Arang and the Magistrate

The begining

We open with a crawl that explains that the walls that divide this life and the next have broken down, allowing ghosts to walk among us. Ghosts can see people; people cannot see ghosts.

But there is one man who can see them, and he is headed to Miryang, in search of his mother who disappeared three years ago.

That'd be Eun-oh, falling asleep in model-pose on a mossy rock, while his servant Dol-Swe stops for a potty break. He complains that his master was supposed to be on a lookout for ghosts, but fell asleep on the job.

He sighs that he can't get mad at master for things he doesn't know how to do, like say "I'm sorry," "Thank you," or "I love you." Eun-oh scoffs that those are things that serve no useful purpose in life. He looks up at the sky and predicts a storm...

Elsewhere in the woods, Arang chases after someone or something, annoyed that they've been living and eating all this time thanks to her, and now they've run off.

She ties her hair back, hikes up her skirt, and leaps over giant boulders as she races through the woods.

A caravan passes through on the road, and suddenly ghosts appear out of thin air, behind the trees. Ah, it's a gang of ghost-bandits, eyeing the caravan. One of the ghost minions worries that they can't pull this off without Arang, but the leader tells them they're going without her.

They sneak attack, which is easy considering they're invisible—they do that creepy ghost thing of jumping onto people's backs, *shudder* and suddenly people are choking and going down.

The rest of the gang gets ready to join in, when Arang jumps right in their path, fuming. They cower in fear, which is kind of awesome. The leader tries to pretend like they were waiting for her, only to get a fistful of Arang in his jaw.

She's about to teach them all a lesson in manners, when something catches her ghostly attention. She looks up...

A giant net falls from the sky and the ghosts all scramble in terror. It traps three of the ghosts, who freeze on the spot. And then four grim reapers alight from the sky, on a hunting spree.

Okay, these guys are badass. They hunt with mystical ropes and canes, all of which do the same thing—suck in the ghosts, making them disappear. One in particular—Mu Young—zeroes in on Arang and she flees for her life. Er, un-life. Yunno.

Eun-oh and Dol-swe make their way through the increasingly creepy woods, and Dol-swe whines that they say this mountain is particularly crawling with ghosties. Eun-oh sighs, "There's no such thing as ghosts!"

He whimpers: is master sure about Miryang being the last place that his mother was seen? Because there are rumors about that town, and about how every magistrate who goes there ends up dead...

Eun-oh hears a rustle behind him and stops. Dol-swe tenses up, and Eun-oh points to his shoulder, "A ghost...behind you!" Dol-swe freaks out and Eun-oh laughs at his own joke. Only, when he looks up, there's Arang running full speed, straight for him.

He can see her and the reaper, and it's clearly not the first time he's seen otherworldly creatures. His hand tenses up and he looks straight ahead as she runs past him. The reaper's cane comes flying past his face next, knocking Arang down.

Eun-oh braces himself and walks past them, not letting on that he can see.

Mu-young towers over Arang, and she asks what the head grim reaper is doing chasing after one measly ghost—or perhaps he shouldn't have lost her in the Hades River in the first place.

He calls her by name and sighs, more like a parent with a wayward child than anything, and explains that he'll have to pay for his mistakes too. But she must follow the laws of death. I do enjoy how calm and stately he is.