Kdrama Review: Hotel Del Luna

This show was as beautiful as the moon and stars in a night sky — which is fitting given the names of Jang Man-Wol and Koo Chan Sung. This was an unforgettable show, an experience so deep and endearing, I will never forget it.

The concept of Hotel Del Luna excited me. It’s very unique in being about a hotel for the afterlife still tormented by the issues of the living. The show grappled with guilt, forgiveness, death and the meaning of a life of love even in grief very well. It was embodied very well in both the back story of Jang Man-Wol and the “ghost of the week” scenes. The first few episodes were really enjoyable in building chemistry between Koo Chan-Sung and Jang Man-Wol and giving us glimmers of her troubled past. Once the show reached episode 8 it hit a level where every trailing episode was magnificent, particularly in the three closing ones. To this day, I will revisit the show but avoid the finale because of how emotionally moving it is.

It also became clear by the end that the show was telling us this very crucial message: death isn’t the end but merely one stage of someone’s life. Separation by death doesn’t diminish the value of love and relationships, but makes living through those moments all the more special knowing that they are finite moments that can end at any point. This isn’t an easy thing to make peace with for a lot of people, but Hotel Del…