It’s easy to look at a plot-free first episode of a show and get frustrated that you’re not getting much insight into characters or story. But in a few cases, that kind of atmospheric first episode serves to set a mood. But if you connect to it may depend on the mood you’re in when you watch it. A new Korean horror drama on Hulu has just such a first episode.
LIGHT SHOP: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A woman stares into the windows of a brightly-lit store that’s filled with light bulbs and lighting fixtures.
The Gist: Jung Won-young (Ju Ji-hoon) owns a light shop at the end of a dark alley; he stays open all night, his brightly-lit storefront inviting all sorts of people to come in. Some want to buy lightbulbs. Others are there to look around. But still others pop in and out for no apparent reason. When they come near a certain bare light bulb near where he sits at the front desk, the way the bulb behaves tells him whether the person he’s talking to is alive or dead.
For instance, a man named Hyun-min (Uhm Tae-goo) keeps seeing a woman, Lee Ji-young (Kim Seol-hyun), sitting at his bus stop every day, tapping on the bench, suitcase at the ready. Even when it rains, she sits there, staring into the distance. When he talks to her, she claims they’ve met already. He finally gets her to move off the bench, and she insists they go back to his flat.
A nurse, Kwon Young-ji (Park Bo-young), sees a man wandering around the ICU at the hospital where she works, but after she goes to take care of a coding patient, he disappears. That man also visits the light shop. Seung-won (Park Hyuk-kwon), who is always wet and cold, wanders in, amazed at how bright and warm it is. He goes to touch an old bare bulb, and Won-young tells him that customers aren’t allowed to touch the merchandise. Hye-won (Kim Sun-hwa), wearing red high-heeled shoes and soaked from the rain, comes into the shop and almost immediately leaves.
Finally, Ji-woong (Kim Ki-hae), a high school student, comes into the shop, as she has done most days since she was a kid. She seems to be the only real company Won-young gets every night. He also thinks she might have the same gift he does.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Light Shop is somewhat Sixth Sense-ish, leaving the viewer to infer a lot by references and circumstances without coming right out and saying what is happening.
Our Take: Light Shop, written by Kang Full based on his webtoon of the same name, has a very unusual way of going about telling its story. The first episode doesn’t have plot, per se; it’s more of an exercise in getting us to meet who might come in and out or Won-young’s shop on a given night. The only real clue that something is amiss is at the very end, when there’s a little blood and a little bit of a sign that the light shop owner keeps the store open for more than just selling a couple of light bulbs to people who wander by.
If you had no idea what the show was about, you might either be intrigued by the first episode’s oblique storytelling or completely turned off by it; we can’t see a way that someone would just be “meh” about it. What you do know is that some of these people who wander in and out of the shop are lost — not directionally, but emotionally or mentally. Could they be spirits who are just wandering the dark streets, or in the case of one of the stories, sitting at a bus stop all night long?
Light Shop is definitely a show you need to have patience with. The setup is certainly intriguing, but if you want some more immediate propulsion to your story, you might move on to something else after the first episode.
Sex and Skin: Nothing in the first episode.
Parting Shot: Hyun-joo sees Ji-young walking out of Hyun-min’s apartment, with a very full and blood-dripping suitcase.
Sleeper Star: Shin Eun-soo’s character Hyun-joo has the interest and curiosity to believe Won-young when he says he can see what others can’t.
Most Pilot-y Line: When people ask Won-young if he’s open late, he always responds, “Yes, you could say that.”
Our Call: STREAM IT. As atmospheric and plot-free the first episode is, Light Shop is interesting enough to keep watching, mainly because the shop itself is such a unique setting for this kind of story.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Light Shop’ On Hulu, About The Late Night Visitors Of A Korean Lighting Store — Both The Living and The Dead appeared first on Decider.
