wook and his grandmother in Episode 11 as a good example of that. Their circumstances make them grateful to be alive, find the beauty and the miraculous in the ordinary, and always respond to others with an affectionate, generous attitude. Life, in Spooky in Love, is all about exchanging warmth.
Even the romance between Yeo-ri and Gang-wook is wrapped in this tangible softness. Their relationship evolves gracefully and organically rather than being driven by an ardent or purely passionate impulse. Their dynamics start as a friendship built on trust and, once again, empathy. Slowly, that evolves into a gentle but profoundly caring romantic bond — they are both more than a mere amorous conquest to each other, but unique individuals whose existence they hope to cherish, support, and protect.
Park Eun-bin and Yang Se-jong deserve much of the credit here, since they give their characters the same tone, which synchronises their delivery and creates this natural interplay between them. Park’s performance is, as usual, absolutely enchanting and exceptionally meticulous, while Yang turns Gang-wook into one of the year’s most compassionate protagonists just through his gaze (he’s also adorably clumsy, which bolsters more comical sequences).
This side of Spooky in Love is marked by a confident narrative: it has rhythm and purpose, letting its conflicts and misunderstandings resolve quickly. The interactions between main and (most) supporting characters serve as active depictions of the drama’s key themes, resulting in a clear, heartfelt development of how Yu-ri and Gang-wook engage with their grandmothers and colleagues. The series finds delight in its romance and silliness in its humour. The supernatural is more of a narrative device than the manifestation of the horror genre — that means there’s a pinch of creepiness to Spooky in Love, but the show never sets out to be dark or scary.
However, the drama loses steam with its chaebol-intrigue storyline, which only distracts Spooky in Love from its core idea. Its events and devices are often contrived, unremarkable, and awfully hackneyed, at moments completely pushing Yeo-ri’s ghosts aside to portray scenarios that simply fall flat. Besides, it doesn’t help that the show’s antagonists are either overly cartoonish (see Baek Ji-won’s Director Ok and her children, Jo Hye-joo’s Ha-ri and Lee Dal’s Dong-jun, all incredibly unnecessary to the overall plot and extremely irritating) or borderline nonsensical (see Ong Seong-wu’s manipulative, delusional Kang Min-hwan; but it’s important to mention that Ong does do his best with what he was given).
Could we say Spooky in Love would’ve delivered a much more cohesive — and emotionally resonant, even — experience had it eliminated the business schemes and concentrated its ghost tales into a 10-episode series? Well, yes. This sort of misplaced subplot was also common in earlier K-dramas, which is why I believe the show had such a familiar ring to it.
Should You Watch Spooky in Love?
Either way, what remains after the finale of Spooky in Love is its quirky, lovely, and idealistic spirit. After all, there isn’t a single cynical bone in its body. So, I warn those looking for a proper grim, frightening horror story or tales of highbrow conspiracy: you won’t find anything remotely close to that here.
But if today’s mood is more for a whimsical, charming, and, at times, truly poignant journey, Yeo-ri and Gang-wook’s little fairy tale might just fit the bill — by offering us a timely reminder that we too can get rid of our ghosts if we choose to respond to our lives, its challenges and inhabitants with a more empathetic and warm-hearted approach.
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