Come Back Alive ~ Two People Opt for a ‘Return Experience’

“Come Back Alive” was released in 2016, has 16 episodes, is categorized as Comedy, Fantasy or Supernatural, Romance and Family, and streaming on Viki. It is based on the Japanese novel titled “Mr. Tsubakiyama’s Seven Days”. (Alternate title: ‘Come Back Mister’ or ‘Please Come Back, Mister’.)

♦ Two People Who Met in the Afterlife Come Back Alive for a Return Experience

In “Come Back Alive”, two people who never knew each other, Kim Young-Soo and Han Gi-Tak, meet each other in the afterlife. They both jump off the train headed for heaven and sign a contract with an angel for a “Return Experience”.

The angel warns them that the “experience” will be scarier than they can imagine. Also, there are certain rules they can not violate, such as taking revenge. But the angel could not dissuade them. They were desperate to go back and take care of their unfinished business.

• Kim Young-Soo was overworked and that was slowly killing him. However, he accidentally fell from the roof of a building and the police decided his death was a suicide.
• Han Gi-Tak died in a tragic car accident. But it looks like he was murdered and his death was made to look like an accident.

The first SHOCK of the Return Experience is that when they return to earth, they are not themselves. Well duh! They can’t be because they both died!

Kim Young-Soo returns as Lee Hae-Joon. It turns out that he is a Branch Manager at the department store where he used to work. But that’s not all. He looks exactly like the illegitimate son of the owner of the store, who called his son back from the USA to compete with his legitimate son, his half-brother, for the family business. On the plus side, he is way better looking than he used to be, with an awesome body build. Looks, muscles, and money?? WOW!!!

But Lee Hae-Joon is possessed by the spirit of Kim Young-Soo, who remembers his wife, Shin Da-Hye, and his daughter and father, all of the people with whom he worked, etc. He wanted to take care of some things he left unfinished before he died.

• Performing his duties as branch manager was easy since he knew everything about how the store operated.
• But behaving as a chaebol heir, even if he is an illegitimate son, is a little bit tricky. He’s not used to being rich and he did not come back to fight with a brother from another mother.

(NOTE:  It should be noted that he did not come back as the real Lee Hae-Joon. It seems that the supercomputer the angel used to generate his new body spit out an image that looked exactly like the real Lee Hae-Joon. So Kim Young-Soo had to fake it!)

Han Gi-Tak returns as Han Hong Nan, a young and beautiful woman. Awkward! She’s unemployed and has nowhere to stay. Can it get any worse? Yes! She can’t fight!! Her body is too weak. Hong Nan, a young and beautiful physically weak woman, is possessed by the spirit of tough guy/macho man Han Gi-Tak. On the outside, she looks like she could be an elegant runway model who struts on the catwalk. But her manners, her behavior, and even her way of talking are anything but graceful and feminine.

• First, she/he wants to find out what happened to his men. She/He went back to the restaurant he used to run and found out there was a new owner. Most of his men, who worked for him and who were also his close friends, were gone. Where are they?
• Second, she/he wanted to know what was happening to Song Yi-Yeon, the woman he loved and who he also died for.

When he visits her home, he meets one of his men, who is working as Song Yi-Yeon’s bodyguard. Song Yi-Yeon was still being harassed by her ex-husband who was preventing her from seeing her child and from getting work as an actress. Her life is miserable. She is no better off than when he was alive and tried to rescue her.

Since he is in a woman’s body, Han Gi-Tak introduces himself as his younger sister and makes up the name Hong Nan. His unfinished business consisted of finding his men and repaying them for their loyalty to him. Also, he wanted to help the woman he loved by stopping her ex-husband from harassing her and separating her from her child.

♦ Finally They Connect!

Kim Young-Soo and Han Gi-Tak did not know each other when they were alive, so they did not realize that their lifelines were connected. The president of the department store where Kim Young-Soo worked before he died, was Cha Jae-Kook, Song Yi-Yeon’s ex-husband.

When Kim Young-Soo returned as Lee Hae-Joon, he found that his wife, Shin Da-Hye, had returned to work at that same store and Cha Jae-Kook was now his half-brother. He also discovered that not only was his death written off as a suicide but he had been falsely accused of taking bribes. He intended to set his record straight.

Han Gi-Tak and Kim Young-Soo accidentally met each other as Han Hong Nan and Lee Hae-Joon, i.e. in their new bodies. But they could recognize each other because they were both wearing a similar watch that the angel had given them.  Once they recognized each other from the afterlife, they agreed to work together.

• Kim Young-Soo as Lee Hae-Joon was going to clear up the lies that had been told about him after he died.
• Han Gi-Tak as Han Hong Nan was going to break the ties between Cha Jae-Kook and Song Yi-Yeon so that he could no longer torment her. He was also going to find his men and get his business back.

Meanwhile, the angel watches them from above and comes to earth to visit them periodically, to make sure they don’t break the rules.

Main Characters:

• Kim Young-Soo (played by Kim In-Kwon, “Parasyte the Grey”, “Kokdu: Season of Deity”)
• ** Lee Hae-Joon (played by Jung Ji-Hoon aka Rain, “Ghost Doctor”, “My Lovely Girl”)
• Han Gi-Tak (played by Kim Soo-Ro)
• ** Han Hong Nan (played by Oh Yeon-Seo, “My Sassy Girl”, “Café Minamdang”, “Shine or Go Crazy”)
• Shin Da-Hye (played by Lee Min-Jung)
• Song Yi-Yeon (played by Lee Ha-Nee, “Knight Flower”, “One the Woman”, “Shine or Go Crazy”)
• Cha Jae-Kook (played by Choi Won-Young, “Twinkling Watermelon”, “Under The Queen’s Umbrella”, “Moonshine”, “Doctor Prisoner”)

Where to Watch

Viewership and Rating:

• IMDb: 7.3 out of 10 stars
• My Drama List: 7.9 out of 10 stars
• Plex: 7.3 out of 10 stars
• Amazon customers rated this series: 4.3 out of 5 stars
• Public reviews shared via Google: 4.8 out of 5 stars
• Viki viewers rated this series 9.3 out of 10 stars.

My personal rating is the same as the Viki viewers.

First, this series was loaded with some of my favorite South Korean actors and actresses.

Second, it goes on my unofficial list as one of the best comedy K-dramas of all time.

LINKS OF INTEREST:

• K-drama Review: Please Come Back, Mister | Kpop-Khop
• Please Come Back, Mister: Short-lived Happiness | the talking cupboard
• 6 Reasons to Look Forward to ‘Please Come Back, Mister’ | ONE TV Asia

TRAILERS/TEASERS:

SBS Drama. “962만 원 폭풍 결제 ‘이 정도 허세로 놀라기는ㅋ’ | 돌아와요 아저씨(Come Back Mister) | SBS DRAMA.” YouTube Video. YouTube, March 3, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUuVyeHVQyM.‌