When it comes to K-dramas, I'm not one of them; I prefer watching American movies or Indian Bollywood movies, but during the just-concluded holiday, I saw my wife watching a K-drama titled Phantom Layer, and I happened to pick up interest in it, and to be honest, I did enjoy every bit of it. Because it's far beyond my expectations. I actually thought it was one of those regular legal dramas I've seen where a young lawyer struggles to establish himself due to his family background, so seeing ghosts enter into the picture and somehow get engraved into the entry story is something I didn't anticipate and made it become much more interesting.
One of the core things that draws my interest into the movie is the ideal behind the law office. First we have a lawyer who's struggling to get a job but couldn't due to his father's reputation. But rather than allowing him to detach from his dream of becoming a lawyer and letting it define his future, he opted to start his own law firm, only for him to discover his new office space comes with usual clients. Ghost!!. To make matters worse, they aren't ghosts that appear just to make the movie scary; instead, each ghost that appears has their unfinished story, such as injustice, unresolved issues, regret, and the like. And the young lawyer finds himself attending to unusual kinds of clients, who are people who are no longer alive.
Some of the things I liked about the movie that got me glued to my screen are how the series finds a way to balance law, mystery, family, supernatural elements, and emotional stories in a comedy all together without allowing one aspect of the plot to supersede the others. Not many movies did that, and I must give the writer and movie director kudos for a job well done in that aspect. Beyond all of those, though, I find the message of reputation and injustice quite intriguing, because even in the real world, we see people get judged by someone else's mistakes or actions; even though they obviously have nothing to do with the act, it can be devastating and overwhelming, and this series explodes what it means to carry someone else's name while trying to create our own identity.
The funny aspect of the series I enjoyed is how the young lawyer usually gets possessed by a ghost whenever they see something or someone they like or are angry about something. I remember an episode where he was possessed by a man who liked pork meat, and he started eating, not knowing the lawyer himself is actually allergic to pork meat. Another was when he was possessed by a young lady who's a dancer, and he started acting, walking, and dancing like a lady despite being a man. Though that's a spoilers alert, you'll enjoy it.
But then overall, the movie is what I can define as a pure masterpiece, because I like how it's a blend of almost everything; for instance, some moments were heartbreaking, others were funny, and beyond that, some made me genuinely stop to think deeply. What matters is that Phantom Lawyer is quite enjoyable to watch, especially because of how it missed legal stories with human emotions and supernatural elements. And it left me with a message that sometimes justice doesn't always necessarily stop at the courtroom and might not even stop at death.
Have you watched the phantom later? What do you think about it?
Image source for first and second photos.
Rating: 80/100
Originally posted through scrobble.life/tv.
