With Korean drama Buried Hearts ending last week on huge ratings, I was interested to see how its successor — new SBS period romantic comedy The Haunted Palace — would perform in its spot.
Needless to say, I was not disappointed as Nielsen Korea is reporting The Haunted Palace, Episode 1 grabbed superb ratings on Friday night.
Ratings that were much higher than the first episode of Buried Hearts, and that seem to suggest SBS may just have yet another hit on their hands.
The Haunted Palace, Episode 1 ratings
The Korean rom-com’s nationwide rating for its premiere episode was an extremely high 9.3 percent of the audience share on Friday night.
That is even higher than the excellent 6.1 percent rating Buried Hearts earned for its first episode. One which helped that massively successful drama end up with a huge 15.4 percent of the nationwide viewership for its series finale.
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In Seoul, The Haunted Palace, Episode 1 performed equally as well with a 9.2 percent of that region’s viewership.
Those ratings also put the K-drama in 3rd place for the most-watched show of the day nationwide, and in 2nd place in Seoul. It was also the #1 most-watched mini-series of the week.
International viewers ratings for The Haunted Palace after Episode 1
So far at least, international K-drama fans also seem to be in agreement The Haunted Palace could be a must-watch.
Case in point, the oft-disgruntled folks over at My Drama List are currently rating it an 8.3 out of 10 (high for a first episode from MDL users).
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Most comments from users on the site are also extremely positive, with people’s only complaint that Kim Young Kwang only has a cameo role in the first episode, and is not the main lead. (Not that there is anything wrong with male lead Yook Sung Jae, but Kim Young Kwang… he’s hot!)
The Haunted Palace is also grabbing an incredibly high 9.6 out of 10 on Viki, where it is streaming internationally.
The Haunted Palace details
The new Korean fantasy drama stars Yook Sung Jae (The Golden Spoon), Bona (Joseon Attorney: A Morality), and Kim Ji Hoon (Love to Hate You), with an excellent supporting cast that includes Cha Chung Hwa (Song of the Bandits), Kim Sang Ho (Hide), Shin Seul Ki (For Eagle Brothers), Kim In Kwon (Parasyte: The Grey), and Son Byung Ho (King the Land).
It tells the story of Yun Gap (played by Yook Sung Jae), a palace official who is handsome and smart, and has a good reputation. Until Yun Gap becomes possessed by an imugi (a small dragon), and then people begin presuming he has gone insane.
The 16-episode K-drama airs every Friday and Saturday evening on SBS in South Korea through June 7th, 2025, on Viki internationally, and with limited release on Netflix in a handful of countries.
The next episode of The Haunted Palace airs later on tonight.
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Brit-American journalist based in Austria,. Former radio DJ at 97X WOXY, and Founder/CEO of Leo Sigh. I’ve covered K-drama, K-pop, anime, and manga news for over a decade.