Kdrama 2020

Mystic Pop Up Bar (Kdrama Review & Summary)

AKA: Ssang Gap Pocha

Global Granary Drama Recommendation

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• Genre: Supernatural, Ghost, Mystery, Drama, Food, Business
• Release Date: 20 May 2020
• Origin: South Korea, Adapted from a webtoon
• Kdrama: 12 Episodes

Cast:

• Hwang Jung Eum as Weol Joo
• Yook Sung Jae as Han Kang Bae
• Choi Won Young as Chief Gwi
• Lee Joon Hyeok as Department Head Yeum
• Jung Da Eun as Kang Yeo-Rin
• Song Geun Hee as Crown Prince
• Park Ha Na as Song Mi Ran
• Yeom Hye-ran as God of the Underworld, Yeomradaewang
• Na In Woo as Kim Won Yeong

So excited for this series.  Yeah another Hwang Jung Eum drama.

The drama is about a mysterious Ssanggab Cart Bar which open up at night. The midnight diners are varied, from the living and the undead with their concerns and tribulations.

Interesting!

Episode 1 Sexual Harassment

Wol Joo was a daughter of a shaman and she seemed to have inherited her mother’s power, skill, and talent.  At a young age, she became popular in their neighborhood for helping those in a coma or ith problem in their sleep.

Her biggest client  was the comatose crown prince

Found a magnet.

Wol Joo was given a chopstick hairpin by her mother, who told her that whoever she pointed the hairpin to, the person show most wanted will come to her.

Episode 2 Love Triangle

Wol Joo used everything she’s got to get Han Kang Bae to join her mystic bar so that she could complete 100,000 cases to make up for her bad deeds, otherwise within a month her five-hundred-year-old self is just going to vanish.

Episode 3 Old Boy’s Network

Episode 4 – Dreamland Lottery Festival

Episode 5 – The Case of the Wandering Spirit

Episode 6 – Conceptual Dream

Episode 7

Episode 8 – Romeo & Juliet

This drama is getting more intriguing.  Who is the reincarnation of the Crown Prince/Emperor?  Was it Chief Gwi, who is so devoted to Wol Jo or was it Kang Bae, who was almost inconsolable when he can’t find the Pop Up Bar anymore.  He was missing Wol Jo and Chief Gwi.

The love triangle was hilariously funny as well as poignant and rather tragic.

Wol Jo and Chief Gwi were avid fans of the Romeo & Juliet Unbound.  The drama was giving another perspective to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and where Juliet at first ended up choosing Lord Montague rather than his son, Romeo.

Juliet said that after a conference with her father, they concurred that Lord Montague can give her a better life.

Romeo and Juliet were Kang Bae and Wol Joe, while Lord Montague was Chief Gwi.  Of course in the end, Romeo got his Juliet.

Anyway, the unbound version was written by a girl who had just passed away in a flat she was renting and now haunting.

Wol Jo and Chief Gwi got to hear about the haunting from Kang Bae as he was renting the top floor of the flats.  Wol Jo and Chief Gwi got so interested when they found out that the girl was the author of the Unbound because the drama had been dropped and there was no ending to it.

They spoke to the girl who said that she can’t leave for the afterlife because she was still waiting for the delivery man who was her lover.  Because of misunderstanding they parted.

Wol Jo found the delivery man and everything was cleared.

Wol Jo’s back story is also getting clearer.

The Crown Prince promised to always protect her but when her mother was killed, she can’t get to him.  And then she found out that he was going to marry someone else.

Episode 9

Episode 10

Chief Gwi may have made a deal with Yeomradaewang to send him to hell rather than Wol Jo.

Finally, Wol Jo realised that Chief Gwi was her once upon a time over, Crown Prince Yi Hoon.

Episode 11

Yeo-rin and Kang Bae are finally together as a couple but they were having problem.  Suddenly Yeo-rin hears a voice telling her to abandon Kang Bae everytime he touches her, even if only to hold her hand.

Because of this phenomena, Yeo-Rin started to distance herself from Kang Bae.

Kang Bae was sad but he did not want to impose so he did not try to bother her.

But one day Yeo-Rin told him that she hears voices and would seek medical help for it.

The help came from Wol Jo rather than from a psychiatrist.

Wol Jo gave Yeo Rin her magic potion.

Yeo Rin turned into Cinnabar, who live 500 years ago, at the same time as Wol Jo.

From Cinnabar, Wol Jo was able to put pieces together to finally learn what really happened 500 years ago.

She made up with Chief Gwi.  It was so lovely and poignant I can’t help crying.

And then almost the next instant, I was smiling because of the sweetness between Kang Bae and Yeo Rin.  She can finally touch or be touched by Kang Bae without hearing any voice.  So cute.

But it was not a happy ever after yet, because the story just got very grim but very exciting.

Chief Yeom possessed by his evil son, Kim Won Yeong’s spirit had Wol Jo cornered and was squeezing her throat when Kang Bae turned up.

Kang Bae tried to rescue Wol Jo but to no avail.  Kim Won Yeong’s spirit was just too malevolently strong.

Then suddenly a voice said to let go of Wol Jo.  Then Kang Bae got up from where he fell when Kim Won Yeong pushed him away.

Kang Bae was glowing and it seems he had the spirit of an enchanted tree, which died when Wol Jo hanged herself on its branches 500 years ago not knowing that she was already pregnant.  Her baby got reincarnated with the spirit of the tree within him, but he does have a sad, lonely life in each reincarnation.

Exciting end tomorrow!

Episode 12

Genuinely love this series.

I cannot recommend this drama enough.  I just love it.

I cried so much in many of the scenes.

It was action-packed and very dramatic.

Poor Kang Bae was at the thick of it.  He realised that Wol Jo was his mother and Chief Gwi was his father.  But instead of having a good family bonding, both his parents will leave him permanently after Wol Jo had completed her 100,000 grudge and Kang Bae, life misfortune will come to an end.

Kang Bae did see a taste of modern family life with the bickering Chief Gwi and Wol Jo in a short dream.

Unfortunately, it was not as easy as they expected because the renegade Kim Wol Yeon was still out there.

The confrontation, in the end, was so sad because Kim Wol Yeon was determined to break the family up in whatever mean.  He threw chief Gwi’s burning lance at Wol Jo but Chief Gwi run towards Wol Jo to get the full force of it and he died in her arms.

Meanwhile, Kim wol Yeon pour the magical wine into Kang Bae’s throat.  The effect was them together going into the steep spiral staircase to hell.

But an inaugurated Wol Jo turned up and freeze Kim Wol Yeon.  She then took Kang Bae with her but Kim Wol Yeon managed to get out of his enchantment and when he fell to hell he took Wol Joo with him.

For a while Kang Bae managed to hold on to her and promised not to let her go.

She told him that he was not letting her go, it was her letting him go.

He piteously called to her, “mom”

But it was really too late.  He saw her plummeting to the blackness below.

Poor Kang Bae was inconsolable.

And then Yeomradaewang, the god of the underworld had a meeting with Wol Jo.  She said that she knew that she will end up in hell because she did not manage to complete the 100,000.

Yeomradaewang told her that she had good news.  Her self-sacrifice counted so she managed to finished the 100,000 and as a reward she can be reincarnated.  She was given a choice of being the daughter of a CEO, a hotel magnate, she could be the new Paris Hilto or a singing superstar.

Wol Jo said she was not interested with reincarnation.  Instead she would like to continue to do what she was doing in the human world.  She said that the last time she admitted that she was not too serious doing her job but promised it would be a different matter this time.

Yeomradaewang was actually pleased with her choice and told her that she can have her Mystic Pop-Up Bar and she will be giving her a personal protection as well .

Chief Gwi was back.  So cute together, despite no overt romantic kissing or touching.  Their longing looks made them more adorably romantic.

Kang Bae was on his way home, dejected and unhappy when he had to double back when he so from his periphery the Pop-up bar. And true enough inside were her parents bickering as usual.

Love this drama.

Netflix, Season 2, please.  It might be a bit hard because Yook Sung Jae is currently enlisted in the military.  It will be 21 months from 11 May 2020.