L-R: Hyung-joon, Si-ohn, Gun-woo
Who Are You (후아유) is a 16-episode Korean Drama. It originally aired on South Korea's tvN network in the summer of 2013.
Si-ohn is a policewoman who, along with her partner and boyfriend Hyung-joon, are on a smuggling stakeout in 2007. The stakeout goes bad, Hyung-joon is killed, and Shi-ohn is sent into a coma that lasts six years. She finally wakes up apparently healthy, but unable to remember the details of the drug bust, or her romance with Hyung-joon. Shi-ohn is assigned to light duty in the Lost and Found Center (exactly what it sounds like, lost property), where she is put in charge of brash, cocky, handsome young detective Gun-woo, who chafes under his strict new supervisor but is also attracted to her.
It turns out the Lost and Found Center isn't light duty after all, because of one thing: Si-ohn now sees ghosts. Six years being sort-of-dead has now caused her to see spirits, including the spirits of people associated with items in the Lost and Found storage. The ghosts that she sees are people who were the victims of foul play, and Shi-ohn, with the help of the ghosts, starts solving cold cases. She also gets assistance from another ghost—Hyung-joon.
Not to be confused with the trope Who Are You?, or the song by The Who.
Tropes:
- Action Prologue: The 2007 drug bust and shootout that put Si-ohn in a coma and got Hyung-joon killed.
- Alone with the Psycho: Si-ohn is investigating the death of Oh-reum when she goes to Oh-reum's therapist, Park Young-jin, to ask about his patient. She is interviewing him when Gun-woo gets word to her that a witness has named Young-jin as Oh-reum's murderer. Young-jin, who was molesting Oh-reum before he threw her off a building, then jabs Si-ohn with a hypodermic before taking her hostage.
- An Arm and a Leg: The ghost that appears to Si-ohn in Episode 3 leads her to the ghost's own severed hand, buried in the woods. Later a severed foot is discovered, whereupon the ghost, now identified as Jang Yeon-hee, starts appearing to Si-ohn without any legs.
- An Astral Projection, Not a Ghost: Episode 13 establishes that Si-ohn isn't just limited to seeing the ghosts of dead people. She can also see the astral projections of people who are in comas. This very quickly becomes plot-relevant when Hyung-joon is revealed to not be dead, but to have been in a coma since 2007.
- And the Adventure Continues: It is strongly implied in the last episode that Gun-woo, who was himself in a coma for a little while, has acquired some psychic powers of his own, when he tells Si-ohn that he's been having headaches and weird dreams. Also in the last episode, a ghost appears to Hee-bin and says that Hee-bin has to deliver something to her husband. Finally, there is a scene where Si-ohn picks up a mirror in the storage room, ominous music plays, and a mysterious figure flits around in the shadows. In the last scene, the mysterious figure flits around again, the camera cuts to a closeup of the mirror—and the show ends.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: Si-ohn and Gun-woo in Episode 9, when they are cornered on a rooftop by a bunch of mooks. Subverted in that they are pretty much immediately smacked down by the mooks, although the timely arrival of the backup that Si-ohn called for saves them.
- Catapult Nightmare: Si-ohn has one of these in Episode 6, about the guy who clubbed her over the head and tried to bury her alive.
- Chekhov's Gun: Moon-shik introduces Gun-woo to Park Woong-joon, the prosecutor in the Episode 3 severed hand case, then attributes Park's brusque manner to heartbreak in his past—his fiancee Jang Yeon-hee abandoned him the day before their wedding. Later, the severed-hand ghost girl superimposes herself on Park's face, strongly implying that she is Yeon-hee.
- Conscience Makes You Go Back: In Episode 12, Moon-shik, having been exposed as The Mole in league with the smugglers, has received false identity papers from the smugglers and is about to be taken out of the country. Unfortunately Si-ohn and Gun-woo track Moon-shik to the rendezvous point right before the smugglers arrive at that same point. Moon-shik leaves for the boat that will take him away—only to go back and try and save his colleagues from the smugglers. Park Il-doo, the Mook in charge of getting Moon-shik out of the country, is astonished."Are you going to ruin your life over a bit of conscience?"
- The Dandy: Im Sung-chan, who is sent to the Lost and Found Center straight from the police academy. He waxes his hair, he takes vitamins to make his nails shiny, and he doesn't want to take the desk by the window because the UV rays from the sun aren't good for his skin.
- Dirty Cop:
- Gun-woo's jovial, fatherly mentor, Moon-shik, is revealed to be in league with the smugglers. He is also the person who shot and killed Si-ohn's boyfriend Hyung-joon, although he didn't mean to. After Hyung-joon was cornered by the smugglers, Moon-shik shot him square in the chest, thinking he was still wearing his bulletproof vest for the stakeout. But Si-ohn had arrived at the stakeout earlier, and had Hyung-joon take off his vest to try on a new shirt she bought him. Later episodes explain that Moon-shik started working for the smugglers because he needed the money to pay for his desperately ill son's medical care.
- Episode 12 reveals that the Big Bad, the boss of the smugglers, is Moon Hong Joo, the chief of police.
- Dramatic Drop: Si-ohn drops her glass when a random comment Moon-shik makes about being a good shot causes her to flash back to the night of the smuggling stakeout. She then begins to suspect Moon-shik.
- Eccentric Mentor: Choi Moon-shik, an older cop who has taken Gun-woo under his wing. He tries to keep Gun-woo on the straight and narrow but doesn't get too mad when Gun-woo does things like tackle him and steal his gun in order to go chase down and shoot a bad guy.
- Ghostly Chill: Si-ohn's second ghostly vision, associated with a mysterious metal suitcase found at a railway station, causes the storage room to become freezing cold. This later is revealed to be because the murderers froze her body for a time. In episode 5 this is inverted as Yeong-hee's ghost starts to make her environment super-hot...which is how she warns Si-ohn that her body is about to be cremated in a cover-up.
- He Knows Too Much:
- Woo-chul, the first detective to the scene of the 2007 failed smuggling stakeout, knows some secrets. He decides to go to Si-ohn and confess—so he is run over by a car, and later murdered in the hospital.
- Hong Joo, who ordered the hit on Woo-chul, later orders Park Il-doo to be eliminated for this same reason. This backfires as the hitman doesn't finish Il-doo off (he is scared away by a passer-by) and Il-doo winds up informing against him.
- Incurable Cough of Death: Woo-chul is shown in episode 7 coughing up blood. His imminent death is what motivates him to go to Si-ohn and tell what he knows.
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Sung-chan and the other junior guy in the Lost and Found Center use some desperate paperwork excuses to escape a night of drinking with Gun-woo.
- I See Dead People: Si-ohn is plagued by repeated visions of murder victims. When she first tells Gun-woo this in Episode 5, he's drunk and doesn't realize what she's saying. Later he doesn't buy it, until she tells him things about his father, one of the ghosts that she's been seeing.
- Murder by Inaction: Jang Yeon-hee's prospective mother-in-law really, really did not approve of the impending marriage between Yeon-hee and her son Park Woong-joon. So much so that when Yeon-hee goes into an asthma attack after a nasty argumemnt with Mama Park, Mama Park holds onto Yeon-hee's asthma medication and watches her die.
- Please Wake Up: Si-ohn does this when she finds Hyung-joon, laid up in a hospital bed for six years in a coma after his shooting. He promptly dies.
- Rain of Blood: The ghost in Episode 9 manifests himself to Si-ohn by blood dripping from nowhere, and falling in the middle of the street. They then follow the blood to the freshly murdered corpse (still warm!) in the alley.Si-ohn: Is it raining?
- Reading Your Rights: Si-ohn does this when she arrests Hong Joo in Episode 15. If the translation is accurate, the Korean warning is very close in verbiage to the American Miranda Rights.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: Why Gun-woo is in the Lost and Found Division in the first place, having been sent there from the serious crimes unit for running afoul of his superiors.
- Rooftop Confrontation: Si-ohn and Gun-woo battle with some mooks atop a roof, and are losing decisively when the arrival of backup saves them.
- Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Sort of. The first ghost Si-ohn sees is Dan Oh-reum, a deaf teenaged girl with long black hair, but she appears to Si-ohn in her schoolgirl uniform (white blouse and black skirt), not a burial shroud.
- Taking the Bullet: Taking The Knife in Episode 14, as Gun-woo steps in front of Si-ohn just in time to take the knife to the gut that was meant for her.
- Team Power Walk: Si-ohn and the cops accompanying her indulge in this when they walk into a meeting in Episode 15 and arrest Hong Joo, the crime kingpin.
- Thanking the Viewer: After some behind-the-scenes footage rolls over the end credits of the last episode, the actor and actress who starred as Gun-woo and Si-ohn appear and thank the viewers for watching.
- Those Two Guys: Im-chan and Myung-soo, the two bumbling newbies who have been sent to the Lost and Found Division straight out of the academy. They provide comic relief.
- In the last episode, a fresh pair of newbies have arrived at the Lost and Found center, and Im-chan/Myung-soo are training them.
- Unfinished Business:
- The ghosts are victims who need Si-ohn's help to bring their murderers to justice. The first ghost she sees is a schoolgirl who was thought to be a suicide, but instead was thrown off a building by the therapist who was molesting her. Another ghost was thought to be a Runaway Bride but was actually a murder victim. The shaman that Si-ohn visits in Episode 3 says that "resentment" is the reason why the ghosts manifest themselves.
- Hyung-joon's ghost disappears, and his comatose body physically dies, after Si-ohn finds him at his bedside and Hyung-joon can rest content with the knowledge that Si-ohn has moved on to happiness with Gun-woo.
- Witch Doctor: Si-ohn visits Hee-bin, a shaman who says that "resentment" is what drives the ghosts to appear, and suggests that Si-ohn sees them because she wants to see them. This being a Korean Drama, Hee-bin is not some wizened old person but a hot young lady who likes to go dancing in clubs. Further episode reveal that while Si-ohn can see ghosts, Hee-bin can talk to them as well.
