Spooky in Love – K-wave Insider

Netflix Korea is full of blood, ghosts, and dark fantasy right now. This one is the palate cleanser. No spoilers.

Look at Netflix Korea right now and one thing is obvious: summer is ghost story season. The East Palace is dark fantasy. Agent Kim Reactivated is soaked in action and blood. Against that backdrop, Spooky in Love feels like the palate cleanser — a romantic comedy with ghosts, crime cases, and just enough horror to keep it from becoming too sweet.

A Romance That’s Also a Procedural — and Somehow Never Boring

Park Eun-bin is, honestly, one of those actors you can trust blind. Smart, magnetic, and internationally known now for playing an autistic lawyer in Extraordinary Attorney Woo. She has never felt like an actress chasing prettiness for its own sake.

Here she plays a chaebol heiress and CEO of the Reina Hotel who can see ghosts. She’s been able to see them since a childhood yacht accident, and there’s a catch: anyone who touches her can suddenly see them too — which is exactly why she’s kept people at arm’s length her whole life.

Her counterpart is Yang Se-jong, playing a prosecutor who’s more afraid of ghosts than anyone. He crosses paths with Yeo-ri at a crime scene, and suddenly he’s confronting things no amount of common sense can explain.

The structure is what makes this combination work. Each episode has a case that resolves quickly, running alongside one larger mystery that keeps building underneath. That’s why it never drags. Park Eun-bin’s performance is exactly what you’d expect — strong. Yang Se-jong is a notch behind her, but solid. The comedy never feels forced either, which makes the whole thing easy to sit through.

A Third Character the Original Never Had

Ong Seong-wu plays Kang Min-hwan, a character who doesn’t exist anywhere in the original film. He’s the heir to the CL Group and CEO of CL Raymond Hotel — Reina Hotel’s rival. He’s Yeo-ri’s close friend on the surface, but there’s ambition hiding behind that smile. It’s reportedly Ong Seong-wu’s first villain-adjacent role.

Where Yeo-ri ends up between these two men is the show’s other major thread.

A Remake That Leans Into Spectacle

This series is a remake of the 2011 film Spellbound (오싹한 연애). Park Eun-bin herself put it well at the press conference: the film had two hours, the drama has twelve episodes — meaning at least six times more new material had to be built in.

The original film had a darker tone. This one takes a completely different approach. Fitting a chaebol heiress and hotel CEO, the screen is filled with luxury brands and glossy architecture. The production value shows in the location work too — plenty of gorgeous settings throughout.

The case-of-the-week structure keeps things moving without ever feeling stuck. If you want something funny and romantic that doesn’t ask much of your brain, this is exactly that.

One complaint, though: the chaebol setup feels overly familiar. Korean dramas lean on rich heirs and corporate succession conflicts so often that even when it works, it can feel like familiar machinery turning again.

The Verdict — Easy, Glossy, and Exactly What Summer Needs

If you want something that doesn’t leave your stomach in knots, doesn’t demand heavy theory, and still gives you ghosts, romance, comedy, and cases to follow, Spooky in Love works. It’s not trying to be the next Kingdom or The East Palace. It’s lighter by design — and that’s exactly why it lands.

Basic Info

English Title: Spooky in Love
Korean Title: 오싹한 연애
Based on: the 2011 film Spellbound (오싹한 연애)
Streaming: tvN and Netflix simultaneous release, July 18, 2026
Episodes: 12 (Saturdays & Sundays, through August 23)
Director: Lee Min-soo
Writer: Choi Jung-mi
Cast: Park Eun-bin (Cheon Yeo-ri), Yang Se-jong (Ma Gang-uk), Ong Seong-wu (Kang Min-hwan)