Head Over Heels Episode 5 Review: Get A Friend Like Ji-ho
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Dangerous haunted houses, shamanic ritual dances, wacky ghosts, teen love, heartbreak, Korean fantasy-romance ‘Head Over Heels’ is delivering entertainment in multiple shades. And just when teen shaman Seong-ah (Cho Yi-hyun) starts to believe her first love, the handsome Bae Gyeon-woo (Choo Young-woo), might finally be returning her feelings, her secret spills out, bringing their budding romance crashing down.
Recap of ‘Head Over Heels Episode’ 4: Gyeon-woo begins to warm up to the cute, stalker-ish, but adorable classmate Seong-ha, who unknown to him, is protecting him like a ‘human talisman’ and is also in love with him. The two start to hang out more, share some sweet romantic moments, sparking jealousy in Seong-ha’s friend Ji-ho (Cha Kang-yoon).
A parallel subplot shows Spirit Mother Dongcheon (Kim Mi-kyung) trying to solve the mystery of a haunted house inhabited by lethal cursed spirits. Turns out, evil shaman Yeom-hwa (Chu Ja-hyeon) has made a pact with a deadly demonic spirit, making it formidable and almost impossible to defeat. Flashbacks reveal Yeom-hwa knew Gyeon-woo since he was a child, mistreating him while claiming to ward off his misfortune, leading to his hatred for shamans. The episode ends with Gyeon-woo finally discovering Seong-ha is a shaman, marking a setback in their blossoming friendship.
Episode 5 of ‘Head Over Heels’This edition starts with Gyeon-woo questioning Seong-ha’s intentions and distancing himself from her. Ji-ho notices the sudden frigidity between them and tries to help patch things up, but to no avail. Seong-ha tells Ji-ho she needs to protect Gyeon-woo for five more days from bad spirits and ghosts so he can avoid his fated death and turn his fortune around. However, she cannot say this to Gyeon-woo, since he is convinced she is a fraud and a liar.
Seong-ha is heartbroken, but despite the sad turn of events, she is determined to find ways to protect her crush. Besides, she also has a troublesome baby ghost to deal with, that’s attached to a classmate at school, putting Gyeo-woo at risk. So the focus of this episode of ‘Head Over Heels’ remains on the hot-and-cold relationships between the lead pair, with Cho Yi-hyun continuing to shine as the cute, energetic, emotional Seong-ha.
But it’s Cha Kang-yoon who’s likely winning over viewers as Ji-ho, head over heels in love with Seong-ha, yet selflessly supporting her efforts to protect Gyeon-woo. When the teen shaman can’t be around her cursed crush, it’s Ji-ho who steps in to help the lonely, miserable Gyeon-woo, patiently enduring his stormy moods and icy attitude. That said, Choo Young-woo is shouldering the tempestuous moods of Gyeon-woo with conviction through the series so far.
While not as entertaining as the first four episodes of ‘Head Over Heels’, the series is still pretty entertaining, and its beautiful cinematography keeps things engaging. There’s some progress in the haunted house sub-plot which gives viewers an eerie supernatural contrast against the teen romance problems the younger characters are grappling with.
Watch ‘Head Over Heels’ on Prime Video.
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