Thursday, September 04, 2008

Hometown Legends


Genre : Fantasy, Horror
Also known as : Hometown of Legends, Korean Ghost Stories, Legendary Hometown
Episodes : 8
Aired in Indonesia : KBS World, Wednesday-Thursday 20.00-21.00 WIB


Korean Ghost Stories’ is the typical Korean horror program that still resides in our memories. We all remember the time when we were waiting for the program’s dismal music to begin. This program contains the traditional myths and old folk tales of neighborhood that our grandparents used to tell us. Different from the past, our children are living in a complex world. Nowadays, youngsters enjoy multicultural contents in real time, through internet and mass media. We are living in a culture war that various nations’ cultural products attack viewers through diverse forms, such as novel, movie, drama, etc. This situation is same for summer horror programs. In this hot summer, there are three big reasons why ‘Korean Ghost Stories’ should come back. First of all, the program features Korean traditional ghost tales, which had been a mainstay of summer. Second, our children should watch our own traditional contents, instead of the horror stories from unknown origins. Finally, it’s the return of Korean summer contents with humor, satire, moral lesson, and admirable stories. Keeping the original version’s ancient backdrop, ‘Korean Ghost Stories’ presents a total of eight different episodes with modern plots and original themes.


Episode 1 : Return of the Gumiho
Also known as : Return of the Nine-Tailed Fox / The Tale of the Nine-Tailed Fox


This tragedy takes place within a household given the curse of the gumiho, or nine-tailed fox. After the curse is given, the family guards their secret over twelve generations and 400 years. Within this family is one girl, played by Park Min-young. In seeming contrast to the somber nature of their family history, she’s lively and curious, and the youngest female in the household. Her older sister, on the other hand (played by Kim Hae-eun), is much more serious, obedient to the cause of hiding the family secret. Her brother (Kim Tae-ho), the eldest grandson in the family (thus its heir) is a thoughtful young man with a particular interest in modern sciences, but when push come to shove he’s a weak person. He does, however, have doubts about the family’s rules.

Cast :
Park Min Young as Lee Myung Ok
Kim Ha Eun as Lee Seo Ok
Kim Tae Ho as Lee Hyo Moon
Choi Dang Suk as Jung Myung
Park Woong as Lee Dae Gum
Jung Jae Soon as Lady Han (Lee Dae Gum’s wife)
Lee Yeon Doo as In Hong
Lee Dae Ro as the Elder
Nam Moon Chul as In Hong’s father
Lee Kan Hee as In Hong’s mother
Hong Yeo Jin as Hyo Moon’s mother


Episode 2 : Baby, Let's Go to Cheong Mountain
Also known as : Let’s Go to The Blue Mountains, My Love / Child, Let's Go to Cheong Mountain

Dang Gol Ne is a sorceress who tells a noblewoman, Yoon, that in order to save her ill child, Young Hwa, she must feed a baby's liver to Young Hwa. She hires Chun Soo, a man who digs up dead corpses to help her find the liver. The baby's mother realizes that she was tricked and goes in search of her baby only to find her child is died. Devastated, she commits suicide. After Young Hwa recovers, strange things start happening. All the while, the mother's ghost is still searching for her baby.

Cast :
Wang Hee Ji as Yoon (Young Hwa’s mother)
Go Jung Min as Kim
Jo Eun Sook as Dang Gol Ne
Ahn Suk Hwan as Chun Soo
Jo Yang Ja as (Han Jin Sa’s housemaid)
Park Hyung Jae as Han Jin Sa (Young Hwa’s father)
Kim So Hyun as Young Hwa


Episode 3 : Curse of the Sajin Sword
Also known as : The Cursed Sword


This story portrays the holy 'Sajin Sword' which involves the royal family that has fell twice into war. Yoon In is a very resourceful detective who is sent to a village to investigate the death of the blacksmith who made the important Sajin Sword. Moo Ryung and Sung Goo accompany him on his journey but they soon start feeling uncomfortable because of the blackened corpses that they find.

Cast :
Choi Soo Jong as Yoon In
Sa Kang as Moo Ryung
Lee Jung as Sung Goo
Park Ha Sun as Hyung Yi
Song Min Ji as Gae Hwa
Song Ok Sook as Gook Moo


Episode 4 : Ghost Letter
Also known as : Your Letter


The king, In Jong, suddenly dies only after ruling for nine months. After his death, a mysterious incident occurs where several deaths occur. Certain people believe that this incident is similar to a popular ghost story called "The Legend of Seol Gong Chan." The former king's childhood best friend, Sa Hyun, is a cold-hearted and righteous prosecutor who tries to figure out the matter of the mysterious deaths.

Cast :
Ahn Jae Mo as Sa Hyun
Kim Young Jae as King In Jong
Kim Jin Tae as Sang Sun
Lee Han Wie as Duk Bae
Lee Duk Hee as Queen Munjeong
Sa Hyun Jin as court lady


Episode 5 : Oh Goo the Exorcism
Also known as : Oh Gu Bachelor Ghost / Young Lord Oh Goo


Min Yoo Rim is a young girl who loves an exorcist, Yoon Ki Joo. But due to an unfortunate accident, she dies. As an exorcist, Ki Joo is able to distinguish between life and death. He arrives at a village in search of Yoo Rim's soul but finds that the village is in need of his help. Just when Ki Joo thought he had lost Yoo Rim, he meets another girl, Lee Chae Ok, who resembles Yoo Rim. Together they try to figure out what is behind the mysterious deaths in the village.

Cast :
Jae Hee as Yoon Ki Joo
Lee Young Eun as Min Yoo Rim / Lee Chae Ok
Jung Eun Pyo as Mak Suk
Kim Hak Chul as Ik Seon
Han Hye Kyung as Yeon Hwa


Episode 6 : Gisaeng House Ghost Story
Also known as : Ghost Story


A gisaeng house, Hwahonuk, fills with the disordered sounds of classical folk music. A powerful man drinks with a friend, but the friend winds up dead, smack in the middle of the house. Rumors spread that it’s the work of the ghost of a disappeared gisaeng who haunts Hwahonuk.

A young man appears at Hwahonuk one day, a pleasure-seeking artist who indulges in food and wine and entertainment. He takes out one of his drawings of a girl, which startles a gisaeng because it bears a striking resemblance to the gisaeng who’d disappeared from the house. That night, the disappeared girl’s corpse is discovered, and a string of deaths starts to be exposed…

Adding to the mystery is the mute keeper of secrets, a maidservant. One gisaeng pays no attention or interest to these bizarre rumors. Another, the mysterious head gisaeng, holds the key to the beginning of all these incidents.

Cast :
Lee Duk Hwa as Kim Won Ik
Yoon Joo Hee as So Wol
Lee Min Woo as Hyo Rang
Kim Kyu Chul as Sa Ddo
Yoo Hye Jung as Mae Hwa
Min Ji Young as Hwa Ran
Jang Chae Woo as Ae Hyang
Ban So Young as Wook Seom


Episode 7 : Demon's Story


A messenger to the underworld (who transports the dead across the divide) comes back to this (living) world and loses his roster of names. The roster is an essential part of the messengers’ work, as it decides who lives and dies. He has to find the list by the time the underworld gates reopen, and eventually hears that the list has somehow made its way into the governor’s keeping. He sets out to recover his list (intending to rob the governor) with the help of a thief whom he’s finagled into assisting him. But things keep getting complicated…

Cast :
Lee Won Jong
Kim Roe Ha
Oh Yong


Episode 8 : Returning Lady
Also known as : Loose Woman


The day of a nobleman’s only daughter Soo-yeon’s (Lee Jin) wedding to the son of a government official, the village is attacked and she’s dragged off by Chinese soldiers. She escapes and returns home, but all that awaits her is shunning and cold neglect from her husband’s family. In the end, her mother-in-law levels a false charge that she’s bearing another man’s child and uses that as an excuse to throw her out, and Soo-yeon returns to her parents’ home.

But her father is lying in his sickbed unconscious, and her illegitimate older brother has taken control of the property and assets. With his own wife having been dragged off to China like his sister, he lives in an unofficial marriage with another woman who helps him procure a poisonous, hallucinatory drug that often leads a sufferer to suicide. Using this drug, he poisons both sister and wife. After dying such unjust deaths, the women become vengeful ghosts who haunt a particular mountain ridge, seducing men and killing them.

Meanwhile, her husband has devoted himself to becoming a royal inspector. As an undercover agent to the king, he is assigned to finding out the cause of all the strange deaths on the mountain pass, where he comes face to face with the ghost of Soo-yeon…

Cast :
Lee Jin as Soo Yeon
Kang Sung Min as Jung In
Lee Ji Hyun

Official Site

Watch online with English sub.

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