The Phantom Lawyer… I have to admit, I knew next to nothing about this show when I started watching it. The premise was intriguing, though something I’ve seen before to a certain extent. I-rang is an unemployed lawyer struggling to find work after being blacklisted due to the actions of his late father, a disgraced, corrupt prosecutor. When I-rang decides to open his own independent firm, he moves into a building with a history of shamanic rituals, which leads to him getting possessed by ghosts who have unfinished business, usually involving murder or frame-ups.
I was enjoying this a lot, until the final arc happened. What should have been an incredibly emotional conclusion ended up feeling flat. The story meanders to the point of harming the overall product, relying on convoluted explanations that ruin the momentum.
With beautifully shot scenes, a talented cast, and an intriguing setup, this had the potential to be fantastic, but it ends up being just okay. There’s an attempt at social commentary through ghost stories involving corruption and power structures, but it stays far too surface-level to make a real point. A great example of this is my favorite arc, the Su-a murder story. While the show attempts to critique social class and the K-pop industry’s deep-rooted exploitation of young girls, it forgets to actually follow through. Su-a’s heartbreaking death only shortened the pain she was bound to feel in that environment. The show looks at her case through an isolated lens, ignoring that her story is a direct result of unhealthy industry dynamics.
I might be in the minority to say this, but that describes almost every story here: it’s nearly there, but it refuses to look underneath. In the end, that’s the whole show.
