K-Luv Admin in Drama NewsFeaturedNews

Life and death stakes at the Grand Shining Hotel

by Jenzy

In the latest teaser for TVING’s thriller drama special Grand Shining Hotel, we get a better look at the storybook world that entraps its residents, and how Jung In-sun (Let Me Be Your Knight) will have to overcome many dangers to save the people she loves.

The teaser opens on our premise: there’s a magical laptop that sucks its users into a novel and writes them into the story. Aspiring writer Yoo Ah-young (Jung In-sun) suspects this is what happened to her work-crush boss Song Woo-bin, played by Lee Ji-hoon (Sponsor), so she’s determined to get into the novel and rescue him, even if it means stealing police cars and kung-fu kicking housekeeping workers in the process.

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However, once she’s in, she comes to realize the novel’s grave predicament. Not only has Woo-bin completely forgotten his life outside the book, he’s also now in love with the femme fatale Park Hyun-joo, played by Kim Jae-kyung (Again My Life), who Ah-young recognizes as a real-world serial killer that disappeared on her way to prison. Based on some shots of Hyun-joo stabbing a man, we see she’s clearly kept her seductive, murderous instinct in the novel, putting Woo-bin in danger.

And if that wasn’t enough of a pickle, turns out another person Ah-young knows has also found his way into the novel: police officer Moon Myung-hwan, played by Jung Jin-woon (Midnight Thriller). In the real world he’s Ah-young’s old friend with an unrequited torch, but in the novel he’s Ah-young’s loving husband and the father of her character’s two children. In some brief scenes, we see him being smitten with her, asking what their relationship in the real world is like: “I don’t want to live in a world where you and I are strangers.” He may only be the second lead but I’m already on his ship.

With the stakes in place, it’s time for Ah-young to blow the roof on this story, culminating in fights, threats at gunpoint, and — in the climactic final scene — driving off a cliff with Hyun-joo in Ah-young’s attempt to “finish this story already.”

Written by Park Se-hyun and directed by Myung Hyun-woo (My Man is Cupid), Grand Shining Hotel will air on tvN on February 11, and be available for streaming on TVING on February 10.