Korean drama "Delivery Man": Episode one of twelve recap

 

 Air Dates: March 1st until April 6, 2023 on ENA and Genie-TV... Wednesday and Thursdays at 9:00 pm.... Subs done by The Marvellous Team, average rating was 1.04% and that's because it aired on two cable networks.

 Main Cast: There will be much updating as we go along, still so much that hasn't been revealed and especially about the 'main ghost' Ji-Hyeon. After two episodes the date of when this took place hasn't been revealed either but did some deduction and when the series began it was July 2022 as three month before, April 12th, Young-Min's mother had been killed in an accident. Seems as though there's going to be five stories that revolve around some guest stars, 2-3 episodes for each story. Then there are two other major ones taking place, one is with Ji-Hyeon who has no recollection of who she was, did she get murdered? Also was Young-Min's mother killed in an accident or was she killed too, it appears the mother may have been killed a few moments after Ji-Hyeon and by the same man!!!! The top two characters have at least 95% of the screen time though the guest stars do play an important role.

Yoon Chang-Young as Seo Young-Min.... Young man about 22 in age who dropped out of college when his mother was killed in a hit and run accident three months before. She was a taxi driver and he's using the same taxi his mother drove, Young-Min had to drop out of college for he now needs to support his grandmother and her health isn't all that good. Business was good for Young-Min until the day he met the female ghost Ji-Hyeon and the question that no one knows yet is why can he see her and all of the other ghosts? Ghosts seem to give off a odor that's a bit nauseous so it's been hard for Young-Min to get fares, he's had to resort to being a taxi for Ghosts!!!! And getting fares is something Young-Min needs desperately as the mortgage company may be repossessing his house as owes over $20,000!

Bang Min-Ah as Kang Ji-Hyeon.... The 'Main Ghost' in this drama and she's about 28 in age. Three months ago Ji-Hyeon appears to have been murdered by her boyfriend Kim who we haven't seen yet so will wait to add his name on to the cast list. The murder took place on April 12th, Kim is also the suspect in the death of Young-Min's mother. Ji-Hyeon has zero recollection of her life, she can't even remember her own name! But often she will recite some rules or regulations from the law system, was she a detective, attorney or a law student? That will probably be revealed much later and for now Ji-Hyeon is Young-Min's 'assistant', that's because she's semi-tied to his taxi and can only leave it within a radius of about fifty yards.

 Kim Min-Suk as Do Kyu-Jin.... Youngish doctor at the Dongpa General Hospital and is really such a nice man. Do is also a very efficient doctor who sadly wasn't able to save Young-Min's mother's life from the hit and run accident. But Do gave it all he had which really impressed Young-Min and the pair have become friends.

Park Hye-Jin as Park Boon-Ja..... Young-Min's grandmother, they live together for she's ill but not at the point where she may die soon and is furious the police haven't caught her daughter in-law's killer.

Kim Seung-Su as Ji Chang-Suk.... Detective for the Dongpa police, he's on the cases of Ji-Hyeon's murder and Young-Min's mothers death but so far has had zero success.

Woo Tae-Ha as Baek Tae-Woo..... Ji's partner, both are on the Violent Crimes Unit.

Lee Hye-Jung as Yoon So-Ri.... New nurse at the Dongpa General Hospital who messes up very often but is supported by Do who she has a crush on.

Choi Tae-Hwan as Na Seok-Jin.... Young-Min's older brother who we may not see too often, he's also a taxi driver. 

 Main guest stars for the first two episodes

Kim Seon-Hyuk as Kim Byeong-Cheol.... Recently died at his job working at a hospital. He was picked up by Young-Min who along with Ji-Hyeon is helping Byeong-Cheol do the final things a ghost has to do before he can move on to it's afterlife. 

Oh Su-Jeong as Park So-Yeon.... Byeong-Cheol's wife but actually not as they had never formally registered their marriage and that was a key point in this story. Both had grown up in an orphanage and had been dating for almost ten years, before Byeong-Cheol can go to Heaven(?) there's a few things he must do first for So-Yeon.

Park Kyung-Hwa as Moon Hee-Kyung.... Older woman who was only in the second episode, she posed as Byeong-Cheol's mother in order to get his insurance settlement. 

Video that features highlights from the first episode, the shows are sixty minutes in length.

 

 To me 2022 wasn't the best of years for Korean dramas, think I only viewed three and didn't recap any of them. However this has been a much better year for dramas and wish I had time to view more of them! The last series that was recapped was from 2021 and that was the ultra superb "Taxi Driver" drama and needed to view that as the second season just ended last month. Will be recapping that series soon, not sure if it will be after this show or if there will be one in between. That drama and this one revolve around taxis but that's where the similarities end. The other drama that may be in between the two shows is "My Perfect Stranger" and I'm really intrigued by that series, it has three more weeks to go and will decide then which series will be recapped next.

 Have viewed the first two episodes and I really needed to watch the second one before writing this up as I was so confused about so many things, still am! But through two shows this has been a fun series and the second episode was much more serious than I would have thought. It appears each 'ghost story' will last for two episodes and as mentioned above there are two other storylines which I think will grow in importance with each episode. Whew, that above takes so long to write up and glad it just needs to be done once except for some occasional editing, let's get to this first episode.

 This episode did begin off a bit like the "Taxi Driver" drama, those are the top three screenshots. After his shift was done our 'hero' Young-Min gave his fellow driver Hyung a lift home, when they arrived there some thieves were stealing Hyung's expensive Italian speakers that had just been delivered. There ended up being a frantic car chase through the back streets of Dongpa which is a fictional area of Seoul. Young-Min knows every side road and don't most taxi drivers, with the help of the police the thieves were nabbed. Young-Min even got in on the action as that's him in the third screenshot taking one of the hooligans out. Exciting start to this series but don't think it'll be jammed packed with action though at times will be a bit intense. In the middle screenshot is Young-Min's grandmother Boon-Ja, now that his mother is dead he has to care for the ailing woman. But all seems to be well as Young-Min does have a steady caseload of passengers though the good times will be coming to an end. The next morning when Young-Min was heading to work he was stopped at his front gate by the man in the third to last screenshot. 

 This unnamed man was from the mortgage company, seems Young-Min's deceased mother hadn't been keeping up with the mortgage payments. He's now facing a heavy debt, $20,000 to be exact if he wants to keep the house and is that possible for Young-Min to come up with that cash in just a few weeks? To him may be impossible for though business is steady there's many bills to pay such as gas, insurance, repairs, etc., how can he tell his grandmother they're going to lose their house? Young-Min can't and he's got such a positive attitude, it just means he'll have to work even harder and longer but something unexpected will soon pop up. After that man from the mortgage company left Young-Min cleaned his taxi and under the front seat found a cell phone. Did a fare drop it and if so why haven't they contacted him, it was the only time this phone was mentioned in the show but brought it up as it may belong to someone that will be the major piece of the series. That's the woman in the bottom screenshot above or should I say the Ghost(!), she has no name and is about to change Young-Min's life drastically.

 This ghost just appeared out of the blue that day in the back of Young-Min's taxi, a few hours after that chat with the mortgage agent. Why this ghost appeared is unknown and there's so many things unknown about this ghost, mainly everything! Such as her name, when and how she died, what she did for a living, her age and every single thing as this woman ghost has no recollection of her past. We viewers do though as her name is Kang Ji-Hyeon and we saw a brief moment from her funeral. As it shows above Ji-Hyeon died on April 12th at 11:00 pm, that was just a few minutes before Young-Min's mother was killed in a hit and run accident though of course neither knows this yet. But the above detective for the Dongpa police station does and his name is Ji, with his partner Baek they're investigating the death of Ji-Hyeon and it appears she was murdered by her boyfriend Kim! That was the only scene we saw of the detectives in this show but the investigation will soon be a major storyline.

 Needless to say Young-Min was both scared and shocked that a ghost would arise out of nowhere in his taxi. A huge question that hasn't been answered yet is why can Young-Min see ghosts when no other human can? One other question is that Ji-Hyeon is somehow attached to his taxi, she can only go maybe fifty yards from it and then gets whisked right back inside.... why? We're only halfway through this first episode so of course there's many unknown things and they'll start piling up. To Young-Min the main concern is his fares who of course can't see Ji-Hyeon but it seems ghosts give off some odd odor, one that's been making his passengers nauseous. Now very few are hailing Young-Min for a lift and at this rate how can he make enough money to save his house? Of course the best way would be to get rid of this ghost Ji-Hyeon but as mentioned she's 'tied' to his taxi, Young-Min is usually very upbeat but even he has a breaking point.

 You can see in that top above screenshot Young-Min is moaning abut the lack of money he's made since Ji-Hyeon has made his taxi her home! The following day he gave his grandmother a lift to the doctors and even she complained about the strange odor in the taxi which made her sick too. But one person didn't feel nauseous and that was a doctor named Do who got a lift in the taxi and felt fine. We didn't see much of Do in this show but he's a very competent young doctor at the Dongpa General Hospital. When Young-Min's mother was brought there after her hit and run accident Do was the doctor in the ER, he tried valiantly to save her life but it was to no avail. But his efforts really impressed Young-Min and the pair have become friends, Do will soon become a bigger part of the storylines. During this time Young-Min hadn't been calling Ji-Hyeon any kind of name as she can't remember what it was or as mentioned nothing about her life as a human.

 She was wondering if the reason she can't wander far from the taxi is because it was the reason she's now dead, could she have been killed by the taxi running over her? That doesn't appear to be the case as Young-Min did some investigating on recent deaths and found zippo about Ji-Hyeon. He's going to have to soon as Ji-Hyeon has now been in Young-Min's taxi for three days and he's been lucky to get one fare a day! Young-Min did do some checking on the internet about ghosts, one site said it's best to get rid of it now before others start joining her! Which will soon be the case and in the bottom screenshot above you will notice a third person who is a man in his thirties. He had hailed the taxi and Young-Min gave him a lift, of course he was shocked to no end that this new passenger was also a ghost and this is when the story begins to get much more interesting.

 However it's the next episode when this new story picks up as by now there's only about ten minutes to go in this episode. This show did take much longer than an hour to view as I was so confused about some things. Mainly the character names and many times had to look for info at this drama's Korean site. For instance this new ghost passenger's name was never mentioned until the next episode, to make things easier his name is Byeong-Cheol. He too is recently deceased and Ji-Hyeon surmised that a ghost needs to fulfill an urgent matter before moving on to their afterlife, what does Byeong-Cheol need to accomplish? Who knows for now as most his story takes place in the next show but he is recently married and that's his wife So-Yeon in two of the above screenshots. She is with a young girl but the pair didn't have any children. That's all fine and dandy to Young-Min but he's getting more than irate that no fares will ride his taxi, especially now that its occupied by two ghosts!

 Young-Min did have an idea to raise the $20,000, that was to sell his taxi at a used car dealer! However what would become of the two ghosts, would they remain trapped in the taxi and if so who knows what would happen to them? Young-Min never did go through with the sale but is still threatening to sell the taxi unless he can raise some cash quickly. Byeong-Cheol did say above he does have some money, $20,000 to be exact but that fell through in the next show though he does have some cash for Young-Min. 'Hmmmm' thought Ji-Hyeon, if no human passengers want to get a ride in Young-Min's taxi why not get ghosts who have money and transport them around? That is a sound idea but how does one go about getting ghosts to pay for rides in the taxi, more on that in the next recap. That scene ended this show and it was a decent watch though a tad confusing but many things will get cleared up in the next episode and that's the post below this one. Though Ji-Hyeon has no memories of her human life a few times she uttered many passages and details from legal books, could she have been an attorney, law student or detective when she was alive? More screenshots are below from this show's action and thought the next episode was much better and actually a bit intense at times.