#조명가게

[ikjun]

@kdramaspace 2024 YEAR IN REVIEW | ON LOCATION ↻ favourite sets: WON-YOUNG'S LIGHT SHOP in LIGHT SHOP

Why do you wear sunglasses indoors? Because it is very bright. My eyes have gone bad from working here. Yeah, maybe you should do something about that. Lower the lights? It's too bright in here. I can't do that. I mean, after all this is a light shop.

[ruanbaijie]

I want the world where we can live together. LIGHT SHOP 조명가게 (2024) [quote]

[luna-lina]

LIGHT SHOP 💡 (2024) dir. Kim Hee Won

[heymeowmao]

조명가게 | Light Shop E7 ° At the end of the alley, there's a light shop. Go there and find a light.

[andaniellight]

The Light Shop being the parallel to a hospital, ICU in particular, is kind of mindblowing to me. It's genius in the most bizzare way. Both as a transit spot for souls detached from their bodies. Both guarded places that will ask whoever is visiting without any appointment to make sure the visitor have a solid purpose to even enter at all. Both the brightest place to reach to through possibly darkest paths in some souls lives. One warms the freezing cold and the other drains the warmth out while also attaching lines of life support until it's time to depart. They're both never the place to let go, forever, despite remaining as two consistent places full of lights for as long as time allows them to, until they welcome another one of the lost ones

[ginpotts]

@userdramas event 20: revival @userdramas creator bingo: black & white ↳ light shop (2024) — how far will you go to save the one you love from purgatory? could you weave them back to life? would you follow them to the living in your half life?

In that place... other people were able to remember each other. Why was it different for us? I tried so hard, but I still couldn't get him to remember. Could it be... he didn't actually love me? I really hope... that he remembers me and calls my name again.

[dramadramallama]

not really analyzing much, just making a few notes of the things that stood out to me in the first 4 eps of light shop. i haven't read the webtoon so it's more like i'm blindly pointing at things like a child hahaha

NAMES

All (?) the names called out when the teacher does attendance in the first episode have a (direct) translation (to something positive.) I noticed because 1. some of them are really unusual, and 2. they ALL are words, like no one's just named Ji-soo or something in this class lol:

Ip-sae (입새) - entrance/beginning

Nu-ri (누리) - (old fashioned) world/universe

Ha-neul (하늘) - sky/heaven

Gi-ppeum (기쁨) - joy

Eu-tteum (으뜸) - fundamental/basic (possibly: "the first")

Ga-eul (가을) - fall/autumn

Chuk-bok (축복) - wishing happiness/blessed

Bo-bae (보배) - treasure/priceless

Mi-rae (미래) - future

Do-dam (도담) - (possibly from 도담하다) be bold/stand out/accomplished (?)

Haet-sal (햇살) - sunlight

Now you're gonna say, well Hyun-ju (who keeps going to the light shop as an errand for her mom) is also in that class! She's seemingly the only one with a "normal" sounding name. Out of curiosity I did search hers, and interestingly, I found a few meanings too: 1. address of residence, 2. water used in ancestral rites (!) 3. stay in the present, live life (!!)

Side note: Haet-sal is also the name of the Detective's (unborn?) child. He chooses the name himself out of the ones his wife wrote down. It could be a coincidence, except most of the first names she pre-selected are the exact names of the students in that class.

I can't read all of them, but there are a few I recognize: Gi-ppeum, Ha-neul, Chuk-bok, Eu-tteum, Bo-bae... (there's also Sa-rang "love", or Haeng-bok "happiness" in the list)

HYUN-JU AND HER MOM

We're not shown Hyun-ju unconscious in the hospital, like all the other main players who are trying/failing to find a way out (the will to live/the will to move on)... But she clearly also is at the threshold between life and death. Maybe she is living, but able to unknowingly go between worlds?

The light shop seems to be the doorway to "home" or maybe "heaven" (as evidenced by Mr Twisty Legs, who keeps trying to "reach" the shop, and when he does get there, he doesn't cross the threshold and loops back to his solitary karaoke session in the dark rainy alleyway.

Dead or alive, Hyun-ju is basically invisible. She hangs out with her friends but she is not interacted with. It's really fun, if you go back and watch the scenes, no one directly talks to her, looks at her, or touches her. When she speaks, she's not acknowledged by the three friends. It's really clever: something's off, but it can be attributed to the girls being chaotic, not purposefully ignoring her. Eu-tteum is the only one who, barely awake, at the frontier between dream and reality, finally "sees" her. It's directly after that event that she sees the other ghost/spirit, whose body is missing (and whom the Detective is still looking for)

Hyun-ju's mom is revealed to be the body being embalmed. Her spirit (soul?) has a conversation with the Funeral Director and when she asks, "am I alone?" she surprisingly sounds relieved when he replies that she is. Is she relieved her daughter is not with her (meaning not dead yet?) She also cries and is worried about being left in the dark, which parallels painfully with the fact that she keeps seeking light, apparently asking her daughter to get her light bulbs over and over. The Funeral Director reassures her that she'll go to a place where it's very bright (=the Light Shop being very allegorical here)

Hyun-ju and her mom also live on the 8th floor of that apartment building, while the Intensive Care Unit is also on the 8th floor at the hospital. Bus Stop Guy also lives on the 8th floor of Hyun-ju's apartment building.

BUT... maybe Hyun-ju is the one keeping her mom from passing on, stubbornly buying her light bulbs that bring no light, and inevitably end up in the trash. Or is she helping...? Has she been dead ever since she was little (she still has that necklace she had as a kid, with her info on it in case she gets lost) and has been waiting for her mom all this time? The Shop Keeper even emphasizes that he sees her as a small child, unwrapping the candy for her.

When offered, Hyun-ju always picks the yellow (=light/sun) candies. The whole show feels like a giant allegory about Light and Dark, Life and Death.

SYMBOLISM/FOLKLORE

I don't know much, but I do remember that a common horror trope in Asian legends/stories is that ghosts can be recognized because they "clap with the back of their hands". I immediately thought of that when they show the Lady in White's weird hands (the inside of her hands is actually the back of it. The nails are all wrong, I FLINCHED) She's strangely interested in whether people are "alone" or "together", and who "knows" each other. She also needs to be invited inside explicitly to step into Bus Stop Guy's house, like creatures in a lot of folk tales.

The Shop Keeper never welcomes his customers inside... but greets them by asking a question: "how did you get there/what brings you here/how can I help?" The lights in his shop are not to be touched.

The Detective has a defective lamp on his desk, and cannot seem to light up his lighter anymore. He also sees people/things he shouldn't. The Nurse says "if you see people who are on the border of life and death, doesn't that mean you are too?" which obviously, he is now, since we see him in a hospital bed in the ICU. Maybe his wife and child are waiting for him to wake up...?

Lots of imagery with mirrors, which are common symbols for doorways, a limit between two worlds.

I know it's not, but New Tenant's outfit is also very reminiscent of a hospital gown (first image). When she settles in the new house, she puts away her shoes and does not seem to notice the bright red heels (the same ones the Very Tall Extremely Scary Woman wears, indicating she is inside the house with her).

The song my guy Mr Twisted Legs sings (badly) to give himself courage is the same one the Nurse makes her patients listen to (and the same one she was listening to when she was in a coma herself, "wandering aimlessly," "almost giving up" before she found her way back to the living). The characters on life support can all interact with each other in the alleyway, but are also completely isolated from each other: New Tenant does not hear Twisted Legs' cries over her own, and vice versa, even when they cry out for the same thing, "to get out of there."

They all share the same space in the ICU, but are locked in their own world. Do their collective consciousness populate that "other" world, mixing up elements of their life and memories?

Clearly, the theme of the deceased, unable pass on peacefully, who remain behind (due to something unresolved?) is prevalent. Does it create--not ghosts exactly--but an energy, an entity embodying the "regret," the "mourning [of] something they lost"?

Now, what I find interesting is: what does "I want to leave, I want to go home" mean for each of them? To peacefully pass on, accept death, move on, and forget? Or does it mean to fight, to find the will to live, thanks to those who wish us well? Is the Light (shop) the way back to life, or the way to the after-life? Or both?

[owlshellaxy]

🎬 : Light Shop (2024)💡

[feiwulian]

after watching light shop, I was really moved by this lesbian couple Hyewon sacrificed herself to protect Seonhae, and Seonhae sacrificed her chance to live just to be with Hyewon THAT'S SO REALLLL😭😭😭

everyone scared of Hyewon's tall ghost form, and I was just like: "why she kinda...🥵" my head just started imagined the interactions between Seonhae and tall Hyewon would be like

(sorry the translation is a bit off, I'm not a native English speaker)

[naksushadows]

“Those who want to go back will have to leave here without any of their memories. Should you try to return to things the way they were, you’d confuse the worlds, unable to distinguish between time and space.” – Wonyoung

[ofredribbonsandpreciousgems]

Light Shop (조명가게) K- drama - A short review:

I had kept this drama in the backseat because I read that one of the themes of this show was Horror, and it is not a genre I prefer.

But I started watching the show yesterday out of instinct and curiosity and I have to say that it was a good decision to do so. To all those who are contemplating watching this show, I would recommend to please give it a shot, because this show is truly well made.

This mystery show with little elements of horror is about a group of strangers with different experiences who briefly encounter a "Light Shop" located at the end of a dark alleyway.

Based on a webtoon by author Kang Full, this show starts off in a slower pace with an intriguing narrative that raises so many questions in the first-half. But if we continue watching, it unfolds into an emotional, moving story that introduces us to the aspects of life we may never have given so much thought about. The story is conceptualized so well using beautiful metaphors, laced in a mysterious aura that keeps us hooked throughout the show.

The actors did a wonderful job in portraying their painful emotions having gone through such harrowing pasts. Ju Ji Hoon is one of the actors that I absolutely admire, his performance in Kingdom totally left an impression in me! He is the reason I started this K-drama and I am so glad I did because it engaged me a lot. Being in a bad place mentally and emotionally, this show came at a perfect time, teaching me and showing me things that somewhat soothed my pain and encouraged me to hold onto some hope.

It is truly an underrated show, and it gave me a new perspective towards certain things. I hope you all check it out too! 🤍

"Find your light" 💡✨💛

[ruanbaijie]

LIGHT SHOP 조명가게 (2024) [quote]

[luna-lina]

The truth is… I think you saw something that other people can’t see. What? Some people have a special gift. You could be one of them. What do they see? They see strangers. What do you mean “strangers”? There are people who are a bit strange. They can blend in with the rest of us. You have to look closely to know. There is always something different there. It’s just hard to notice. Closely. You have to look at them very closely. Telling them apart is… difficult. So, you have to be careful. What should I do if I meet one? Pretend they’re not there. And should you meet one of them… do not look their way. What if I already did? Then you pretend you didn’t see anything strange. Just act like…you saw nothing.

LIGHT SHOP💡 (2024) dir. Kim Hee Won

[heymeowmao]

조명가게 | Light Shop (2024) ° Ju Jihoon as Jung Wonyoung, Light Shop Keeper

[andaniellight]

SO FASCINATING that the detective has been carrying his own light from the very start, which means he's been fated or chosen by the (in-between) afterlife to be the next guardian so the one who's been guiding him to the light shop can finally cross over

[chibimats]

Kim Seolhyun 김설현 'Light Shop' photo time 241203 241203 ‘조명가게’ 제작발표회 포토타임