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Delivery Man – Full Review
Welcome to Delivery Man – Full Review. A taxi driver meets a young ghost and starts his own ghost cab service. If you haven’t watched this drama yet, I recommend checking out my unspoiled review here.
Delivery Man
♥ Aired: March 1 – April 6, 2023
♥# of Episodes: 12
♥Where to Watch: Viki
♥Genre: Supernatural Rom-Com
♥Starring: Yoon Chan Young and Bang Min Ah
The Story
A taxi driver pick up a beautiful young woman. But he soon finds out that she is a ghost with no memory of who she is, why she is dead, or where she needs to go next. And if all that wasn’t bad enough, she is mysteriously tethered to his taxi. And when her presence begins making his other customers physically ill, they devise a plan to offer a service dedicated to granting the final wishes of ghosts trying to make their way to the other side. As they continue searching for clues into her identity, they find an unexpected connection between them that could put them both in danger.
The Leads
Yoon Chan Young as Seo Yeong Min
After the sudden death of his mother, Seo Yeong Min is forced to give up his own dreams of becoming a police officer to support him and his grandmother. The easiest way to do that is to drive the taxi his mother drove before she died. But when he accidentally picks up a ghost who can’t leave his taxi for some unexplainable reason, all of his customers feel ill when they ride with him. Desperate to find a way to make enough money to keep them from losing their home, he and his new ghost friend, Ji Hyeon decide to start a wish fulfilling service for ghosts. And in their free time, he is hoping to solve the mystery of who Ji Hyeon is and how she can peacefully pass over into death. But the longer he spends with her, the more he wishes she could find some way to stay.
Seo Yeong Min has been left with a heavy responsibility to provide for his grandmother, which makes him seem overly focused on money. But in reality, this very attitude is the proof that he is a caring and generous person, who is willing to sacrifice his own dreams and happiness to take care of the people he cares about. The character of Yeong Min is pretty straightforward, and there isn’t much complexity to it. But that has nothing to do with Yoon Chan Young’s acting ability. He played the role as it was written well enough, I think. This may not be his strongest performance, but it was a pleasant watch.
Bang Min Ah as Kang Ji Hyeon
Kang Ji Hyeon is a detective who is killed in the line of duty and loses all of her memories. Now as a ghost, all she knows is that, besides other ghosts, Yeong Min is the only person who can see her, and she is tethered to his taxi. Luckily, the question of who she is gets answered fairly quickly, but she still has no idea how she died or where she is supposed to go now. And since she is stuck in Yeong Min’s taxi and causing him to lose any income he would be able to make, she comes up with the idea to cater to ghosts. And that stroke of inspiration will eventually lead them down the correct path to answering all of her questions about her own life.
Kang Ji Hyeon is bright and cheerful. She has a strong determination and sense of justice. These qualities are what lead her to personally confront a serial killer. But her biggest regret is that decision unintentionally leads to the death of Yeong Min’s mother. As the layers of her identity unfold, she is only more driven to catch the person responsible and see him punished so she can leave this world. Little does she know, her biggest surprise is yet to be revealed. That she isn’t actually dead, but just in a coma! Bang Min Ah has an outgoing personality that translates well with this kind of character. Her enthusiasm felt sincere and infectious. I think she was a nice fit for this role.
Supporting Characters
Kim Min Seok as Do Kyu Jin
Do Kyu Jin is the charming doctor who tried to save Yeong Min’s mom after her accident. He is well liked and respected. But behind his facade, he is actually a cold blooded serial killer who gets joy out of seeing other people in misery. He is behind the deaths of pretty much every ghost we see in this drama, whether directly or indirectly. His own childhood trauma has made him.a psychopath who thinks he is unstoppable.
Park Hye Jin as Park Bun Ja
Park Bun Ja is Yeong Min’s grandmother. She spends a lot of time at home with Ji Hyeon. Even though she can’t actually see her, she seems to sense her presence, so she carries on one-sided conversations with her. Bun Ja loves her grandson and does her best to care for him. Whether that is cooking him meals or trying to find him a girlfriend, she puts in her best efforts.
Park Jung Hak as Kang Hyeong Soo
Kang Hyeong Soo is a police officer who is Ji Hyeon’s father. After hearing that Yeong Min is trying to solve his mother’s case, which obviously ties into Yeong Min’s accident, he begins to team up with Yeong Min in a private investigation of their own. He has kept the fact that Ji Yeon is not dead to himself, for her safety. But after meeting Yeong Min, he begins to wonder if he can trust him with his secret.
Things I Liked
♥ Do Kyu Jin
Kim Min Seok is really the best part of this drama, in my opinion. He can go from smooth, charming hero to cold, calculating villain in the blink of an eye. And it’s all totally believable. It was easy to see how eveyone could be fooled by him, and I thought the character was written well. I appreciated the fact that they drew us in first, before they started to hint that there was more going on under the surface. That made him feel more diabolical to me, that he could be so nice to people’s faces and a stone-cold killer behind their backs.
♥ Balanced Genres
It would have been easy for this drama to get into a darker, more heavy tone. But it was kind of nice that this one shied away from spooky CGI and violence. Those things did exist to a degree, but it never became the defining tone. This one stayed true to it’s rom-com roots and even managed to fit in some moments of comedy, without ever feeling disjointed. That kind of blend can easily come off as akward and ill-timed. I think this one was true to their advertising, and managed to keep things pretty upbeat for a drama about helping dead people.
♥ Connecting the Dots
Although I definitely feel like the whole serial killer thing has become a bit overused recently, especially in rom-com style settings, I did appreciate how this drama managed to connect all the stories together in the end. Even early cases that didn’t seem to be connected at all, fit into Kyu Jin’s reign of terror. As far as the ghosts and their role in the overall story, everything fit very tidily into the main storyline.
Things I Didn’t Like
Taxi Drivers
I really enjoyed the taxi driver side characers, but I wish they had found a way to make them more central to the overall story. It would have been fun if their taxis could have run back-up for helping the ghosts. I’m sure there is some comedy missed there, with them driving ghosts they can’t actually see. It just felt like they tried to establish each drivers individual character and then they didn’t do anything with them. For me, it just felt like another case of missed story and character potential.
Kyu Jin and Nurse Heo
Maybe this was just me, but I found the whole relationship between Kyu Jin and Nurse Heo to be rather creepy! First of all, I am sure they played around with the age thing a bit. In the first scene where Nurse Heo shows up at Kyu Jin’s grandfather’s house, she is already at least in her 20’s while he is a young boy. But with each scene, the age gap seems to get smaller. In the present age, she still seems a bit older but not too much. But knowing that she met Kyu Jin when he was just a child, and that she obviously has some weird romantic connection with him now, albeit obviously one-sided, doesn’t sit well with me.
Phone Tether
I’m not sure that I ever got a clear idea of how or why the phone tether idea works. Is it only because Ji Hyeon isn’t actually dead that she needs a source of power? And how does the phone allow Yeong Min and later Kyu Jin to see her? The whole search for the battery bit made a fun distraction, but after making it through the entire series, I still don’t really understand the rules of how this tether thing goes.
The Ending
“Delivery Man” connects all the dots to give us the happy ending we were all hoping for. Nurse Hee Yeon confesses to everything and then kills herself in jail. It’s sad to say that her death was as pointless as the whole life that she lived devoted to Kyu Jin, since Kyu Jin is still caught in the end, with the evidence to keep him behind bars for a very long time. Yeong Min finally finds out that Ji Hyeon is really alive, just in time for her to wake up. Although they tease us into thinking she might not remember her time as a ghost, she does remember everything, including her feelings for Yeong Min. Yeong Min gets to see his mom one last time before she passes on. And although Ji Hyeon can no longer see ghosts, Yeong Min still has his ability. Ji Hyeon gives a very heartfelt apology to his mom, and she tells Ji Hyeon that she is happy to know someone will be at Yeong Min’s side. In the final scene, we learn that Ji Hyeon has transferred to the violent crimes unit and Yeong Min has decided to continue running his ghost taxi service, while helping Ji Hyeon with her cases on their off hours.
Should I Watch
“Delivery Man” is a crime mystery/ghost drama crossover. Despite those 2 genre, which can be a bit dark or heavy, this one stays pretty light. Of course, like other dramas that depict granting final wishes, some of the side stories are touching and bit heartbreaking, but not extremely emotional. It’s a bittersweet kind of sad that is to be expected when you’re dealing with ghosts who are already dead. The characters are simple and straight-forward and the over-arcing mystery is a bit predictable as it goes, but the story is fun and it all pulls together well in the end. I give “Delivery Man” a 7 out of 10 ramen.
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