"Move to Heaven": No One Really Moves to Heaven

 

Move to Heaven: "Unmet hopes. Undelivered truths. Untimely deaths.  Trauma cleaners piece together odes to loved ones from the departed."  So  they're basically spiritualists conducting high-tech seances to tell people "Your father loved you."  

But the trailer is quite different:  Cute Guy #1 (Tang Joon-Sang, below)  in a haz-mat suit cleans a run-down apartment, while a voice over says that he has to "Move to heaven for three months" before he can get his guardianship (become a guardian angel?).  Cute Guy #2 (Lee Je-hoon) climbs out of a tent in the living room, shocked -- no doubt he fell asleep in the wilderness, and died.  Cute Guy #1 tells him the rules: "Wash the dishes after you use them. Take out the trash."  A comedy about Oscar-Felix mismatched dead guys?  But it's 4:00 am, so I'm in.

Prologue: Cute Guy #3. Kim Seon-u (Lee Jae-wook), walks through a vast factory and peers into some sort of conveyor.  Uh-oh, it accidentally rolls over his foot!  He hobbles out of the factory into the night, returns to his tiny one-room apartment, and collapses onto the bed.

Scene 1: Cute Guy #1, Geu-Ru, at an aquarium, naming all the fish.  A girl picks him up ("my best friend for ten years"), and drops him off at the Chicken Bowl restaurant.  She waves; he bows awkwardly, not socially adept.  Maybe autistic?

Home, a house labeled "Move to Heaven."  Dad (Ji Jin-hee) serves dinner: two identical plates of eggs, toast, and apples.  Geu-Ru gets upset when it's slightly off.  Definitely autistic.  

Phone call: they have a job.  They load heavy chemical equipment into their van and set out.

Scene 2:  Kim Seon-u's apartment.  He died of sepsis from his untreated injury. and wasn't discovered for a week.  They go through his stuff and deduce facts about him, like "He was sensitive to smells."  Then they pack up everything and carry it out.  So they're house cleaners?  I thought they talked to the dead.

Scene 3: On the way out, Geu-Ru notices the convenience store where the dead guy bought gimbap (Korean sushi) every day.  He recites the flavors from receipts they found in the apartment: anchovy, tuna, pollack roe.  They see him going in and flirting with the clerk. When will we get to the ghost whispering?

Scene 4:  Sleazy Guy telling Seon-u's parents that since he died at home, the company is not responsible. They're deaf, and speak through an interpreter. Dad and Geu-Ru arrive and give them Seon-u's stuff.  Mom goes through his phone messages, and find that he was forbidden from seeing a doctor and calling it a "workplace accident."  Shouldn't Seon-u tell her that from beyond the grave?  What's the point of being able to talk to dead people, if you can solve the mystery by going through the dead guy's phone messages?   

Dad overhears the evil corporate suits chortling over getting off and insulting Seon-u's parents, and intervenes.  So this is the plot, taking down the evil corporation?  What about Geu-Ru having to spend time in the afterlife with a slob?  When are we going to get to the paranormal?

Scene 5:  Meanwhile, Geu-Ru sees a girl wearing a medallion that he thinks Seon-u would like, so he accosts her: "There's something I want.  I really want to have it."  Naturally, she assumes that he wants sex, and screams.  Security calls Dad, who comes to pick him up.  

Scene 6:  Dad drops Geu-Ru off at the aquarium, and goes off to visit his lawyer.  But crossing a street, he collapse.  He has just enough time to call Geu-Ru and say "I'm sorry."  The paramedics arrive.

Geu-Ru waits and waits, and then decides to drive home, but it's too much for him.   He gets stuck on a bridge.  So here's where he dies, and has to spend 3 months in heaven with a slob to become a guardian angel?

Dad dies in the ambulance.

Best friend arrives to get Geu-Ru out of the car and tell him what happened.  How did she know where he was?  Why did they inform her that Dad died like ten minutes ago? Why did they drop the plot about taking down the evil corporation?  Where's the paranormal?

Scene 7:  Geu-Ru in a suit with Dad's ashes.  He wants to take them home instead of scattering them.  I assume that he's going to live with Best Friend's family now?  Or is Best Friend going to become his guardian?

Scene 8: At home, Geu-Ru looks at Dad's memorial. 

Scene 9:  Cho Sang-gu, Cute Guy #2 from the trailer, shows up at Geu-Reu's house.  Best Friend answers the door.  He makes himself at home, explaining that the house now belongs to him.   For some inexplicable reason, before he died Dad designated ex-con prize fighter Cho Sang-gu as Geu-Reu's legal guardian.  The end.

So Geu-Reu never goes to the afterlife.  Cho Sang-gu has to live with him in  "Move to Heaven" in order to claim guardianship.  The hazmat suit is just because Cho Sang-gu made a mess in the house.  The tent in the living room -- he can't use one of the bedrooms?  No afterlife, no talking to dead people, no nothing. 

Beefcake:  Several cute guys. The prizefighter will probably take his shirt off.

Other Sights: Some very nice exterior shots.

Gay Characters: No one expresses heterosexual interest.

Paranormal:  Lots of promises, but no.  The "Trauma Cleaners" are house cleaners.  They don't even conduct Korean Shamanic rituals.

Setting Up the Premise: A full 50-minute episode.  How about 5-6 minutes? 

My Grade: I feel cheated after waiting 50 minutes for someone to go to heaven or talk to dead people.  Other than the annoying misdirection in the trailer, not bad. B.