Hotel del Luna (Korean: 호텔 델루나) is a 2019 South Korean television series, starring Lee Ji-eun (also known by her Idol Singer Stage Name IU) and Yeo Jin-goo as the owner and manager, respectively, of the eponymous hotel that caters only to ghosts. Written by the Hong sisters, it aired on tvN from July 13 to September 1, 2019. It was the most viewed tvN drama of 2019, and it is the twelfth-highest-rated Korean drama in cable television history.
A millennium ago, Jang Man-wol (Lee) killed many people. To atone for her sins, she begins to manage Hotel del Luna, an establishment catering to ghosts. The hotel is not visible in its true form during the daytime, as humans can only come across the hotel under special circumstances such as an invitation or lunar eclipse. Its staff and clients are all souls/ghosts coming to terms with unfinished business in their former lives before they pass on to the afterlife and cycle of reincarnation.
Gu Chan-sung is introduced in the present day as a kindhearted little boy with a rather foolish father. It quickly begins, a loose yet faithful retelling of a tale as old as time: Chan-sung's father, on the brink of death, accidentally wanders into the lavish hotel and tries to pluck a flower as a present for his son. Man-wol finds him, but decides to spare him — as long as he gives Chan-sung (played by Yeo in adulthood) to her within 20 years, so he can work for her.
Hotel del Luna provides examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: After a dead girl phones "someone she loves" and it turns out to be one of the members of her favorite band, Chan-sung has this reaction. Man-wol tells him to stop snickering.
- Adaptation Deviation: The first episode follows the structure of Beauty and the Beast quite faithfully, but otherwise adds lots of changes and original flair to the whole story.
- Afterlife Antechamber: What the Hotel is. Souls of the dead that have no Unfinished Business simply cross the Samdo River into the afterlife. But those that, for whatever reason, are sticking around for a while, spend time in the Hotel del Luna. When they've resolved their issue, they are taken in a limo through a tunnel to the afterlife.
- Alone with the Psycho: Chan-sung follows a lead from Yu-na to who they believe is the serial killer. He soon finds out that the killer is actually one of his old classmates. And he is alone in a building with him.
- Ambiguous Ending: The last scene has the main characters out and about in a park. Seon-bi is jogging, Seo-hee is walking a dog, Hyun-joong is playing basketball with his buddies, and Man-wol and Chan-sung are having a romantic moment on a park bench. It's not quite obvious what's going on, but it seems that it's a future where all the characters have been reincarnated (if so it would be a Distant Finale).
- Anger Born of Worry:
- Many times Man-wol lashes out at Chan-sung is more due to the fact he put himself in danger. One notable instance is when Chan-sung goes to meet with a local water deity alone and Man-wol couldn't be in the same room to protect him if need be.
- Seon-bi and Seo-hee both hit Chan-sung while crying in relief when they thought he had died after confronting the serial killer.
- Artistic License – History: There's a comment in Episode 11 about Seoul having its first lunar eclipse in 39 years. Due to the wide areas in which they can be seen any one location will see solar eclipses more than that; Seoul saw seven total lunar eclipses just in the 1980s.
- Asshole Victim:
- The man who caused Detective Lee's death. He gets the Driven to Madness treatment with a serving of implied And I Must Scream.
- The original Yoo-na, whom Man-wol tricks into having her soul burn into nonexistence.
- Also applies to all the perverts who gleefully viewed and spread around a video of a woman being raped. Her badly disfigured, vengeful spirit emerges from the screen to kill them.
- The Atoner:
- Jang Man-wol is instantly established as one, after being manipulated into killing hundreds of innocents. She spends a millennium helping troubled souls move on as her way of atonement. Hotel del Luna itself offers opportunities for human beings to atone and help spirits pass onward.
- Chan-sung's father wisens up considerably after his awe-inspiring first-episode encounter with Man-wol, when he was initially a pretty lousy father.
- Beneath the Mask: At first, Man-wol hates that Chan-sung can "look into her."
- Big Eater: Man-wol, who despite her petite frame and height, is revealed to be a big foodie. It's implied that years of serving Hotel del Luna have made her bored, and constantly trying out new food is how she passes the time.
- Bigger on the Inside: Though it looks like your standard five-star hotel on the outside, Hotel del Luna is massive on the inside, complete with its own beach, a spacious garden and gazebo, a sprawling bar that seems to take up an entire floor by itself, and thousands of rooms that cater to the guests' every whim.
- A Birthday, Not a Break:
- For starters, Chan-sung's dad dies on his birthday. He gets better, but only because Man-wol makes him promise that his son would work for her in the future.
- Exactly twenty birthdays later, Chan-sung is swept back into Man-wol's world, much to his initial horror.
- Bittersweet Ending: The hotel's staff finally manage to cross over, but an equally heartbroken Chan-sung and Yoo-na are left behind in the world of the living. However, it's implied that Man-wol and the others will eventually reincarnate, and they will all find each other again someday.
- Bland-Name Product: In episode 6 a television series is being made for the "TvM" network. Hotel del Luna was made by TvN.
- Boy Meets Ghoul: Chan-sung, a normal human, meets Man-wol, a woman who is neither living or dead.
- An unusual case of Ghoul Meets Ghoul in the subplot about a romance between Yoo-na (actually the ghost of Soo-jung, inhabiting the body of Yoo-na, the girl that killed her) and Hyun-joong (just a ghost).
- Break the Cutie: Man-wol's entire life story is this. The rest of the hotel's staff's backstories qualify as well.
- Once upon a time, Man-wol was the leader of a pack of fearsome bandits. One day, they manage to take Chung-myung, the captain of the royal guard, hostage, and although their friendship begins on rather rocky ground, Man-wol and Chung-myung eventually fall in love. However, they are forced apart by the spiteful Princess Song-hwa, who then gives Chung-myung the Sadistic Choice of deciding between letting Man-wol die or letting Man-wol go ... in exchange for her people's lives. Man-wol is then Forced to Watch as her best friend, Yeon-woo, and their people are tortured before being hanged. This pushes Man-wol to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, which ends with her murdering the princess, Chung-myung, and various soldiers on her way out. For this, the deities punish her by forcing her to man Hotel del Luna until she sorts out her unfinished business, thus giving her immortality, but rendering her unable to cross over to the afterlife.
- Kim Seon-bi, the hotel's bartender, was once a scholar from the Joseon era. At a very young age, he managed to pass the state exam, but failed to pass the civil service exam every year after. To pass the time in between exams, he started to write about the lives of the common folk, which was a big taboo for a man of his rank. After being found out, he is publicly humiliated and forbidden from ever taking the exam. Heartbroken, he isolates himself from his wife and his faithful aide, and commits suicide.
- Next is Mrs. Cho, who is the closest thing the hotel has to a Team Mom. It's then revealed that she was once the wife of a nobleman, but when she failed to give him a son, his family took away her baby girl and left it to starve. When her daughter died, Mrs. Cho was Driven to Madness and went on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against her ex-husband and his family, which led her to being killed herself.
- Finally, we have Ji-hoon, the hotel's ever-cheerful bell boy. While transporting his beloved younger sister away from the Korean War, he was accidentally killed by his friend. Life becomes a little more enjoyable for him once he meets Yoo-na, but they're forced to part as well when his little sister—now an ailing old lady—dies, thus severing his last tie to life.
- The ghost introduced in Episode 7 and 8 was just an innocent college student, and then she got raped. Her video was passed around and treated as titillating and/or entertainment by her male peers. She was Driven to Suicide because of her rape finding its way to so many sites. Her spirit later gets destroyed by a deity because she was "harming humans".... This is after her sister reveals to Chan-sung, too, that the men who ruined her life were never punished by the authorities. Her entire life and afterlife are an enormous Trauma Conga Line. Man-wol even says that the deities must be crazy for letting the woman suffer and the perpetrators live a cushy life. At least CEO Jung, a multiple-time predator and the one responsible for the woman's rape, dies and has his crimes exposed by the end.
- The Cameo:
- Kim Soo-hyun appears at the very end of the series as the new owner of the hotel.
- There's a Running Gag about how Man-wol is obsessed with Kim Jun-hyun, a real person who is a comedian and the star of a Big Eater gourmet reality show. He pops up in episode 6 and Chan-sung gets his autograph for Man-wol.
- Celestial Bureaucracy: Downplayed for the Hotel del Luna staff. They do guide the spirits and generate options for them, but they're often a lot more flexible and amenable than the usual strident bureaucracy.
- Censored Child Death: In Episode 4, during a flashback scene of a little boy being run over by a speeding truck.
- Clumsy Copyright Censorship: A flashback in episode 10 is set in what's supposed to be an American bar. The makers of the show obviously didn't want to pay beer companies, so there's a sign for Stella Artois that actually says "TELLA ARTOI" and the sign for Guinness says UINNESS.
- Costume Porn: Obviously! The series revolves around an opulent supernatural hotel, so of course Man-wol wears lots of stunning ensembles.
- Crapsaccharine World: Hotel del Luna is nothing short of palatial. However, it is frequented by deeply troubled souls, and its staff are themselves tormented by their prolonged limbo.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Man-wol, under Chan-sung's steady influence.
- Don't Look Back: In episode 4, Chan Sung enters room 13 that houses a ghost who hates humans and seeing her would drive any human to madness. Jang Man manages to stop him from looking before the ghost could exit the closet and told him to not look behind. Chan Sung still almost turns around and Jang Man has to resort to a kiss to stop him.
- Dramatic Irony: The audience is well aware that the serial killer in episode 9 happens to be one of Chan-sung's old university classmates before the other characters do.
- Driven to Madness: Detective Lee takes revenge on the man responsible for her death by haunting him endlessly, her presence described as being like a jail for his soul.
- Exact Words: Mago urges Man-wol to leave Mi-ra alone, as the current reincarnation of Princess Song-hwa has no involvement with what happened in the past. Man-wol reassures her that she would not leave the hotel. She made no promise that she wouldn't invite Mi-ra into the hotel instead.
- Fairytale Motifs: Man-wol and Chan-sung have a "Beauty and the Beast" dynamic, but with the genders swapped. Man-wol is the "beast" who possesses beauty that's hidden by the cruelty that she developed over time; Chan-sung is the compassionate, handsome man who helps her heal.
- Family of Choice: By the penultimate episode, Chan-sung is happy to acknowledge the Hotel del Luna crew as one big found family.
- Fan Disservice: Before her death, a woman was Driven to Suicide by her male classmates spreading around a video of her rape. As a spirit, she wears much more revealing clothes than she ever did as a modestly dressed living human. However, her true form as a spirit is badly disfigured; the juxtaposition makes it all the more terrifying to her Asshole Victims who continue to try and watch her video even after she died.
- Fate Worse than Death:
- Jang Man-wol has spent a thousand years paying for her mistakes, and she doesn't know whether or not she'll ever be able to see the end of her "debt."
- The sleazeball who caused Detective Lee's death is explicitly condemned to this fate, via Driven to Madness. Man-wol later says that he won't be having much fun in the afterlife either.
- For Yoo-na: the girl you murdered stealing your body, then seeing your parents destroy your very soul, all while being a teenager would qualify.
- The Fellowship Has Ended: Once Man-wol has gotten over her 1300 years of hate and made peace with the spirit of Chung-myung, the Hotel del Luna goes out of business. All the dead characters pass over into the afterlife and the hotel literally disappears.
- Fish out of Water: Chan-sung is dragged into the world of spirits, albeit unwillingly at first.
- Foreshadowing: One point, Chan-sung sprinkles salt on himself to prevent any evil ghost/influence from harming him, only for his friend to later realize that he had accidentally used sugar instead of salt. Later on, Chan-sung deliberately takes a curse to protect his ex-girlfriend from Man-wol and collapses in agony from it.
- From Roommates to Romance: Subverted. Mi-ra ends up living with ex-boyfriend Chan-sung and friend Sanchez. Mi-ra had initially hoped to rekindle her romance with Chan-sung, thoguh she soon realizes than Chan-sung has feelings for Man-wol. Nothing happens between her and Sanchez either.
- Grand Theft Me: A sympathetic example. After an Alpha Bitch bully named Kim Yoo-na straight-up murders the girl she's bullying, Soo-jung, Soo-Jung's ghost seizes control of Yoo-na's body. After Man-wol manipulates the real Yoo-na's parents into unwittingly destroying their daughter's actual soul, Soo-jung keeps the body, living on under the identity of Yoo-na. (This also gives the new "Yoo-na" the ability to see ghosts, since she herself actually still is one.)
- I Love You Because I Can't Control You: Part of Man-wol's attraction to Chan-sung is because he is a normal human and yet, he is the only person who is not terrified of her and isn't afraid to speak his mind towards her.
- I See Dead People: In the first episode, Man-wol gives Chan-sung the sight, seeing as he is about to start working at her hotel. Yoo-na has this ability as well, though it's because of the fact that she is a ghost inhabiting another human's body rather than a given ability.
- Innocent Innuendo:
- When meeting with Chan-sung twenty years later, Man-sol approaches him very intimately to give him a "birthday gift", leaving the viewer to assume she is about to kiss him. In reality, she only needed to get close enough to give him the ability to see ghosts.
- When Chan-sung reveals that he started having dreams of Man-wol's past, she throws him onto her bed and says "let's sleep". Flustered and horrified, Chan-sung refuses, seeing how she is his boss. What Man-wol actually meant is that she wanted him to go to sleep so she could clarify if he was actually seeing her past.
- Interclass Friendship: Chan-sung and Sanchez met while in university at the United States and became good friends, with Chan-sung staying at Sanchez's place while in Korea. Chan-sung is from a lower class background while Sanchez comes from a wealthy background.
- Irony:
- Yeong-su, in his past life, was a thief and a bandit. In the present time, he is a cop.
- Yeon-woo was killed on the orders of Princess Song-hwa. Their reincarnated selves, Yeong-su and Mi-ra, started dating.
- The Journey Through Death: The dead must first cross the long bridge across the Samdo River, beneath purple skies and shooting stars. The trip takes 49 days, and over its course the deceased lose all memories of their former lives, rady to sojourn in the other world, then be re-born.
- Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Man-wol enters a press conference decked out in a resplendent, regal purple gown, carrying a rifle. Ultimately subverted, however, as this visual is only used to taunt her victim. She doesn't actually fire at him, and just messes up his mental state.
- Love Triangle:
- In the past, there is Princess Song-hwa who is in love with the captain of her guard Chung-myung but he only has eyes for Man-wol.
- In the present time, Man-wol is falling for Chan-sung and becomes jealous of his ex-girlfriend Mi-ra when she becomes involved in his life again. It also doesn't help that Mi-ra is the reincarnation of Princess Song-hwa.
- Manly Tears:
- Chan-sung when Man-wol finally forgives Chung-myung and takes him to the afterlife. It takes her a long time to return, causing Chan-sung to think that she'd crossed over herself without even saying goodbye. Happens again when the two share one final embrace in the series finale, right before Man-wol leaves for the afterlife.
- Sanchez when his girlfriend, Veronica, dies right before he could propose to her.
- A Minor Kidroduction: Chan-sung gets introduced as a little boy.
- My Death Is Just the Beginning: The serial killer/Ji-won chooses to jump off a building to their death, just so they could become a ghost and haunt Chan-sung.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: If Chan-sung hadn't revealed the existence of ghosts to Ji-won, the latter would not have committed suicide to become a vengeful ghost.
- Number of the Beast: When Ji-won the dead Serial Killer is led to room 666 at the hotel, he chortles that it's a cliche. Inside are the ghosts of the seven victims. The camera does not show what happens to Ji-won inside the room, but judging from the screams, it's bad.
- Only Sane Man: Chan-sung, oh so much. In between wrangling the hotel's more bizarre cases and keeping Man-wol's hedonistic tendencies in check, the poor boy regularly has his hands full.
- Parents as People: Chan-sung's father is a walking disaster, but genuinely does love his son.
- Phone Call from the Dead: Quite literally and offered as a service by the Hotel del Luna. For a price, the hotel sells the ability for the ghosts there to be able to talk to the living while the living are asleep and dreaming. They even have an actual phone that they use to do it.
- Product Placement:
- A very very obvious instance when Chan-sung takes a Nescafé coffee pod, the brand shown in closeup for the camera, puts it in a Nescafé coffee machine with the brand shown in closeup for the camera, and brews a cup of coffee.
- Another episode has Chan-sung's roommate Sanchez brewing a cup of Tara brant tea.
- Purgatory and Limbo: Basically what the hotel's main function is. Most of the ghosts living there have unfinished business, and Man-wol and her staff cater to whatever it is, so long as it is within their abilities.
- The Resenter: Man-wol is not pleased to find out that not only Chan-sung's ex-girlfriend was none other than the reincarnation of Princess Song-hwa who had ruined Man-wol's life in the past but also lived a happy, successful life whereas Man-wol is stuck at the hotel for over a thousand years. She creates a curse to twist Mi-ra's memories that she was never loved by her family, purely to spite an innocent girl who has no memory of her past life.
- The Reveal: The series contains a handful of them in regards to the subplots. On the other hand, in regards to the main plot, these are the most notable examples:
- Mago isn’t a single deity, but is a conglomerate deity comprised of twelve individual personas each with their own purpose in the Celestial Bureaucracy.
- The rules and loopholes of the Celestial Bureaucracy are expanded in detail with each successive episode.
- The former lives of Choi Seo-hee, Kim Seon-bi, and Ji Hyun-joong are gradually elaborated on as the series progresses.
- The past Joseon-period incarnations of Yeon-woo / Officer Park Young-soo, and Lee Mi-ra and how they resulted in Jang Man-wol’s current circumstances are gradually unveiled as the series continues.
- Seol Ji-won is a serial killer.
- Running Gag: Man-wol claiming that various foods relate to what they were previously working on, in some roundabout way, just as a thinly veiled excuse to eat something she was craving (e.g. saying that tigers are somehow related to red bean porridge, and that looking at mountains will have to make you hungry for fish).
- Serial Killer: Ji-won, one of Chan-sung's old classmates, turns out to be a serial killer. Yoo-na brings the ghosts of his victims to the hotel.
- "Shut Up" Kiss: In Episode 4, Man-wol gives Chan-sung one of these, to keep him from provoking the ghost who hates humans even further.
- Stepford Smiler: The hotel's staff. They have nothing against working for Man-wol and her hotel, and they really have genuine love and respect for one another, but it's quite obvious that years of being unable to cross over has taken its toll.
- The Stinger: After the end credits and the usual behind-the-scenes photos of cast and crew, there's one more scene. Several of the Magos (it seems there are 12) have gathered to figure out who will the the new owner of the hotel. The series ends with an unnamed character played by Kim Soo-hyun (a pretty big star in Korean film) showing up as the new owner of the hotel, which has been re-named the Hotel Blue Moon. If this was a Sequel Hook nothing came of it.
- Strangled by the Red String: Invoked. Happens quite literally between a ghost bride and Chan-sung in one of the episodes.
- Take It to the Bridge: The dead complete their journey to the afterlife by walking over a bridge over the (mythical) Samdo River. Once you walk over you can't come back.
- Team Mom: Mrs. Choi for the entire hotel staff. Even aloof Man-wol eventually admits that she has always regarded her as such.
- Total Eclipse of the Plot: Normally, mortals only see the fairly humble front building to the hotel and cannot see the high-rise "Guest Hotel of the Moon" right behind it. Episode 11 reveals that mortals can see both the whole hotel and the ghosts inside it during lunar eclipses. Naturally, a lunar eclipse is happening in that episode and a mortal, in fact an old manager of the hotel, wants to use it.
- Unlimited Wardrobe: Man-wol has a *lot* of clothes, and going through some 100 outfits in 16 episodes, never wearing the same outfit twice.
- Weirdness Magnet: It's commented that since gaining the ability to see ghosts, Chan-sung has a habit of finding ghosts and is the one to bring them to the hotel.
- Wham Line: When Man-wol interrogates the jerk who spread the rape video that caused the ghost in Room 13 to turn vengeful, he has this to say, implying that he's done it so many times by now, their faces are practically interchangeable. A furious Man-wol, after being stunned into silence, understandably leaves him to be crushed by an oncoming train.Man-wol: You did it, how could you not know? Put some effort into it!CEO Jung: Yes, yes, I did it! It's just ... I don't know which one of the girls she is.
- Violently Protective Girlfriend: Mess with Chan-sung and Man-wol will bring on a world of pain for said person.
