Shamanic Chaos Begins: Head Over Heels Episode 1 is All Cho Yi-hyun
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Park Seong-ah is a teenage shaman, busy juggling ghosts, demons, whiny customers in need of talismans, and high school exams. And just when she resolves to study harder, she falls head over heels in love with the handsome Bae Gyeon-woo, a client dragged by his grandmother to see the shaman because he is almost always in mortal danger.
Directed by Kim Yong-wan, the Korean series Head Over Heels is adapted from the webtoon Gyeonuwa Seonnyeo (견우와 선녀) by An Su Min. Actor Cho Yi-hyun (Hospital Playlist, All of Us Are Dead) plays lead protagonist Park Seong-ah, known as “Fairy Cheon Ji” to her shamanic clientele, to whom she appears in a veil.
Choo Young-woo plays the handsome new student Bae Gyeon-woo, who has no clue that his classmate Sung-a is the same shaman he visited with his grandmother. With ghosts and evil spirits constantly targeting him and his death predicted to be just days away, Sung-a does everything she can to protect Gyeon-woo – even if, to him, she comes off as an overly clingy, slightly unhinged class girl obsessed with him for no reason.
Episode one of ‘Head Over Heels’ opens with a colorful early morning shamanic exorcism-like ritual being performed by Seong-ah. It’s a colorful, comedic introductory scene, where a stubborn spirit refuses to leave the human realm, making poor Seong-ah late for school! Cha Kang-yoon plays Pyo Ji-ho, possibly the only friend Seong-ah has at school, and also, it’s clear he has a huge crush on her, but she isn’t interested. Instead, it’s love at first for her when she see the handsome Bae Gyeon-woo, clearly cursed to die too soon, but death will have to wait since Seong-ah wants him to be her boyfriend.
Cho Yi-hyun is endearingly cute as Seong-ah in the opening episode of ‘Head Over Heels’, her personality is established as a hard-working, cheerful girl, too busy with her shamanic duties to enjoy the life of a regular teen girl. She can see ghosts and misfortune from a mile away, and her love for new student Gyeon-woo is hilariously shallow at this point – only based on his great looks. Kim Mi-kyung portrays ‘Mother Sin’, Seong-ha’s spiritual mentor, who thinks she should leave Gyeon-woo alone to his fate.
Choo Young-woo does look dashingly handsome as Gyeon-woo; however, he sticks out a little amid the high-school cast of ‘Head over Heels’, seeming evidently too old to be a high school student. He has a more adult-like air to him than the rest of the cast playing teens, although his character is also a serious, moody, asocial young man. His character has no interest in making friends or getting a girlfriend at the new school, so it’s going to be a big challenge for the protagonist to have her crush reciprocated.
Going by the first episode, ‘Head Over Heels‘ promises to be an entertaining comedic-fantasy-romance, with at least three ghosts already making their appearance in the pilot edition. The supernatural element should excite horror fans, even though it’s more horror-comedy than spooky, eerie stuff. I am looking forward to Seong-ha fighting more evil spirits while she tries to save Gyeon-woo from dying.
The edition ends with a funny bathroom scene, where Seong-ha fights a water ghost but looks more like she has gone off the rocker. Can she explain her weird behavior to classmates—and more importantly, to her crush?
Watch ‘Head Over Heels’ on Prime Video.
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