49 Days is a pretty decent Korean TV show that aired in early 2011. It's fairly conventional, but it works well enough overall.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Story: Young, perky, carefree, daughter (Ji Hyun) of wealthy family is on her way to getting married when she gets "killed" in an accident. She wasn't supposed to die though (according to this show's take on the rules that govern the afterlife), so she's given a chance to continue living if she can accomplish a seemingly simple task; while her body lay in a coma, her spirit is given 49 days to gather a single tear from 3 different people outside her bloodline who honestly loved her. This should be no problem as she has a new fiancé and plenty of caring friends.
To accomplish her task, Ji Hyun's spirit is allowed to inhabit the body of the person who inadvertently caused her death. This "host" person is just about the most depressed woman on the planet. She slogs through her miserable daily routine, while Ji Hyun possesses her body when she's sleeping. Ji Hyun then sets out with her new body to gather the 3 tears she needs; unfortunately, what she mostly finds are people that didn't really like her, plots to destroy her father & family business, backstabbing lovers and friends, etc.
There's been quite a few of these similarly themed Korean series in recent years (Secret Garden, Queen In Hyun's Man, et.al.), where people occupy 2 different time periods, switch bodies, possess other people as spirits, etc. They're really just semi-creative attempts to tell your typical romantic melodrama, and they're often pretty effective at doing so. There's a lot going on in these shows; with actors playing dual roles and/or multiple story lines all taking place at once, so these shows don't tend to drag along seemingly forever, or force the characters to repeat the same actions over and over again too often.
The actress who plays Ji Hyun is plenty cute and she acquits herself quite well, but she's not the primary star here. The lead role is reserved for the actress who plays the woman Ji-Hyun's spirit possesses on a part time basis; she does a fantastic job considering everything she has to do, and it must have been a great deal of fun to get to play multiple roles with varying personalities. The rest of the cast mostly all put in solid performances; you've got your two handsome male leads who battle for the affection of our young heroine(s), the main female antagonist, and some other secondary characters. There's also the character known as the "Scheduler", who is the embodiment of a modern day grim reaper that gives Ji Hyun her 49 day chance to regain her life. He has some motives for why he's doing what he does, but he otherwise wants to have fun and get his job done while staying out of trouble with his overseers, but he can't help getting more and more involved with helping Ji-Hyun in her efforts as her deadline draws near.
This series comes with your usual plot twists and the typical clichés you'd expect from this KTV genre format; this type of stuff simply cannot be avoided, and it almost got to the point of getting on my nerves as this series ran its course. Fortunately, the story was interesting enough to keep going, and once you're invested, you might as well finish. In all honesty though, it would have been much more economical and streamlined if it was a bit shorter in length. I did find it to be effective and likable for the most part however, and my GF loved it all (except the ending), and she's always a good barometer for the target audience these shows are aiming for.
One thing I must say is that I'm always dumbfounded how the friends I watch these shows with can't foresee what is precisely taking place and what is exactly going to happen. These are some intuitive and well balanced people, but they are frequently hypnotized by these KTV melodramas to the point of stupidity (even though they watch them all the time). It took me little more than an episode and a half to figure out "all the mysteries" and how every plot point would be resolved. My friends insist I must watch these shows in advance, but I don't; I just find it all too predictable. As such, I think this show, and others like it, would benefit by easing up on the foreshadowing a bit; they're already "by the book" by nature, so you don't need to drop extra hints along the way.
On the flip side, when these shows do try to throw some curveballs, they often do so quite poorly. Last minute changes of direction, additional character tie-ins, and forced resolutions are usually the result, and this frequently comes across as just plain clumsy. These shows often get off to a nice running start and hit their stride for the bulk of their run time, then come to a screeching halt as everybody has to scramble around to figure out an ending. This would seem like bad writing, but it's more a result of the time constraints inherent to this medium that you'll just have to live with. This show did come to a conclusion that was a little bit unusual for the norm though, and I appreciated the effort to go in a different direction. Actually, I rather enjoyed the ending, even though no one else I know did.
So, follow along with Ji-Hyun's spirit to see if she can save her family from ruin, discover who her true love really is, help her new found unnie she possesses to come out of her depression and get on with her life, and, of course, get the 3 tears she needs to save herself before time runs out.
Pretty enjoyable & entertaining 7-8 out of 10 star range!...Giving it 8 stars!
