Dramas like
The Haunted Palace

Same director, and the most committed body-occupation comedy Korea has made. Yoon Sung Shik shooting Shin Hye Sun as a modern male chef trapped in a Joseon queen's body, with physical comedy that carries whole episodes and palace politics underneath that are surprisingly competent. Difference: Mr. Queen's occupant is a chef with modern manners, so the comedy is culture shock rather than folklore, and the romance actually works.

Hooks early Episode 1. A modern chef wakes up as a Joseon queen inside twenty minutes.

A body swap used for something instead of a week of jokes. A physician by day and a Hong Gil Dong by night, a prince who cannot decide whether to arrest her or help her, and Nam Ji Hyun as the reason it holds. Difference: To My Beloved Thief is a straight romance with the couple at the centre, where this puts a friendship between two men at the centre and attaches a romance to it.

Hooks early Episode 1. The night thief and the prince collide immediately and the body swap arrives before you have time to get bored of either of them.

Folklore mechanics played with total conviction. A civil servant inherits a chest of spells and lands a love potion on a lawyer cursed for six hundred years, and Jo Bo Ah and Rowoon have the chemistry to carry a silly premise. Difference: Destined with You is modern and its magic is a single spell, so there are no court politics and no possession to negotiate.

Hooks early Episode 2, once the spell book is actually opened and the show commits to being a comedy about a curse.

Shamanism taken seriously inside a romance. A high-school shaman hiding her work, a boy whose luck is killing him, and rules kept simple enough to care about. Cho Yi Hyun is very good for eight episodes. Difference: Head Over Heels is a contemporary youth drama and much sadder, and a new character arrives late and unbalances it.

Hooks early Episode 1. A teenage shaman meets the unluckiest boy in school and decides to keep him alive, and the setup is complete in one hour.

Joseon comedy where the king is the best thing in it. Lee Chae Min plays a spoiled connoisseur who is only dangerous when the food is bad, and for four episodes the cooking is genuinely worth the runtime. Same pleasure in a monarch written as a comic character with real menace. Difference: Bon Appetit runs out of story around episode four and has twelve to fill.

Slow start Episode 3, once the cooking competition format kicks in. The ratings peak at episode 4 and never get back there.

Korean folk horror played completely straight. Kim Eun Hee wrote it, Kim Tae Ri carries it, and there is no romance and no comic relief: five cursed objects and a poor family's inheritance. Kim Tae Ri switching between two people inside one body is the performance of its year. Difference: Revenant has nothing funny in it at all, so the possession is dread rather than a running joke.

Slow start Episode 5, when the possession stops being a monster of the week and starts being the story of one family's debt.

A contract between a demon and the woman who can see ghosts. The Hong sisters rewriting Journey to the West, with Lee Seung Gi and Cha Seung Won having an enormous amount of fun and the most interesting mythology the pair have written. Difference: A Korean Odyssey takes five episodes to start and its production troubles show, and it is modern rather than a court drama.

Slow start Episode 5, once the contract between them is actually binding.