ON Nov 13, 1970, tailor Jeon Tae-il committed self-immolation and ran down the streets of Seoul, shouting pro-labour slogans. Though he succumbed to his wounds later that day, Jeon’s death served as the catalyst for major labour rights reforms in the country. Almost six decades later, Tae-il reappears – fictionally – in Oh My Ghost Clients, becoming the catalyst for renewed awareness on labour rights in the comedy-drama series.
Following a series of poor decisions involving quitting his job, dumping his severance pay into cryptocurrency and then becoming a labour attorney in the belief it would lead to easy paychecks, No Mu-jin (Jung Kyung-ho) comes face-to-face with death due to an industrial accident while trying to scam a steelworks factory.
In the several seconds it takes for the accident to start and end, Mu-jin is transported to another realm, where he meets Bo-sal (Tang Jun-sang) – heavily implied to be Tae-il – who grants the labour attorney a chance to survive the accident but with a caveat.
Bo-sal presents Mu-jin with an employment contract that would not only grant him life, but also the ability to see the ghosts of those who perished due to labour infractions. In order to stave off death, Mu-jin would need to help these ghosts to solve their labour-related problems so that they can move on.
Aided by his sister-in-law Na Hee-joo (Seol In-ah) and her unofficial boyfriend Go Gyeon-woo (Cha Hak-yeon), Mu-jin begins helping these ghosts, starting with a student that died mysteriously while working at the factory.
Balancing laughs with labour woesAt 10 episodes long, Oh My Ghost Clients feels very short and too long – the series is at its strongest when directly tackling its rather weighty themes involving labour rights and laws, while it becomes weak whenever either the comedy outstays its welcome or the supernatural aspect strays too much from what is considered acceptable suspension of disbelief.
These rarely happen but when they do – like the “ghost earthquake” – Kyung-ho, In-ah and Hak-yeon’s performances alleviate the silliness, as the three leads are a well-oiled machine when it comes to how their innate chemistry and acting skills helps to juggle the serious drama and comedy.
More importantly, the comedy never eclipses the heart of Oh My Ghost Clients, which is the plight of the working class.
Transnational tale of exploitation, resistanceAs Bo-sal tells Mu-jin in the finale, labour problems are always evolving. Issues during Tae-il’s era, where employers forced labourers to take amphetamine to keep them awake, have taken on different forms in the present day.
Oh My Ghost Clients writers Kim Bo-tong and Yoo Seung-hee do a bang-up job in highlighting the main problems faced by labourers in different industries, from medical to hard labour.
The series covers inhumane managements abusing loopholes in occupational health and safety regulations, absurd working conditions, cover-ups of workplace bullying, harassment and accidents, abuse of power, discrimination against elderly workers, death from work-related stress and of course, union-busting tactics frequently employed by many human resource managers and administrators.
These “ghosts”, the human characters, the actors playing them, the setting, the culture and the individual stories may be Korean in nature, but the problems they face are universal. Viewers are bound to face or have experienced one or more of what Oh My Ghost Clients episodes depict.
That relatability elevates Oh My Ghost Clients beyond being just another K-drama. There will likely not be a second season, but if there is, it is more than welcome – because as Bo-sal says, there will always be labour problems, but shows such as this are important to spread awareness on not only how things once were and currently are, but also how they could be better for the working class.
Oh My Ghost Clients is streaming on Netflix.
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