Review of The Midnight Studio / 야한 사진관

One of my biggest personal care investments in 2024 was to purchase myself a year-long Viki Premium subscription. I’ve finally tipped over to the point where I am consistently watching Asian dramas, and not just Korean ones, and I decided to take the plunge and for my personal sake (and for this blog as well!) to go ahead and buy the Viki pass. I also lowkey just wanted to have the option to download episodes offline whenever I wanted as well.

That said, one of the many shows I watched before I started packing my bags to temporarily relocate to South Korea was The Midnight Studio. I began watching the series when only eight episodes were out, then dutifully checked every week to see what new episodes had been uploaded onto Viki.

Before, I used to only watch a series when every single episode had dropped. Now, I’ve gotten over this personal slump to try and watch more dramas as they release episodes one by one. I realized it’s more healthy to watch shows in this way, and I can watch a broader variety of shows at the same time instead of having to only juggle one or two.

I will say in advance, though, that there were times when I wanted to give this show up. I think I was starting to get bored with the content at around episode 13, when the main plot lines were starting to become too much. I wouldn’t have cared if this show were only 12 or 8 episodes if we’re going to be a little real about length.

Let’s get into the review!

A struggling lawyer crosses paths with a photographer who takes portraits for deceased ghosts.

In this drama, our female lead is Han Bom, a lawyer who struggles while on the job. She’s been struggling for quite a bit now, but things are about to get a lot weirder for her when she crosses passes with Seo Ki-joo. Ki-joo is a photographer by trade on the surface, and he’s trying to rent out the apartment that her grandmother owns.

Her grandmother lets him do that, but Bom originally has a problem with that and decides she has an axe to pick with Ki-joo. When she does finally end up getting inside his studio, she learns something really strange about him: he interacts with ghosts on a daily basis. His photography studio is actually so he can let the dead fulfill their last regrets.

He does this with two other men slash ghosts, one of who acts as his sales representative, and the other as his enforcer. There’s subplots involving both of these men throughout the course of the drama, as one has a crush on a living officer worker, and the enforcer was murdered while on the job as a detective. He watches over his wife, who is still struggling in the wake of his death.

But with the main plot, Ki-joo owns a magical camera that lets him do what he needs to do professionally, but there’s a big catch: everyone who wields the camera in his family dies young. There are no exceptions, and his uncle, who we learn has a connection to Bom, was the last to die and mysteriously vanish.

We got into the uncle plot line later in the show, as Ki-joo and Bom are going to track down his potential killers, but before then there are ghosts whose souls need to be freed. Bom increasingly starts seeing ghosts and is spooked by them, which puts her more into Ki-joo’s work whether she wants to be involved or not.

In the beginning, they rescue some ghosts’ souls by helping them achieve more innocent wishes, but as we see later in the series, other ghosts, corrupted by their anger and wishes for revenge, are going to do some terrible things to those who are still living. There’s one ghost in particular who’s after Ki-joo, and he will do whatever it takes to remove him from this world.

Overall Thoughts

Despite me not dropping the drama and watching it all the way through, I really didn’t love The Midnight Studio. I think my core problem with the main couple is the fact I didn’t see any chemistry between the two. I wanted more from them.

The premise of the show in general is pretty cool, I will admit. I think it was creative on the fantasy end, but the show in general just began losing steam as it entered its final arc. I’ve been thinking that a lot more recently about Korean dramas released in 2024, and I don’t know if it’s a general trend or me losing patience at the length of these shows. They drag them on it seems like more.

But if you loved it, good for you! We’re both not wrong, we just have different tastes. If you haven’t seen the show already and are interested, go and watch it anyways.

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