A professional exorcist who privately doesn't believe in ghosts is forced to test that skepticism in Dr. Cheon and the Lost Talisman, a 2023 South Korean mystery-thriller directed by Kim Seong-sik.
What is Dr Cheon and Lost Talisman about?
Dr. Cheon inherited a family business built on generations of protecting his village from spirits, and he runs it as pure performance — theatrical rituals, a confident manner, and zero actual conviction that any of it works. That comfortable arrangement breaks down when Yoo-kyung, a client who genuinely can see spirits, arrives with a case he can't fake his way through. The offer she puts in front of him is hard to turn down, and it pulls him into the events surrounding her home and toward Seolgyeong, a talisman whose history turns out to be tied to Dr. Cheon's own family line more directly than he expected. The film sets its central irony — a fraud who has to become genuinely useful — against a possession case that keeps escalating past what his usual tricks can handle, mixing horror-thriller tension with the dark comedy of watching a con artist run out of cons.
About the cast
Gang Dong-won stars as Dr. Cheon, with Heo Joon-ho, Esom, Lee Dong-hwi, Kim Jong-soo, Park So-yi, Yoon Byung-hee and Joo Bo-bi filling out the cast surrounding the exorcism case at the film's center.
Context & significance
Dr. Cheon and the Lost Talisman released in 2023 as part of a wave of South Korean genre films that blend shamanistic horror with action and comic timing, a combination the industry has leaned into repeatedly because it lets a possession story carry both real scares and a lighter, more commercial tone. The fraudulent-exorcist setup gives that blend a built-in engine: every scene can be tense because the case is real even while the protagonist is not.
Watching Dr Cheon and Lost Talisman on Ktime
Dr. Cheon and the Lost Talisman streams on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles included, letting viewers take in the mystery in Farsi or follow the original Korean version with subtitles. A free K-Time account login is required to watch, while the film's page is open to browse without signing in — part of a Farsi-first streaming experience built for Persian-speaking audiences.