The thread is now open for spoilers and discussions.
Gifs from yeo-rims’ tumblr:
Sorry this was late. I thought it was a Wednesday/Thursday drama.
Enjoy the show!!
67 Comments On “You Are My Spring: Eps 9 & 10 Open Thread”
Comments are closed.
The thread is now open for spoilers and discussions.
Gifs from yeo-rims’ tumblr:
Sorry this was late. I thought it was a Wednesday/Thursday drama.
Enjoy the show!!
Comments are closed.
Thanks @PM3 for the thread!! Hope your vacay was fun and relaxing. No sorry needed, we can easily catch up. I, for one, have not finished ep7 yet. Will come back later…
the episode starts and we find out what YD texted DJ back that made her smile!! I smiled, too… heart flutters.
It’s me again. With mostly questions 🤦🏼♀️
Their banter is still highly entertaining.
Did I miss the backstory on the cafe owner twins? I was a bit confused when he was talking about his father.
Was I supposed to recognize the homeless guy when they showed his face?
Thanks @pkml3. It will be Wed or Thur comments from me probably. No time to watch the episodes this week.
Catch you later @Janey @birdie!
Kalimera from my part of the world!
Thank you @Packmule3 for opening this thread.
(I know that you will see it later than today, but this week we are watching Episodes 9-10)
Anyway, here is my favorite song from YAMS that I am waiting patiently to be released!
SHINee’s Onew – To The Sweet Spring (via google translate)
Good catch @Cleo, it’s ep9 & 10 this week!
I just finished ep9 and there’s a passionate kiss and it’s a keeper! With the OST Cleo posted as a background. So unlike the stoic persona of YD, his ex wife never knew
This side of him.
Good night for now!!!
My lovely @Janey ! Thank you!
The Official One is out!
Onew – Dear My Spring!
Here are “Dear My Spring” lyrics from Google Translate.
This is a song from Ju Young Do’s POV and I am loving this even more now!
Oh… Dear…<3
마음속에 누군 갈 들이는 건
상처받기 쉬운 곳 생긴다는 것
난 알고 있어 이 설렘이 겁이 나
그 언젠가는 난 너를 울게 할 텐데
멀어져라 아니 여기 있어라
널 잡을 수도 없어 놓아줄 수-도 없어서
영원 그 흔한 말 한마디 약속 못 해서
난 여기서 있어 친구처럼
상처투성이 너를 안아 주고
다 괜찮다 이제는 함께하자고
말할 수 없어 이 망설임이 슬퍼
차라리 니가 날 많이 원망했으면
조금만 더 아니 여기까지만
너에게 아픈 계절로 남고 싶지는 않아서
너는 이미 내게 봄처럼 다가왔는데
난 여기 서 있어 바보처럼
멀어져라 아니 여기 있어라
널 잡을 수도 놓아 줄 수도 없지만
영원 그 흔한 말 한마디 약속 못 해도
나 여기 있을게 너의 곁에
내 심장이 뛰는 그 날까지
Who goes into your mind
that there are places that are easy to get hurt
I know this excitement is scary
One day I'll make you cry
get away no stay here
I can't hold you, I can't let you go
Forever, I couldn't promise you a single word
I'm here like a friend
Hug you with scars
It's all right, let's be together now
I can't tell you, this hesitation is sad
I'd rather you resent me a lot
Just a little more, not here
Because I don't want to remain a painful season for you
You already came to me like spring
I'm standing here like a fool
get away no stay here
I can't hold you or let you go
Forever even if I can't promise you a single word
I will be here by your side
Until the day my heart beats
Thanks dear @Cleo! Hi Everyone!
Finally got to watch Episode 9, and it was so lovely!!! So much more is revealed of the past, even the face of the villain is shown. But best of all the conversations, the repartee, the teasing … loved it to bits! Show is amazing in moving forward both the romance plot and the crime plot side by side without losing it’s stride or making us feel whiplash. We still get the laughs and the feels of the romance, plus the tension of the mystery, and can enjoy both at the same time. I anticipate lots of healing in store for 3 or more characters … I even want Dr Chase to have a chance to be healed. 😉
Hey my lovely @GB,
I didn’t have time to write but my question is :
Is the villain DJ’s dad?
P.S. I wanted to write about the plan with the emotional outburst of DJ, the actress Seo Hyun-Jin nailed it and Kim Dong Wook helped her a lot in this scene.
Her cry moved me all the times I rewatched that scene and it was 3 times.
I believe that this scene was recorded in one go.
Theo Angelopoulos was known for that monoplan.
My agapimine Cleo, I’m thinking the same thing. The show is nice to viewers in that it gives us clues and let’s us play along.
Yes I’m sure you noted that DJ’s Mum, Mun Mi Ran is having dreams that her husband is going to turn up in her life again, and the guy in the hat is the right age. I need to screenshot his face and compare him against the face of the DJ’s dad. It does not seem that his face or name is even in the Asianwiki page on YAMS. Is the villain there but we can’t recognise him? He should be named somewhere!!
My agapimeni @GB,
WE are thinking the same things! DJ’s mom had vivid and repeating dreams.
DJ shared her biggest fear with YD.
We didn’t exactly DJ’s father face, but I think he is the same guy.
He seems to be delusional!
He is not on Asianwiki I checked it too! AND he is not on MyDramaList either!
correction: we didn’t exactly see clearly DJ’s father face.
Dear @Cleo, Here’s what I managed to find and put together for comparison. DJ’s Dad in the past and the Killer in the present. Does the face look the same to you? I’m not sure. He’s become thinner? Face is more angular, less rounded? Is the nose the same and the mouth? I’m not sure if the Dad is the Killer now. What do you think?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NstL6I2TDub9eMSpDqQhZWTjbvxZhXGK/view?usp=sharing
About the link I left above. The grad photo is of the man who took photos of DJ’s Mum, calling her Natasha. He signed off as Chan. The father’s name is Kang Yun Chan. So that is the photo of the father. He had been sweet before marriage but turned out to be a violent wife abuser after marriage, especially when drunk, I gather.
I’m trying to account for all the men who could be baddies. We will leave out all of Ju’s friends who are younger. I don’t think the police are baddies in this show and we know what they look like.
Killer is shown to us to be the one who jumped up in surprise at the Internet cafe when he saw the news and photo of Dr Chase. He’s the one who’s been leaving white flowers with or without messages for Jeong Min/Chase and possibly DJ. He’s also supposed to be the one with hands that have been peeled and who left the suicide note in the locker, and who bashed the homeless? guy on the head with a bottle.
The other abusive guy in the show, was Hong Se Geun who threw things at 18-year old Chase/Jeong Min. There was a woman in the house but it might not have been Kim Myeong Ja. Hong Se Guen may still be alive but he should look older.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QRaLB2m15o0cmBtSGQH3wmcWHhDg5Mgs/view?usp=sharing
Kim Myeong Ja had a nice looking husband, who spoke to the police.
Then there was the homeless? man who was drinking and who was hit on the head by the Killer. I wonder why. I don’t know who he is.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vQ9a9s4lmxdNyJASszPqQ20eQ0ihCGH0/view?usp=sharing
Are there any other men not accounted for?
@Packmule3, as others have pointed out above, this thread should be for YAMS 9-10, not 7-8. There’s already another thread for eps. 7-8. Also this one doesn’t show up with the other You Are My Spring threads because it is uncategorized.
@cleopatra, thanks for the lyrics. The lyrics speaks of Ju’s POV so well. I am so loving the romance between these two.
I think the killer could possibly be DJ’s father otherwise why would the mum suddenly pray that he leaves them alone? But how did he get himself involved with the 18 year old twins? Could it be that he is involved in Human trafficking business too since the scene where the CM/Chase smashed his head with a bottle was at Kim Myeong Ja’s house?
Hello My Dear YAMS Squad..
I just finished the eps 9 & 10.
Thank you so much @packmule3 for always provide us the safe space to discuss our favorite dramas 🙂
I LOVE THIS WEEK EPISODES SO MUCH.
And is there anyone here watching Start Up, our Main Leads first kiss at the rooftop when the Sun is about to set.. so much reminding me of the Start Up main leads first kiss too. So beautiful :’)
And when DJ cried. OMG. I cried too with her. She’s so brilliant. I wanna watch her on Black Dog drama too later. And yes, after I cried, I laughed with them too. Like when JYD give her wet tissues. I mean. Hello.. JYD, why do you give someone who cried a wet tissue? lol. And when DJ said “Toppokki…” oh, So adorable.. The product placement of Miss DIOR perfume was also so smooth.. Now I am curious with that scent. haha..
We finally got the scene of JYD and DJ’s brother too. Did he too obvious asking all of these personal things.. But JYD answered all of them with smile. He didn’t even seem uncomfortable. Like he knew he was being assessed and he happily followed.
My favorite scene will be when JYD and DJ were going to eat at some restaurant, and suddenly a woman shouted “Oppaa..” to JYD. She’s in the same club with him. When she asked who is DJ, is she JYD’s girlfriend, DJ already smiled shyly but JYD said that DJ is not his girlfriend (Which is true at some extent, there was no agreement about their relationship yet). DJ who was a little bit disappointed by that answer, walking away from them, but then she heard JYD said,
“No, She’s someone I liked..”
and DJ stopped, smiled again and touched her necklace a gift from JYD (She even could make this expression, how do I explain it.. like the one who is truly happy and wanna jump but trying hard to control her act, lol..)
OMG, my heart fluttered! Oh Dear..
p.s: I like the background sound music in this scene, and want to save it on my playlist. But I can’t find it anywhere.. please inform me if you know where to find this music.
My another highlight scene was when they had a camping. At the beginning, they don’t want to participate in the games. But along the time, they enjoy it so much. I laughed when Haneul whispered to JYD asking about whether getting bitten is the same as being kissed..
This scene is so heartwarming.
I miss going out with my friends too 🙁
___
@birdie007: I also can’t remember the background story of the cafe owner’s father.. But when Cheoldo said that he is afraid, DJ who was previously already stand up, back to her seat again. It seems that the twins not really close with their father.
@GB: thank you for the screenshots of DJ’s father and the Killer. I don’t think that they are the same person.. but who knows..
Let’s see about the possibility of another men..
– Jeongmin/Ian Chase father: Do we know about his existence? Is he even inside the picture?
– HSG’s family: could it be the HSG’s brother, or son, or relative? (like you have expected before)
– Someone who is related to Nanum Jeil but never been mentioned before..?
@Cleo: thank you for the link of the MV. I think I like all the soundtrack of this drama. 🙂 I even found the piano version of Dear My Spring by HEN (already added to my playlist, haha)
I’m a little bit scared actually.. in the scene when DJ’s mom went to see a fortune teller. She asked about her children’s fortune too. And he said that DJ needs to be careful.
FT: There’s a Grim Reaper behind her, and she’s come face-to-face with a man holding a knife. But he’s holding it upside down. (Can I assume that it is Ian Chase? He was holding the knife upside down when he faced the angry hotel guest. I was reminded of the scene in DAYS when MM hold the knife in front of the hospital.. )
DJ’s mom: Talk in layman’s terms. I don’t understand.
FT: She won’t get stabbed, but she’ll have blood on her (what does it mean? Will there be another one who died because of her..)
he laughed and then continued
FT: Amidst the bloodbath, she’s head over heels in love with someone. She’s not alone.
DJ’s mom: Is this the man you’re talking about? His name is Ju Young-do FT: Born on May 10, 1984. What about time?
DJ’s mom: I don’t know. I just know it was early morning.
FT: And he’s alive right now? (This made me crazy.. What does he mean? Does he mean that JYD should have been dead before, and he was cheating the death? We know that JYD received the heart transplant.. but.. oh please..)
@Feifei:
About the possibility that DJ’s father is the killer. I’m thinking about the letter that Kang Tae Jong received from Seoul District Court. The notice of succession of Kang Yun Chan (their father). So Kang Yun Chan is a defendant based on Seoul District Court. But the letter said that he give their children each the half of his share. Does it mean that the father has already passed away, so that both of his children inherit the father’s loan and asset? The letter also sent to the plaintiff named Hosik Choi (the creditor). I don’t know with the possibility if he is alive.. But, even though the father is passed away, the letter stated that his children couldn’t run away from his father’s liabilities. If the father still has the unpaid debt to the creditor, then the children have to pay off their father’s anyway. It is what DJ’s mom afraid: Paying off the debt is the same as disturbing their life too..
I just finished episode 10, and since a letter was delivered to DJ’S brother as successor of Kang Yun Chan, half the defendant’s estate going to him and half going to DJ, I infer that Kang Yun Chan is now dead. I think it may have been the man who was hit in the head with the bottle by the other man.
That second man we saw hit the other with the bottle is Hwang Jae Sik. He stabbed Detective Park, jumped up in surprise when he say Ian Chase on TV, put the origami rose on Ian Chase’s table at the cafe and under the windshield wiper of his car. After his arrest and subsequent release by the police, he ended up “in the hands” of Majin. My guess, based on the conversation of Ian Chase and the Majin Vice Chairman, is that Hwang Jae Sik will be killed as soon as it can be done less suspiciously.
As for Kang Yun Chan, the father of DJ and her brother, if he was the man knocked in the noggin with a bottle by Hwang Jae Sik, he seems to have been paid off to not testify against his attacker, then was likely eliminated by Majin minions because he was a loose end. There would be no reason to divide his assets between his children if he were still alive.
I’m up at my mountain cabin this week, and for the first time entertaining a non-family overnight visitor: my best friend from college who recently spent two years teaching in South Korea. She’s the one I went to visit in Seoul a few months before the pandemic ended international travel. Fortunately or not, she broke her ankle badly while in Seoul, got out of her teaching contract early for health reasons, and returned to her home in the USA before COVID-19 locked down borders. Tonight she and I decided to binge watch YAMS from the beginning (it being her first watch and a rewatch for me). I appreciate the insights she’s able to give me about language that doesn’t translate well into English subtitles, cultural practices, etc. One of the things she pointed out is that after Stalker dies and the police look into his family, it is revealed that he doesn’t have a father on record (his mother is dead, and no siblings). As far as the police know, he’s the one and only Choi Jeong Min, and his fingerprints match the Choi Jeong Min on record in South Korea. He was the twin that stayed in South Korea. As we know, it was odd that both twins had the same name, and only one was officially registered. But it is also odd that there’s no father on record. Family registries are a big deal in South Korea, from what I understand. My friend says that when a father isn’t recorded, it can be because he was someone powerful who could manipulate the system to keep illegitimately fathered children from being connected with them. I hadn’t thought of that: the twins’ biological father could have been some bigwig. As for the man who lived in the home with, and beat, the twin that stayed in South Korea, he may have been someone who took up with the the mother after one twin was sent to the USA. He did seem clueless that there could be two who looked alike.
Another thing that became clear to me during the rewatch was the meaning of the shaman’s prophecy about a sharp sword in the wind in relation to DJ. Immediately after the shaman scene ends, we see a view of the sky, and across the sky flies a jet leaving a contrail. I believe that is DJ’S sharp sword in the wind, and we know a plane brought Ian Chase to South Korea to impact DJ’s life.
@Welmaris,
I think we have the same thought on DJ’s father: He might have been dead. And thank you for the information on the name of the Killer: Hwang Jae Sik. (even the Asiawiki still named him as “Mystery Man”)
If you and your friends watched the 10th episode, maybe your friend could also read the whole letter that sent to Kang Tae Jong. From what I understand that Kang Yun Chan divide his shares to his children, and also it is written that the copy of that letter also sent to the plaintiff named Hosik Choi (creditor). I assume that Hosik Choi has lent DJ’s father some money.
My question is, if the letter is sent by Seoul District Court, does it mean that Kang Yun Chan was in jail before? How come that Seoul District write the letter on behalf of him if he hasn’t been in court before.. (I don’t really understand about the court mechanism in South Korea, so I might miss something).
So Kang Yun Chan being the man that was hit on the head with the bottle: I don’t think that it was him.
And I also curious about Jeongmin and Ian Chase father, as I wrote in my comment above. I think it might be true too: that the father could have been some bigwig. (Oh, is he probably related to Majin too?)
The man that stayed with him and beat the twin that stayed in Korea was Hong Se Geun. But we also don’t know about his status now. Is he still alive or he’s already dead. Hong Se Geun is the one who talked to the little Ian Chase when he was brought to Nanum Jeil. From what I remember, HSG was aware that Ian Chase has a twin brother.
___
What also intrigued me is the last scene of episode 10, when Ian Chase wake up, after feeling dizzy and fainted. We saw there was a knife with blood.. and Attorney Noh dead? And the gaze of Ian Chase.. What was that?
Does Ian Chase really suffered with Multiple Personality Disorder too?
Or is there another person who came into Ian Chase’s room and stabbed Attorney Noh?
(I remember that Hwang Jae Sik/Mystery Man was looking at the small ziplock bag filled with white powder.. is it a poison? Did he somehow managed to get out from his house, sneaked into Ian Chase room and poison him, and later, he stabbed Noh and arrange the scene like it was Ian Chase doing..)
@moonstar512 I think the guy took the drug that was in the book to make Ian Chase a murderer.
The main couple is just perfect! I love every scene with them.
The magazine quizz with the little kid and Young-Do continuing to read it with the kid’s voice was so fun.
On Understanding and Misinterpretation
We return to the repeated theme of misunderstaning. Yoo Kyung sees DJ get into Chase’s car with a bag containing a gift for a man. She thinks of course that it means DJ is dating Chase. YK is wrong on both counts, DJ is not officially dating anyone, and if she were, it would not be Chase.
I find it pathetic that Chase has no friends to eat with in Korea, and hardly eats Korean food so he eats with gusto when with DJ. They are shocked when a senior lady thumps him hard for eating so fast, but gives him more food. As Chase and DJ sit outside, (I wonder if the building in front of them with a cross on its side is significant. Maybe it reminds Chase of the NJ Church?), they think about that encounter with the senior lady.
DJ : “They say your habits show how you’ve lived. Perhaps that old lady had a rough life.”
Chase : “So other people just understand her no matter how rude she is to them?”
DJ : “They probably think about her intention, not what she said. Try to think about what she said earlier in a good light. ‘Why do you eat so fast? I’m worried that you might get indigestion. Eat more if you want.’ ”
Chase remembers the depressing meals at the NJ Church where the kids were half starved. He has an expression that I can’t name, (pathos? chagrin? regret?) on his face after he recalls this. (It’s also ironic and frustrating for Chase that DJ gives more allowance for the rough behaviour of the senior lady than she does for him. Granted that he did accidentally try to choke her and all!)
Chase : “Are you always this considerate and understanding of others?”
DJ : “Not always, although I want to be.”
Chase stares unblinkingly at DJ : “That was the third time. The third time you looked at me like that. 1) In front of the elevator, 2) at the pub, and 3) the café. I thought I didn’t scare you anymore. You still feel uncomfortable around me, don’t you?” (He’s upset that she has more consideration and understanding of rough strangers than of him. That’s his point of view, but I don’t agree!)
(I believe Chase, himself, was being as considerate as he was able to be, given that he does not behave quite like most other people. I’m guessing he really does have some form of ASPD, but he does not want to be anti-social. He knows he’d like to have a friend.)
Chase : “I wasn’t fishing for an apology. I just wanted to know if you could also understand how I feel. That’s what I’m asking. If I want to have another meal with you and if I say I’m curious about you, can you understand that? Or is what I’m saying to you also scaring you?”
DJ does not reply.
It’s sad that the only person Chase has had enough encounters with, so that he would like to befriend them, is the who’d least want to be closely associated with him. In Ep 10, DJ replies to this question by texting Chase a negative response.
Hi @Moonstar @Sayaris and Everyone, you’re right, these episodes are super delightful. I’m thinking of how clever it is.
Clever Writer
I applaud this Show for finding a different way of telling us what is going on in the minds of our characters, without simply giving us ‘only’ their voiceover thoughts. It even reinforces for the character(s) – especially JYD who still needed a few kicks or nudges in the relationship department – the situation they are in, without exposition. Instead, Show gives us a questioning kid, a troubled Eun Ha and a TV drama. Fortunately, Ju is not a dunce, but is sharp enough to recognise that some changes are needed, and willing enough to make them.
Eun Ha’s Words and Misinterpretation leading to the Kiss
Show puts into Eun Ha’s mouth, the words that Ju also needed to hear. We hear her venting/ranting in Ju’s office after an upsetting surprise meeting with her ex-boyfriend.
Eun Ha in front of Ju who listens open mouthed : “Why didn’t you tell me to wait? Then I would have waited for you. Why did you just break up with me? Why did you have to come looking exhausted and beg me to let you go? I couldn’t even tell you I’d wait.
After everything, you come to me now and tell me that was the best you could do? You did that for me? Don’t kid yourself. You just didn’t have faith in me. You thought that I was only capable of selfishly receiving love from you and that you were the only one giving love in our relationship. Answer me. Am I wrong?”
Nurse Oh answers from the doorway. “No you’re not wrong.”
Ju who has been uncomfortable since the radio show highlighted what a fool he’d been to ask DJ to just be friends, feels that what EH says applies to him. After he receives DJ’s gift and note, he heads upstairs to see her.
We hear Ju’s voiceover thoughts : “To avoid hurting her, I pushed her to the other side of the world. But she folded the world in half to get close to me.” (This is a reflected in how she had folded the paper rose. She had not twisted the paper to make the rose but folded it, bringing the opposite edges together.)
Ju’s voiceover : “How come I can never push you away? How come I can’t control myself with you? ‘Run away. Don’t run away’. ‘Please don’t get close.’ ‘Please don’t go too far.’ I try to cast absurd spells that can never work, but in the end, she makes me fold the world in half and run to her.” (After his ‘yes and no’ way of interacting with DJ, he was deciding on a ‘Yes’. He didn’t want DJ to misinterpret him any longer or to feel the indignation of EH over him.)
Ju falls asleep while waiting for DJ to come back up to see him, and it’s EH’s words that trigger his dream and that come out of DJ’s mouth. These words probably reflect what Ju himself thinks, or believes that DJ thinks of him.
Dream DJ : “I’m sure you don’t have faith in me. You think I’m only capable of receiving love. And you think only you’re capable of giving love. Isn’t that what you think of us?” Dream DJ gets up and walks away leaving Ju seated. He gets up too but finds that his feet are stuck to the ground so he can’t go after her. He calls out to the Dream DJ : “DJ, don’t go.”
As DJ wakes Ju up gently, his sincere dream wish is the main thought that breaks through into action. So he says : “Don’t leave,” and meets her halfway for a kiss that is full on ‘Yes’. DJ hears the sincerity and responds generously LOL.
(I’m thinking that if not for hearing EH’s words at that time, Ju might not have ramped up enough nerve and determination to see DJ with his ‘Yes’. He also would not have had that dream that led to the kiss. So ‘Thank you Eun Ha!’
It was a most refreshingly different kdrama kiss, since for a change the guy is resting back in a chair, instead of having the girl pinned against the wall or something. A new way to execute a kdrama kiss! It seems even more appropriate, because Ju is the ‘weak’ one who has to take care of his heart.)
The cutest misinterpretation of all, of course comes after this when DJ says she’s going to bed and Ju thinks she’s inviting him in ‘for ramyeon’ LOL! The background music to signify what was in Ju’s mind was hilarious, especially when it ground to a halt. Kudos to the music director and the PD and the Writer!
(More later …)
Being a Virgin (The Questioning Kid)
LOL, Ju innocently agrees to answer the question that the little boy in Ha Neul’s waiting room asks and does a spit-take at : “What is a virgin?” He cleverly deflects by asking if the boy is the owner of the pet in the consultation room.
It turns out that Ju really is a virgin, ie A ‘Relationship Virgin’ and he needs all the help he can get, even from the psychological test that he tells the boy “lack(s) validity and credibility”.
Ju takes the test to prove his point but it confirms and the boy reads his score out loud : “Congratulations! You are definitely a relationship virgin. Your dating IQ is 57. That’s between that of a dog and a pig.” LOL.
The boy continues reading : “If there were a fool who’d tell their crush they should remain friends, it would be you. Believe it or not, you’d even be willing to marry someone for their sake.” (This is so accurate when applied to Ju. And it does seem that he married Ga Yeong in order to help her when she was suicidal, and most needed therapy.
I find it a satisfying sort of karma (in a nice way), that Ju who’s able to analyse people just by observing them briefly, and who got DJ all ruffled by his announcements of her personality, gets himself analysed accurately by the psychological test that he denigrated.)
Ju : “Oh dear.”
He borrows the magazine and proceeds to read it (as @Sayaris notes) in the boy’s voice LOL as it accuses him of being a fuddy-duddy and to make changes in his life rather than think his own opinion makes sense in a relationship, since his dating IQ is only between that of a dog and a pig. LOL
Well the magazine did work out for him in that it got him to buy DJ a necklace that sealed her happiness, even when she could not get rid of GY or EH who invited themselves over for a girls’ night with DJ. I couldn’t help thinking that GY was being deliberately obtuse when she failed to see that the wanted guest was Ju, and not her and EH, but of course, GY is the ‘princess’ who can’t imagine anyone would prefer someone else over her.
The Situation According to a Kdrama Princess
In Episode 9, Ju had sent DJ a video of Dr Hollow holding a piece of paper that was supposed to represent a carrot that he was waving. It was the sign she’d asked for to prove that he did not misunderstand the ‘cookies in bed together’ and the shirt ripping incidents.
DJ was delighted by it and had eyes only for it so that she didn’t watch Ga Yeong on TV. Both DJ and Ju were smiling to themselves . Ingeniously show interjects GY’s scenes from her kdrama: “The Princess of Forever” to inform us of what’s happening.
From the TV we hear Ga Yeong’s voice : “Why are you smiling like a fool?”
TV Guy : “What? I’m not smiling.”
TV GY : “Look you’re smiling. I can see that you are trying not to smile, but you cannot stop yourself. you look as if you have a cute bunny in your arms or you just had the sweetest fruit.” (Yes, it true. That’s how DJ and Ju look! LOL TV GY does not know that it’s her jajangmyeon ‘beard’ that is making the guy smile. She thinks it’s her beauty.)
TV Guy is disgusted by GY’s messy jajangmyeon sauce covered chin. LOL
TV Guy : “A cute bunny, my foot. She’s a weirdo claiming to be the princess of Tangerine Kingdom. And she’s only eating jajangmyeon.” To TV GY he says ” Is there no jajangmyeon in your kingdom?”
TV GY : “No.”
TV Guy : “Forget it. Wipe your mouth. I don’t want to see your dirty face.”
TV GY : “Am I too beautiful for your eyes to behold?”
TV Guy : ‘Gosh. I guess this is what the princess syndrome is like. I’m talking to a delusional princess.”
TV GY says to TV Guy “You’re the one with the sickness, not me. There is no medicine for those who are lovesick. You’re in trouble.”
(This is precisely what GY is in real life. GY lacks the ability to notice the worst of the mess she’s making in other people’s lives as well as her own. That kdrama was written for her LOL. In the area of love, DJ and Ju are the ones whom medicine can’t help, because they were already in pretty deep, since perhaps after the time they went to Gangneung together. However in the areas of healing their woundedness, DJ and Ju are the medicine that would work for each other.)
In Episode 10, “The Forever Princess” is on in Ju’s apartment, getting Seong Won and Ha Neul excitedly holding each other’s hands while anticipating a kiss scene, LOL. Ju switches off the TV. SW and HN are indignant that they missed the scene, while Ju is quietly jubilant that he’d had his own kiss scene just a while earlier.
TV GY gets a kiss out of the TV Guy, claiming that she’s too beautiful and her lips did its own thing, so he should forget all about it, LOL, and he’s upset.
TV Guy : “Forget? How? How can I? It happened just now. Whatever. You take responsibility for it.”
Princess GY : “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
TV guy : “Why won’t you take responsibility for it? In this day and age, there’s something you must say after an impromptu kiss. This is your line, so listen up. ‘Should I apologise or confess my love’? ”
Princess GY : ” ‘Apologise’? I suddenly feel famished. Go cook some ramyeon.”
The TV guy is beside himself with frustration.
(We find that after Ju’s impromptu kiss, to which DJ responded warmly, nothing much was said about the kiss. It was too embarrassing a topic to outright discuss. DJ, however, was not upset. Yes, the kisser should take responsibility to speak to the ‘kissee’ about what was happening and I hope it does happen, but although Ju has not exactly put into words what the kiss meant, he has done enough in action to confirm it.
After the kiss he ran to her door thinking she’d invited him in. He gave DJ the necklace, he went for the camping trip and shared his woundedness with DJ and later on he does tell individuals in DJ’s hearing that he considers her “Someone that I like.” With Ju, actions spoke louder than words.)
The Camping Trip
Eun Ha’s Kiss
In the camping game of finger folding if a statement applied to them: Seong Won folded a finger for a kiss that he’d experienced that week. Because this was most likely a lie ie SW was delusional that he’d ever been kissed, Ju grabbed that opportunity to avoid the curse of lying (the curse was that one would never be able to kiss that same person again!!!) by folding his finger too, and telling DJ that she should do the same. We notice that Eun Ha also surreptitiously folded her finger and DJ noticed it. She stared at EH questioningly but EH pretended not to notice.
So we know that EH met her ex-boyfriend and had lots of words to say to him, but she said them instead in Ju’s office. She had said that in the end she did not say them to the ex-bf’s face. Could it be, it was because he’d kissed her, and that had shut her up? LOL.
Walking with Shadows
I like how Show makes some things so obvious. When DJ and Ju walk together, we get an aerial shot of the shadows that start off in front of them but which end up behind them as they walk towards a more lighted area. They are walking into the light and their dark pasts are mostly behind them, especially because they are making that walk side-by side.
From my notes: DJ and Ju finally get a quiet time together as they go for a walk.
DJ makes an observation after seeing Ju behaving like a kid with his friends over the guessing games : “I was curious about your childhood, but I think I got a rough idea. I always wondered how you three became friends. ‘I see. So that’s why they are friends.’ I think I get it.” (He’d revealed something of his playful kiddy self to DJ).
Ju : “Oh dear.”
“And I like where I am now.”
Ju : “What do you mean?”
” ‘Where am I in life? What will happen to us? What if I get hurt?” I don’t have those questions anymore. Remember? I was a legless bird. I used to be afraid of settling down. I used to excessively water my plants.
(We see their shadows shifting from in front them to behind them. DJ was encouraged to share about herself, after seeing that Ju had unabashedly been like a little kid in front of the girls that day).
DJ’s shadow shrinks and it’s the 7-year old DJ who is walking with Ju.
Young DJ : “JYD-shi, do I still seem legless to you? Look what I can do.” She jumps around alternating her feet.
Ju : “You’re right. KDJ has legs now.”
Young DJ : “Do you know what it’s like when a rhino slams into you from behind and you end up flying far away?” She runs off to sit on a bench.
Ju : “I do. Why?”
Young DJ : “I often felt that way. When I suddenly moved from Seoul to Gangneung, I thought I flew there because a rhino had slammed into me.’
Ju : “It must have hurt a lot.”
Young DJ : “But it wasn’t like I was bleeding, so I got up and started walking again (This is a comment on how the unseen spychological wounds don’t get attention but should.)
Ju : “Did you ever feel that way again?”
Young DJ : “When we got kicked out of a motel. My mum was crying with the water running in the bathroom. Then I knew the rhino had come back and that I’d be somewhere else the next day.” (She had led an unsettled life with no security that she’d have a place to stay long term.)
Ju : “Do you feel that way now?”
Young DJ : “No. Because now I have legs.” (She had decided to leave some of her past shadows behind her and to settle where she was.)
Ju decides that he feels safe enough to share more about his childhood with DJ. It’s Ju’s turn to be his 11-year old self. He’d fallen and ripped his jeans.
“Oh dear.”
When DJ tried to help him up, his arm hurt because of the many places he’d been jabbed by needles.
Adult DJ : “Does it hurt? Are they all needle marks?”
Young JYD hides his arm under his long sleeve. “I’d like you to ignore them.”
Adult DJ : “Why? You need to get them treated.”
Young JYD : “I want to keep the pain to myself. But if you look at them, you’ll feel the pain as well.”
He lets her help him off the ground.
Young JYD : “Are you upset that I hid my wounds from you?”
DJ shakes her head : “I can understand you. It took me a long time to open up too. But it’s okay since we’ll be hanging out all the time. We have enough time.”
Young JYD : “Thank you KDJ-shi.”
Adult DJ : “My pleasure, JYD-shi”.
They had been open and vulnerable to each other and had been accepted as they were. Ju had thrown out the accusation in his mind that he thought he was the only one who could give love, when he gave DJ a chance to listen to him and to heal his wounds. More shadows are probably on their way, but I expect that DJ and Ju will be able to walk through the dark patches and heal each other as and when.
With a new understanding, they head off as adults to another part of the campsite, having shared some of their hidden woundedness, which cements their trust and closeness to each other. What a good depiction of a healthy loving relationship.
Traumatised Children
This show gives us the repeated motif of young persons who have been traumatised, usually as a result of something done by a ‘parental’ figure.
We know of the violent dad of DJ and TJ. We hear DJ’s description of what Ju in Episode 1 said was “the memory you want to escape so badly that causes repetition compulsion”
We see TJ’s reaction (distaste?) to the news of his dad being dead… (I’m not sure if the notice of inheritance also mentioned inheriting a debt).
We’ve seen the horrible childhood of Chase and Jeong Min whose mother gave them only 1 name and sold one son away.
In Episode 9, we gather that even Cheol Do, in his 30’s has such a fear of his father, that news of his father’s return has him agonising. He is drinking in the day time and needs a listening ear in DJ.
We recall that little Aiden felt abandoned and lonely in the hotel without his parents. And that the little boy with the Teddy Bear had a mum who wanted the doctor to fix him, instead of she herself fixing the Teddy Bear. There was even the first patient with Korsakoff’s syndrome who felt that no one trusted her.
However Ep 9 and 10 gave us the solution to at least the bad memories, that many victims try to escape. In the note that DJ left with the shirt for Ju, she said: “No need to be alarmed at the paper rose. I folded it myself. Once babies touch something hot and get startled for the first time, they get scared just hearing the word, ‘hot’. I read that this warning comes from the amygdala in our brain. But there’s the hippocampus behind the amygdala that stores new memories. It means if we make a lot of happy memories and put the hippocampus to work, we can cover up scary memories with happy memories, right?
I forgot that you’re a psychiatrist. Anyway, starting today, my hippocampus will remember a paper rose as such. ‘It’s nothing to be scared about. Actually, it’s like having a lollipop.’ ”
I’m waiting for the time when Ju and DJ find out that the first crush who left Ju a lollipop on one of the hardest days of his life, was none other than DJ herself.
Chase
Chase has much to hide for many reasons, none of which may actually be criminal, and unfortunately these have put him into the hands of the evil Vice Chairwoman who wants to own him.
I’m assuming that VC and the Killer?/Paper Rose Guy (PRG) are not working together, but that VC has been using the crimes committed by PRG as part of the ammunition for blackmail. In the last meeting between VC and Chase, he more or less was agreeable to working for her. She was also interested in keeping him under her thumb for a longer term. So it does not make sense for VC to have ordered the hit job as shown to us in the end scene. If Chase was willing to work for her, there was no reason to attempt to pin a (another?) murder on him. There is however the PRG who first left the suicide note to pin 3 murders on Jeong Min, and who seems to be stalking Chase.
One point of interest in the murder scene: there’s a roll of green duct tape lying on the floor – the kind that an assailant might use to bind a victim with – however I can’t see where it has been used. Attorney Noh was leaning against the wall, without any green tape on her.
The last we see of Chase, he looks up and at us, viewers, as if breaking the fourth wall, pleading to be understood.
The Epilogue shows us that the watcher in a white coat is still seated at his nice wooden table in front of a computer. His books, a card in a card holder and the glass of water are still on it as well. We get to see only his right eye from the side, as he clicks his mouse.
The preview gives us Chase calling Det Ko to report the death of Attorney Noh, and being interrogated by him.
The Spiral Ramp
At the campsite, Ju and DJ walk and end up in the centre of a structure that looks like a spiral ramp or huge slide. It is slightly reminiscent of the circular, unfinished building where Chae Jun committed suicide. However in this spiral ramp, there is talk and laughter and even music and dancing as DJ sings the dance melody and Ju tries to move to it. It counteracts the suicide in the circular building, like a happy memory that covers the unhappy one.
The Fortune Teller’s Warning
DJ’s Mum has been going to church then to a temple and in Ep 10 we see her at a fortune teller. She’s been having ominous dreams and is trying to ward them off while finding out what might lie in store for DJ and TJ.
FT : “You are indeed a flower, but you bloomed during the wrong season. What use is a flower during wintertime?”
Mum : “It’s obvious. There are no bees or butterflies, and I’ll probably freeze to death. I know how my past has been better than anyone. Enough about me. Tell me about my kids. What do you see? Is there anything ominous?”
FT : “Your son is like a firefly, he must work at night. He’ll meet a good wife. And your daughter…
Mum : “She’s one smart girl. She works at the best hotel. She’s pretty, kind, and smart. I got to say she takes after me in many ways.” (Perhaps DJ also takes after Mum in how she attracts the wrong type of men.)
FT : “She needs to be careful.”
Mum : “Of what?”
FT : “There’s a Grim Reaper behind her, and she will come face-to-face with a man holding a knife. But he’s holding it upside down”
Mum : “Speak in layman’s terms. I don’t understand you.”
FT : “She won’t get stabbed, but she’ll still have blood on her.”
FT : “Amidst the bloodbath, she’s head over heels in love with someone. She’s not alone.
Mum : “Is this the man you’re talking about?” She gives information on JYD.
The FT is surprised : “Is he alive right now?”
(Ju’s life expectancy had been low until he received the heart of Lee Jeong Beom. Even with the heart, he might not live beyond a decade or so.)
The FT’s words seem to come true when a knife wielding man threatens the staff at the hotel.
Chase grabs the knife, in particular when it was pointed at DJ.
Later when alone with DJ, Chase speaks with her.
Chase : “Did I frighten you again?”
DJ : “Yes.”
He approaches her and she’s intimidated. He backs her up against the wall.
Chase : “Are you still afraid of me?”
DJ : “I am. So please move aside.” (Well who wouldn’t be scared of someone like Chase menacingly staring at them.) ”
He stops her from leaving by placing his right hand against the wall.
Chase : “I thought you were smart. It’s my left hand that’s bleeding. Why are you afraid of my right hand?” (He is referring to himself and his twin brother.)
He places his left hand on the wall as well.
Chase : “I think you’re still confused. I’m not the guy who scared you.”
He leans forward to whisper in her ear, the way he had done when they were children at NJ Church “You’re still a fool.” (He refers to the time he’d denied touching her hair, when he’d also called her a fool.)
DJ remains transfixed in horror.
(This exchange means that Chase remembered her. He probably did a background check after she mentioned the name of the church, and found out that she was the same girl who’d accused him of stroking her head. So the boy in a black jacket who’d been hiding during that Christmas book giveaway, had indeed been Chase.)
The more clues emerge, the more I am convinced that Ian Chase and his twin are victims, not perpetrators. The following 3 people could be the perpetrator: DJ’s father (possibly dead), Mr. Hong (involved in illegal adoptions), and possibly a mysterious bigwig who is observing the situation from a distance. We still don’t know what is the connection between these 3 persons.
Have we seen Attorney Noh before?
Hi @Snow Flower, we only saw Attorney Noh fleetingly a few times before. She was the one who had told Chase to change the door lock combination of his home. He’d told her he was waiting for ‘that man’ to come, and so would not change the combination.
It makes it possible that,’that man’ really had come to drug the bottle of alcohol that Chase would pour from each night. I’m not sure if ‘that man’ intended to kill Attorney Noh from the beginning, but it is likely that he intended not to speak to Chase but to knock him out for a few hours.
Noh had received Chase’s call and had come running back to check on him. I’m guessing she came in, dropped her phone at the entrance of the room in shock or was hit and dropped it.
It looked like she was stabbed while standing and that she leaned against the wall and slid to the floor when she died. There was blood on the wall and on several parts of her clothes.
– – – – –
From my notes:
Chase has been drugged. He phones ‘Noh’ but is unable to speak to her before he collapses and breaks his drink glass. Noh calls out in alarm to him through the phone. The time on the phone is 2:28am
Timestamp 1:04:30
He wakes to hear the sound of the phone alarm. It is Sunday May 2nd 5:25am. It’s chilling how the alarm (the same as on my phone!!!) sounds like a bright and cheerful music box refrain (yes, we remember the 1st music box and it augers ill) but slowly the background music fades in with ominous tones.
From the doorway we zoom in on Chase waking up. Another mobile phone (Noh’s) lies on the floor at the entrance to the bedroom.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gNcUyp4MMNrNbDmkD9aG7abIdunKCm8A/view?usp=sharing
As the camera continues to zoom in on Chase, we see what Attorney Noh would have seen, as she came from the lift and down the corridor. It artfully shows us once again, not just Chase, but also his reflection in the corridor wall. He is in the darker half, while his reflection has a light. The reflection seems to mock him – he seems to be a victim because he is one half of a set of twins.
On the floor is a roll of green tape, a bloody knife, and one of his slippers.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ji8-iatYZX0y_bGieugVvdWbvf0WLw3-/view?usp=sharing
He looks at his left hand which is no longer bleeding and then at his right hand, which is also bloodied but not wounded. He probably realises that the blood on the knife is not his own.
He turns his head to see Attorney Noh, dead, but leaning against a glass wall. It looks like she may have been stabbed from behind, had leaned against the glass wall and slid down it when she died. There are streaks of blood on the wall above her. There’s blood from her right shoulder that stains her jacket to its hem. She may have been stabbed more than once.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ki5mav_Fd84cYUEMV9rDqrjl-eUl8Ji4/view?usp=sharing
Is he being framed or did he do anything without being aware of it? Could he have a split personality and drugged his own drink? Or did his leaving the door lock combination unchanged allow ‘that man’ to come in to frame him, the way his brother had been framed?
Timestamp 1:06:00
EPILOGUE
We return to that solid wood table with the card in plastic case, the glass half filled with water, and the computer mouse still on it.
We see the hands of the man in a white coat clasped on his lap and then he uses his mouse as he presumably watches the computer monitor. We are shown the Watcher’s right eye from the side.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1psQ97cXMLEe4vTvTyC8_pVJU4XXDpLAH/view?usp=sharing
When Chase first regains consciousness, the camera shows us only Chase’s eyes, and only his left eye as he wakes up.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/195nZqWyRkyS0HwQdhWJZSOuFlV2_lGat/view?usp=sharing
Does the Watcher’s eye look different? Are the eyelashes longer? Is the Watcher a 3rd twin?
Thanks @GB for your posts! Like you, I find the episodes delightful and romantic and fun! Sometimes I forget there’s the murder mystery entwined in the story. I can easily compartmentalize with this drama.
I also agree on great writing (and acting) and interesting and novel ways to tell the story (and show it too). The use of children was so refreshing – that relationship “virgin” test was hilarious and the kid reading it (in his mind) added a fun dimension. JD fits the description to a T! And on the serious side, when the OTP was walking and talking, peeling the onion of their trauma and sharing more with each other – these were made more poignant withe use of their younger selves.
And for a cinephile like DJ, of course her crush is Tony Leung! JD did a decent dance number. Note to self to watch “In the mood for love” fully. I’ve just seen some snippets and some iconic scenes but not the full
Movie. Found it in dramacool so I plan to watch it.
@Moonstar, yes I’m Reminded of Start Up rooftop kiss. Both are excellent scenes and Swoon worthy! I also like that the OTP has developed non verbal signals especially with their personal gifts to each other (fingering the necklace, touching the shirt). It develops the intimacy with each other. Soon, “she is someone I like” will be “someone I love”.
I love the friends going glamping, playing games and bonding. That was so much fun!
I am hoping that by the end of this drama, these people whose childhood homes and relationships with parents were traumatizing will create a new family of choice: dear friends that stick together through thick and thin. And I hope that realizing there is a loving support system, DJ and Dr. Ju will fully commit to one another despite not having assurance of a long future together. Truth is, no one ever has that assurance.
I found Dr. Ju’s smooth dance moves alluring, all the more so because he was fully in the moment and didn’t mind if he looked silly (which, in my opinion, he did not).
As for Attorney Noh, Ian Chase’s conversation with the Vice Chairwoman may have held some.clues as to why she was killed. Chase fed Attorney Noh false information in order to catch her later in betrayal. He chose her (I assume to represent him when the police wanted to talk to him about his twin’s alleged suicide and three murders) because he knew she’d do anything for money. He anticipated her disloyalty, and told Vice Chairwoman as much. When Attorney Noh said Chase would be staying in South Korea, and Chase asked when he’d ever told her he was planning to do so, she was busted: she was parroting what Vice Chairwoman expected of Chase. In fact, Chase had told Vice Chairwoman that they’d discuss his future after both had done their jobs: I assume that meant Chase killing the Chairman during surgery, and Vice Chairwoman orchestrating the killing of Chase’s nemesis, the Mystery Man.
Attorney Noh was greedy, and not wise. Because she was so easily caught in her disloyalty by both Chase and Vice Chairwoman, both had reason for getting rid of her. My money’s on Vice Chairwoman being behind Attorney Noh’s murder, because I think she found no value in Noh, and in fact was disgusted with her ineptitude, when Chase disclosed he’d fed her info to entrap her.
That said, we’ve heard from Vice Chairwoman that she needs Chase to clear the path to her corporate succession by ensuring the elimination of the Chairman. Would she benefit if Chase becomes the suspect in a murder case? I think not. She needs him to stay under the radar. If he’s high profile, he can’t quietly fail to succeed with her father’s surgery. So benefits from framing Chase for a murder, this taking him off the surgery team? I think it is the Vice Chairwoman’s brother, with whom she’s in a fight for the corporate succession. We haven’t seen him yet. Or have we? Could he be the man whose arm we’ve seen at the big wooden desk?
Hi Dear.. I hope you all have a great weekdays, it’s almost weekend!! Fighting!!
@GB,
Love your mini recaps, as always! I agree with you that this drama is blessed by a clever writer. It’s good to have this drama when I have to watch the exhausting Hospital Playlist. Lol. The point is that the more I watch this drama, the more I love it..
their background music/soundtracks, their actings, their cinematography (for the walking with shadows scenes : I was like 🤩🤩). They always surprise me with how they bring the stories to us. So creative and so smooth at the same time. We know that both of them has their own shadow/past that followed them around. But both of them are there for each other. I think I was healed too when listened to what DJ said “I can understand you. It took me a long yime to open up too. But it’s okay since we’ll be hanging out all the time. We have enough time.”
🥺🥺
What more can I say. As an introvert person, what DJ said makes my heart warm.
I agree with you that it is a great depiction of healthy loving relationship.
I’m also waiting when they realized that the one who healed JYD was little DJ.
It’s good to learn that we can cover the bad memories with the happy memories. I will train my hippocampus too. Fighting!!
About Eun Ha’s kiss:
I think I had the same reaction with DJ when Eun Ha folded her finger. Did the ex boyfriend kiss her? Lol.
About the murder scene of Attorney Noh:
Oh wow I didn’t catch the greed duct tape before! Thank you for captured it! I almost thought the right eye we see was “Chase’s” but maybe it was somebody else’s.
But who knows, I am curious tooo..
@Janey,
Yes me too. Signaling with their personal gifts are so sweet. They don’t have to say much but we can understand what they mean by that. And this is what I mean by the great acting. They act with their whole bodies.. Makes my heart fluttered every episode!! Haha..
Anyway, I think if I’m not mistaken it was Leslie Cheung, DJ’s first love and her forever crush. He had this iconic dance in one of his movie (Days of Being Wild):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaRBLT9MDXE
Sad fact: Leslie Cheung died because of suicide. He suffered from depression and jumped from his room at Mandarin Oriental hotel in 2003. What a tragic fact that he is the one whom DJ like. I hope no more people who will take their own life around DJ in the future.
On a side note: In the Mood for Love is one of my favorite movies. You should watch it!! It is also made by Wong Kar Wai the one who directed Days of Being Wild which Leslie Cheung dance in there ..
@Welmaris
I hope for the same thing too. We really don’t have “forever”. We never know how much time we got in this world anyway. They could cover their bad memories (of their bad childhood experiences and their toxic parents) with the happy memories.. and I hope when it ends to eventually, the happy memories will remain.
Good point on Vice Chairwoman’s brother. We haven’t seen him yet.
@Moonstar – thanks for the correction. I’ve always thought that dance sequence was “In the mood for love” but it’s in a different WKW film, Days of Being Wild!!! Ooopsies! I should really watch both films.
I loved that scene with JD and DJ dancing – in real life, there’s no music but them humming. On our screen we are gifted with both the dance and the music. The director is most likely a fan of WKW’s work especially on cinematography.
BTW, I found this YT on Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung (hah, another Cheung!) doing the dance as homage in the BTS of In the Mood for Love. Days of Being Wild was filmed 10 years prior. They were like DJ and JD having fun with the sequence. I hope the link works.
https://youtu.be/uVChpB6qzEM
@Moonstar, also appreciate the info on Leslie Cheung. So tragic that he died young and through suicide. As this show has emphasized enough, we have to take care of our mental health.
@moonstar, I am enjoying this drama more than Hospital Playlist at the moment. I like the pace, the romance and the suspense of this drama and no crazy fan wars.
Thanks for digging out the Leslie Cheung dance, so JYD was doing the same dance but a muted version. No wonder DJ was so tickled by his dance but I like JYD’s version better, a more relaxed version.
Does WKW likes to make man wear white singlet? Both Tony Leong and Leslie Cheung wore white singlet in the videos.
Now that we know Chase remembers DJ, I wonder if he remembers JYD when they were both living at the so called orphanage.
@Janey,
Aahhh I believe yes. The director must be a WKW fan!! Hahaha .. I’m googling about him to find about this info but no luck.😅
I’m really into his works currently. And based on some news I read, this director will direct the drama titled 25-21 (the one that offer kim tae ri and nam joo hyuk as the main leads. Oh I can’t wait!!!)
Also thanks for the youtube link!! It worked perfectly. You’re right Janey, the BTS of Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung remind me of DJ and JYD dance. 😊😊
Agree with you that this show emphasized enough about taking care of our mental health. I like how they could deliver the important messages to the viewers without being too patronizing.
@Feifei,
Me too!! Watching YAMS give me much more happiness than watching HP2 now. Even though their characters are younger, but their relationship is much much more mature than what happened in HP2🥲.
I don’t know what happened with WKW and the white singlet lol. Maybe it was a trend back then (?)
I also think that Ian Chase has remembered JYD since the beginning.. (I think the one who came to JYD’s clinic was Ian Chase). The way he responds to JYD like he is irritated so much..
@Moonstar – really? Same director for NJH and Kim Tae Ri’s upcoming drama?!!! 👏👏👏 Can’t wait!!!
@FeiFei – I’m with you and same as @moonstar, I’m taking refuge in YAMS (and also in You are My Glory YAMG – both are YuMmy!!!) given the lackluster HPL2. The way they show romantic relationship are polar opposites!
Because I have been so charmed by the dance scene in ep. 10 of You Are My Spring, I’ve been looking more into the iconic Leslie Cheung film scene that inspired it. I found this article about that 1990 film. The journal article appears to be badly translated into English, but we get the gist.
http://berlinfilmjournal.com/2014/05/wong-kar-wai-as-a-metaphor-of-love-part-1-days-of-being-wild/
The first YouTube clip I found of the iconic DOBW mirror dance had English subs for the voiceover, but I can’t find that one again on YT. I noted that Yuddy’s voiceover mentioned a bird without legs; that quote has also become iconic from the movie. In English, Yuddy said, just before he began dancing in the mirror, “I’ve heard that there’s a kind of bird without legs that can only fly and fly, and sleep in the wind when it is tired. The bird only lands once in its life… that’s when it dies.”
In ep. 1 of YAMS, after seeing the pictures prominently displayed in DJ’s flat, Dr. Ju interpreted the one on the left with a bird in flight, “A legless bird. You’re scared of settling down. You fear relationships that require emotional commitment…” Not being steeped in Hong Kong movie history, I didn’t get the cultural reference that probably was instantly recognizable to Korean viewers who know of Leslie Cheung and one of his most famous roles: Yuddy in Days of Being Wild.
The team behind YAMS seems to be drawing many themes from DOBW: fear of romantic commitment, rejection by mother, forever being in a short span of time, etc.
I want to give credit to my friend, who isn’t involved in BoD, for the following insight. She caught onto this because of the time she spent teaching in South Korea and taking classes to learn Korean.
Chae Jun
Choi Jeong Min
Ian Norman Chase
I did see some similarities in the first two: the alias used by the twin that visited Dr. Ju’s office, and the name shared by both twins. But my friend said that Chae and Choi would both be pronounced “chay.” The J in Jun and Jeong is not hard like the J in jet, but a softer J like in the French words jeune and jaune. It sounds like zh. So Chae Jun and Choi Jeong would sound similar when pronounced in the Korean manner rather than anglicized.
Now say Ian’s name according to Korean naming order: last name, first name. Chase Ian. Chae Jun. Choi Jeong. Cha Seian. All are similarly pronounced by speakers of Korean. Throw in Ian’s middle name, and you get the Min sound in Norman. Chase, Ian Norman is as close as you can get to Choi Jeong Min with a fully anglicized name.
Den for Aiden.
Trick for Patrick.
Nibal for Hannibal.
My for Amy.
Mian for Damian.
Tley for Bentley.
Ian for…Chae Jun.
@moonstar, you’re very welcome! I looked up that Leslie Cheung committed suicide (I was shocked) but it didn’t trigger the memory that ironically another suicide (Chae Jun) had also touched DJ’s life. She has not mentioned it herself and I hope it will not depress her. Now she’s with Ju, but even he does not have a prognosis for long life. Poor DJ.
@Janey @moonstar @Welmaris I watched the clips of ‘In the Mood for Love’ (and even the commentary on why it was such a good movie. That blew my mind!) and the dance of DOBW. What great meta! Thanks for sharing the many meta points with WKW’s films and the article of the Berlin Film Journal. The legless bird is mentioned twice in it, as a metaphor for Yuddy, for happiness, and perhaps for love, according to WKW. The themes reappear in YAMS, but fortunately treated in a less melancholy way.
Thanks to your friend @Welmaris. So we have the similar sound of ‘Chase Ian Norman’ / ‘Choi Jeong Min’. The little boy without a name, who insisted that his name was Choi Jeong Min, ensured that he didn’t wander far from it. This must mean, that he changed his name (whatever name given to him by his adoptive parents) to Ian Norman Chase.
We see that consistently, Chase had insisted on his own identity, while differentiating himself from his brother, although his mother seems to have wanted to merge the 2 boys into 1 entity. She gave him strawberry flavoured cough mixture, saying he’d like it but he pointed out that it was the brother’s favourite flavour. He’d corrected DJ as a child that it wasn’t he who had stroked her head. He was angry with her for being afraid of him just because she had been afraid of his brother. He says in Ep 10 that the right hand and the left are different, so her attitude towards one hand should not flow over to the other.
Unfortunately for him, there is someone else (more than 1?) who does not want to differentiate him from Chae Jun either. The fate meted out to CJ, is being meted out to Chase as well.
I second the desire for all to be healed, to end their loneliness, and to be able to be family to each other, even Chase.
I went back to watch episode 1 and saw the scene of the wooden table, card in case, glass of water, mouse and the hand at around 19:58. The person was watching the media interview given by JYD about the murder at 99 building. The clothes looks like those that JYD was wearing during the interview.
I wonder why is this scene show to the viewers again?
@Feifei, don’t scare me … although the thought did come and go through my mind… what if JYD himself has a mental issue? I weigh that thought against the fact that his friends, Cheol Do, Ha Neul and even Seong Won have known him for many years, and there’s been no indication that they suspect anything like that with him.
I was actually thinking that what looks like the ‘same’ scene is actually the present situation where the same Watcher is still watching/stalking our main protagonists. We do not even know if the person being watched is Chase or YD or DJ, or all three.
Show keeps teasing us with tiny bits of more reveals. Now we get to see just the eye. It’s teasing us: ‘Can we tell whose eye?’
@GB, when I first saw The Eye, the first person that came to my mind is JYD. So I rewatched that “eye” so many times just to banish that thought. I told myself the fringe is long enough to go over the eye so it can’t be JYD, then I saw the same scene in episode 1.
Yup the show is teasing us so much but I am so enjoying it.
Kalimera my agapimenes,
I haven’t been able to write earlier and I won’t write today.
If you haven’t heard we have many wildfires and many acres of land has been burned and I am not in the mood to comment at the moment.
I will return later on…
My agapimeni Cleo, my heart bleeds for the great loss. Please stay safe and well. I’m keeping Greece in my prayers.
My agapimeni @GB,
thank you for the thoughts and prayers. <3
Kalimera my agapimeni @Cleo,
Oh my, I just know this 🥺🥺🥺. I wondered where have you been. I hope you and everybody else in Greece will get better soon.. Take your time dear, we’ll always pray for you. 🙏🏻
@cleo, I am sorry to learn about the forest fire. Stay safe, I hope the fires can be brought under control real soon.
Dear @moonstar512 and @feifei,
Thank you for your kind words and prayers.
I feel extremely sad at the moment and I am trying to overcome this sadness.
I am okay, I just cannot seem to write anything at the moment.
I will be around here and there and I will return writing about Episode 10, when I feel like it.
<3
@Cleopatra, I empathize with your feelings of sadness, seeing so much of your beautiful country being consumed by wildfires. I hope you, your family, and your community continue to be safe. Even if you’re not in the frame of mind to watch dramas and participate in commentary, I beg you to check in with us from time to time to let us know how you’re doing.
According to Choi Jeong Min’s (Korea twin’s) confession letter, he stabbed to death Kim Myeong Ja on March 13, 2003 at 9pm. We learn she was part of the illegal adoption organization. In December 1992, after Older Twin (he asked the whereabouts of his younger brother) woke from his cold-medicine-induced sleep to find himself in unfamiliar surroundings, Kim Myeong Ja mocked Older Twin because he and his twin shared one name, and gloated about how much money he could sell for because of his sparkling eyes. She also exhibited cruelty toward the children when distributing their food, refusing to give them their fill while nibbling on the rice herself.
Policeman Lee Jeong Beom was killed in a back alley in Pungji-Dong on June 3, 2018 at 2pm. Pungji-Dong is where 99 Building is located. He was stabbed because he knew too much about Choi Jeong Min. We learn he’d been to visit the husband of Kim Myeong Ja to ask him questions.
Cho Gwang Hun was the murder victim in the still-vacant 99 Building in Pungji-Dong. He was killed on December 18, 2020 at 2am. His neck was wrapped from behind with a length of plastic sheeting, he was stabbed, then he was strangled with green cable. This is different than the two previous victims, who were only stabbed. The confession letter does not give a reason why he was killed. We don’t know the connection of Cho Gwang Hun to the two other victims, the culprit, or the murder site. It is unlikely he was a construction worker because he was in the unlighted building at 2am. Was he a homeless person, taking refuge from the thunderstorm, that Choi Jeong Min unexpectedly encountered while stalking DJ’s new home (she was to move in the next day)? If so, why would Stalker have had a knife with him, and why would he feel the need to kill a stranger? He could have explained he was looking at the building before his friend moved in, or something logical and unsuspicious like that, despite the late hour. The words of the confession letter imply the victim was lured to the building by the culprit: “Since I knew that the building was vacant, I could carry out my deed without feeling rushed.” That also implies there was some connection between culprit and victim which has not been revealed to us.
The confession letter claimed, “Everything I did was inevitable. Anyone in my position would have done the same thing. Therefore, I do not regret having done what I had to do.” These words convey intention, vengeance, retribution, self-protection. The culprit believed he had to kill the victims; his motive is hidden in the words “in my position.” What position did the victims put Choi Jeong Min into that murder was his solution? The only victim for whom we get a suggeston of motivation is the policeman, who in the course of his job uncovered information Choi Jeong Min felt endangered him. But why was Lee Jeong Beom investigating Kim Myeong Ja’s case 15 years after she was killed? Officer Beom’s senior said they’d assumed–lacking suspect, motive, evidence–that her stabbing was a thrill kill. Why reopen a case on which they’d reached a dead end?
The photo, taken December 1994 on the day of Nanum Jeil Church’s book giveaway, looks like it was taken when DJ was holding The Happy Prince, the second out of the five books she was given on the only day she visited that church (per her answer when questioned by the police). In that photo are twelve children of varying ages, including DJ. (I don’t see her younger brother, but we saw her bring him home after getting The Little Mermaid.) Standing next to DJ in the photo is one twin wearing a grey shirt. Notably, that twin is the only child in the photo not holding a book or wearing a jacket. It was cold that day: see-your-breath cold. His not being dressed warmly for the harsh temperature strikes me as child endangerment if he was in the care of an adult at the time. If he wasn’t accompanied by an adult, did he come on his own from his home in the neighborhood, as did DJ and her little brother? If that was the case, why wasn’t he given a book? DJ was given one after another off a table full of books, three more after this photo was taken, so it isn’t the case that they ran out of books. Behind the children in the photo are two rows of adults, nine in total. Among them we see Kim Myeong Ja and the man who was also with the eating children when Older Twin–now nameless twin–woke two years earlier after his mother drugged and abandoned him. Who are these other adults? Four of them were at the book table when DJ asked about their giving away food and they gave her The Little Mermaid book instead.
According to my neighbor who was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea, the writing on the back of the photo, not translated into English subtitles when the policeman looked at it when questioning DJ, reads: “I have been searching for so long.” I think it is the writing of the twin who was in the gray shirt in the photo: the one who stroked DJ’s hair. I think the one who was hiding under the Christmas tree and handed DJ the fallen chocolate bell was the same twin, or at least we see a gray sleeve on the arm extending out from under the tree.
The twin we see wearing a coat, who called DJ pabo after whispering he wasn’t the one who patted her head, and who we later see being caught by adults while hiding in a room then taken away in a car, is the twin we later meet as Ian Norman Chase. Unless they exchanged places, he’s the older twin who’d been at the Nanum Jeil Prayer House for two years after being abandoned by his mother. He was adopted out to the USA, his birth location changed on official USA records, raised into adulthood in the USA, and became a medical doctor. The one in the gray shirt who patted DJ’s head appears to be the younger twin who remained at home with his mother and was raised in South Korea. His fingerprints and name of Choi Jeong Min were officially registered in South Korea.
If younger twin–South Korea twin–became DJ’s stalker, he didn’t live in Nanum Jeil Prayer House for two years, so why would he kill Kim Myeong Ja? He wasn’t subjected to her cruelty. Would he kill to avenge his brother? Or did Ian, when he visited South Korea as a teen, kill Kim Myeong Ja then pin the murder on his brother using a supposed confession letter.
Aaaargh, my head is going in circles. I need to let this rest here, hoping we get more clues on Monday and Tuesday.
Great sleuthing there, @Welmaris! Thanks for sharing. Will keep an eye (just like the mystery guy) on this in the next episodes.
@Cleo, I hope the situation gets better in your area soon. Take care and stay safe. Northern California is also plagued by fires and our air quality was not good in the last couple of days due to smoke brought by the winds. Luckily, We are not near the fires but it’s really heartbreaking for those who lost their homes. I’ve seen some footages of the ones in Greece also. Praying that the rains will come soon.
Kalimera everyone!
@Welmaris thank you for your kind words. I really appreciate it. Please don’t worry, I am okay. My family and community is okay as well. <3
I am having an optimistic outlet in life, but I love Nature so very much and it broke my heart to see this destruction. My heart aches for the forest, the little animals, the birds, the domestic animals, the houses. People lost their homes and jobs. They will return to nothing. Those things made me sad, super sad.
@Janey I do hope that too. All the people is praying the wildfires to stop, rain to come. I do hope your fires will stop too. The wind brought over here a cloud of smoke, as a reminder. Yesterday I thought that the smoke has come over here too…
I have some thoughts to share with all of you.
@GB, I want to agree with you that this writer is really clever and she reveals bits and bytes for the viewers little by little.
I want to comment on “The Fortune Teller’s Warning”. I believe that now we know who everyone is on the Oracle…
The Grim Reaper behind her is that mystery man Hwang Jae Sik who kills and framed Ian Chase as a killer.
He is the one who has killed everyone and framed Chae Jun / Choi Jeong-Min as well.
I believe that he is connected to this Cult Church as well and holds a grudge to everyone involved with that illegal adoption system.
Do you think that he looks alike Ian Chase? I mean are they all connected genetically?
The man holding a knife upside down is Ian Chase. That’s why we saw that hotel scene where he had the knife upside down with DJ.
As for Dr. Ju I agree he has a short life span and I think that with his “new heart” his life span might be short as well.
I am glad that they have each other. I am completely certain if DJ is to be in danger that YD will sacrifice his life for her. I do hope they won’t go over there though…
I haven’t watched the episodes twice in order to see why they use that man with the coat and if he is indeed Dr. Ju.
I don’t think he has a multiple disorder, but since his heart belonged to the dead policeofficer, he might have urges from his donor.
@Moonstar512,
Hwang Jae Sik is a very smart killer, do you remember that he had this poison or hypnotic powder in that book that was called : “The perfect crime” or something like that? I agree with @Sayaris with that.
I just hope that Ian Chase has installed a security camera in the house and it will capture that man as the killer.
I agree that the father of the twins might be a very powerful man and if he is the illegal child of the Chairman then that VC Lady knows it as well, If she found evidence about Ian Chase’s past then she could find out, who the father of the twins is.
@Welmaris,
Thank you for the info from your friend that was in South Korea. That pronouncation was something we couldn’t realize, but it makes sense and so I think that I was correct when I say that Ian Chase went to Dr. Ju’s office back then.
I totally understand that you are frustrated, but I feel that the answer is too simple, channelling my inner Lee Gon.
@Janey,
This past June I wanted to see on the cinema “In The Mood Of Love” and I went to the cinema, but it was another movie that day….
I am going to watch it this August instead. I didn’t know that Tony Leung committed suicide. Thank you @moonstar512 for pointed that out.
I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone. I am not on a laptop and I am trying to answer to you all…Until the next time!
P.S. Σας ευχαριστώ φίλες μου…για όλα! <3
@cleo, good to know that you and you family are safe. Btw Leslie Cheung committed suicide, Tony Leung who acted in In the mood for love did not commit suicide he is still acting.
I can’t get over this drama because my brain keeps going back to try to solve the mystery of the twins.
The drama tells very little about Choi Jeong Min. Episode 5 starts off with one of the twins cleaning his forehead and applying a plaster on it, he then instructs the other twin to change his clothes. The other twin had injuries below his nose and around his mouth. The twin with a plaster on his forehead told the other twin “don’t forget how far I went for you” and “a shadow shall not covet the light.” The other twin did not utter a single a word through out this. I don’t know which is one is CJM and which is Ian Chase here. Is the one with a plaster CJM or Ian Chase? I tend to think that the twin who did not speak is Ian Chase because he does not have a name and therefore he is the shadow. His silence here reminds me of the time when Ga Yong board Ian’s car by mistake, Ian Chase also didn’t utter a single word. Later when Ian Chase is looking at the Ko Jin Bok’s name card and CJM’s photo, the voice over repeated “Don’t forget how far I went for you” meaning he is the one receiving the statement. Towards the end of the episode, Ian Chase in his dream looks into a hole where light travels into the darkness. He covets the light. If the twin who did not utter a word is Ian Chase, what is he doing in South Korea at 18 years old? Why did he run out from the house in school uniform with injuries? How did he return to the US?
The twin who is washing his clothes in the washroom and met JYD’s gaze is the one who injured his forehead.
I think the one who visited JYD is CJM because Ian Chase did not know about DJ and CJM until he met her at the cafe, he couldn’t have showed up at JYD’s clinic to tell him that he likes DJ. The boy who steps on JYD’s foot at the orphanage could be the shadow coveting the light.
The Eye and the man in white coat, after looking at that Eye for I forgotten how many times and revisiting episode 1&2, I am quite certain that he is not JYD. In episode 2 the man in white coat sits in a huge room like those Board Meeting Room. My guess is he is some big shot of a hospital, Majin Hospital?
I still have no clue why CJM jump to his death? Oh my head needs to take a break.
@Welmaris, thank you so much for the detailed description of each twin. At some point Younger Twin (presumably future Stalker) must have joined his older twin brother in the orphanage, where it is possible that they switched identities. After one of the twins was adopted in the USA, the other lived with Kim Myeong Ja and her abusive husband. The twins must have re-established contact when they were 18 years old. There are many missing pieces from the timeline. I am patiently waiting for more pieces of the puzzle to fall into place in the coming episodes.
Just found in ep. 5 the police report on the murder of Kim Myeong Ja on May 13, 2003. It also was in Pungji 4-Dong. So all three murders took place in Pungji-Dong.
@snowflower, why would the other twin live with Kim Myeong Ja after one was adopted to the US? Why didn’t he lived with his mother instead? That leads to another question, when the police look up Choi Jeong Min’s background, there is no record of his parents or siblings, why? Did the mum gave up both kids to the orphanage? Kim Myeong Ja’s husband doesn’t seem abusive from his interaction with Detective Ko. Sorry I don’t mean to question you, I just have so many unanswered questions in my head.
My dear @pkml3, you mentioned above that you forgot that this is a Monday/Tuesday show, therefore this is a little reminder that it’s Monday in my part of the world!!! Thanks for giving us a thread to spazz in each week! 🙂
My dear agapimenes, you’ve all brought up good points and questions and I’m as befogged and befuddled. Therefore I’m waiting patiently for more to be revealed, so that our brains don’t go around in circles without coming to some satisfactory conclusions.
At different points in the interactions between the twins, show has deliberately left us in a dilemma as to how to identify each of them. We can only go by scars or wounds, and we have to figure out if the habits they have are manifested in only 1 twin or both.
Several episodes ago I tried to differentiate them by Chae Jun/Jeong Min or Chase/Jeong Min. I may try and continue that comparison and what each did.
The point of confusion: who went to JYD’s office and stepped on his foot? If we say that was Chase, what reason did he have to be in Korea and to go there, since it was Chae Jun (not Chase) who was jealous that Ju was also paying DJ attention? Plus there’s what I thought was fact, ie that Chase only came back to Korea after the suicide. If he’d been in and out of Korea, surely the police like our persistent Det Ko, would never have missed it.
Add to all this is the other fact that Chase and possibly Ju and/or DJ are being watched. There’s always been a 3rd person (we used to call him #1) in the background who is pulling strings. And now there’s Vice Chairwoman as well who may not be aware of the 3rd person. She’s also pulling her own strings.
The only thing that seems clear is that someone is continually trying to pin murders (old and new) on the Jeong Min twins. Can we assume that it’s the same person? Maybe not. Previously we thought that everything stemmed from that Nanum JC child trafficking, so the motives would be connected to that as well. However if there’s more than 1 person out to destroy any or both of the twins, the motives become even more complex.
What an entertaining mind-boggle this is!!
Thanks, @GB!
@Feifei, I have the same questions too and no answers so far. We will continue the discussion in the new thread.
@Feifei, I had the same thoughts as you.
I wrote previously that twins switching while likely, did not seem to make sense, because the only reason to switch would be to be so that one of them stayed with the Mum, and not end up as the one left in the orphanage or worse, with Kim Myeong Ja. I just couldn’t figure out why they’d switch.
There’s a strange 2 year gap in which Chase was in the orphanage and yet he was able to meet his brother. Although they were twins, they seemed distant from each other. Show has not let us have scenes of them together, other than interactions where they exchanged identities, or where one was helping the other to escape being hurt. They do seem to manifest some aspects of Anti-social Personality Disorder, but it’s not clear to what extent they have it.
It’s true what you mentioned, that 1 of them speaks, and the other is silent. It’s as if there’s some telepathy going on between them, so not much needs to be said out loud.
I also feel that Kim Myeong Ja’s husband does not seem to be the cruel, bullying type.
There was a woman unconscious in the house of Hong Se Geun when Chase replaced Chae Jun at age 18. If that woman was not Kim Myeong Ja, then Hon Se Geun also had a wife? Or was that woman really Chae Jun’s mum?
It’s not clear if 18-year old Chae Jun was living with Hong Se Geun or not. He was in school uniform and he was expected to return to that house, as if he belonged there. If he did live there, then did Hong Se Geun become his step dad?
We continue to wallow in questions.
Kalimera everyone!
Dear @feifei,
thank you for the correction. As I have said I am not on my laptop and I missed the comment by @moonstar512, @Janey and you about Leslie Chung and Tony Leung.
I will agree with my agapimeni @GB, that although I have questions I don’t know, I will wait for more information because otherwise we go around in circles…
As I have said in another thread not long ago. I will always go with the simplicity of a theory. Mostly, because to simplify is the only way not to go overboard!
I believe that the one who put his foot on Dr. Ju’s, is Ian Chase. Mostly because he is the one that wants 10 tooth brushes, since we dont know if his brother had the same issue, we go with what we are shown.
If Ian Chase is indeed the one, that means that he was coming to S. Korea to see his twin. Why did he go to Dr. Ju’s office instead of his twin, we don’t know but the patient with the alias put his foot on Dr. Ju’s as well.
This is habitual movement and one that shows that “I am above you”.
He wanted to have the upper hand and in a way Ian Chase continues to do so.
I do hope today they will reveal more to us…
Are we going crazy trying to sort out which twin was which and where and when? Yes! Are we supposed to have it all straight at this point? No. I believe the writer and director are doing a good job of building the mystery and giving us clues here and there to keep us engaged but guessing. I’ve been doing some quick reviewing of all the episodes up through 10, and I notice that as flashbacks and memories are repeated in various episodes, each time we see one we’ve already seen we get a bit more information.
So far Show’s creators are doing their jobs well. I will applaud them wholeheartedly if the story lines resolve, all mysteries are revealed to us, and we see that some clues were in front of us the whole time. But if this writer/director duo does a sleight of hand like the folks who brought us It’s Okay to Not Be Okay, where the reveal of the culprit was NOT believable, then I’ll be exasperated. (Dr. Ju, can I make an appointment to sort out my anger issues?)
@Snow Flower, I do not believe both twins lived at the orphanage at the same time. The folks who worked the illegal adoption ring wanted both, because they were greedy for the extra money they could get for twins. And when we see both twins during the bookfair day at Nanum Jeil Church, only one is visible at a time: Gray Shirt handing the book back to DJ then stroking her hair; Gray Shirt in the photo on the church steps; Jacket hiding in a below-ground exterior stairwell, telling DJ it wasn’t him who patted her head; Gray Shirt handing DJ the fallen chocolate bell (we see only his arm extending from under the Christmas tree); Jacket standing in an unlit room looking out a window, then trying to hide in a corner when approached by a man; Jacket being driven away in a car while DJ watches.
Putting all the pieces together from flashbacks spread amid many episodes, this is what happened on the day of the book fair:
-DJ and her little brother, TJ, go to Nanum Jeil Church expecting a food handout. Instead, the church is handing out children’s books. DJ is given The Little Mermaid.
-DJ drops her book and Gray Shirt picks it up, then strokes her hair. DJ doesn’t speak to him. TJ, as DJ leads him away, asks why DJ is blushing.
-DJ doesn’t like the ending of The Little Mermaid, so returns to the church without TJ to exchange it. She’s given The Happy Prince.
-DJ sees Jacket down in the below-ground exterior stairwell that leads to double doors in a building. DJ asks Jacket why he patted her head. He says it wasn’t him, and calls her pabo (dummy). As she climbs the stairs and walks away from him, a female adult’s voice is heard calling the children together to take a photo.
-People line up for the photo on the church stairs, adults in back, children in front. Gray Shirt is in the front row at one end. He’s the only child not wearing a jacket or holding a book.
-As DJ walks by, an adult woman posing on the steps for the photo calls her over to be included in the photo. DJ stands next to Gray Shirt in the front row. The photo is taken. DJ is holding The Happy Prince, which is the second book she received.
-As the photo is taken, Jacket watches from behind a stairwell wall.
-DJ returns to the church to give back books she doesn’t like and receive new ones. She gets and rejects Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and The Fairy and the Woodcutter (third and fourth trips). On her fifth trip of the day to the church, she’s given The Black Cat.
-DJ takes two chocolate bells off the Christmas tree on the church lawn. She drops one. When she squats down to retrieve it, she sees someone hiding under the Christmas tree. An arm in a gray sleeve (it must be Gray Shirt, hiding) reaches from under the tree, picks up the fallen chocolate bell, and holds it out to DJ. DJ takes it and stands up. She’s holding The Black Cat. She liked that book, so I surmise this is her last trip to the church.
-Jacket, in an unlit room, tries to hide in a dark corner when a man comes for him.
-DJ sees a car drive past her, away from the church. Inside the car she sees Jacket.
Which twin was Gray Shirt and which was Jacket? We know the older twin is the one drugged by their mother and brought to Nanum Jeil Prayer House to be sold for adoption. That was in 1992. When Ian Chase falls asleep, we see his dream sequence at the end of ep. 6 & beginning of ep. 7. His memories of his childhood have been jogged by DJ asking about Nanum Jeil Church, and we see he’s been looking at a picture of it on his laptop before he doses himself with pills and booze. Chase’s memories include the first day at the orphanage in 1992, the woman saying that he’ll sell well. So Chase is the older twin, and the one who was abandoned by his mother. We also know Chase is the one who was sent to the USA. So on the day of the Nanum Jeil Church bookfair, the older twin was Jacket, who was driven away in the car. Although I thought there might have been a switch of twins at the orphanage, I now believe that didn’t happen since the older one, the first abandoned, was sent away. Chase remembers the words spoken to him the first day he woke to find himself at Nanum Jeil Prayer House. The twin who remained with his mother at home wouldn’t have those memories.
The younger twin, who remained at home with his mother, must’ve been Gray Shirt. What was he doing at Nanum Jeil Church on the day of the bookfair, openly walking around the lawn and posing for a photo with the adults of Nanum Jeil Church?
It gets confusing again when we see the day another photo was taken, this time at Nanum Jeil Prayer House, which included Ju Young Do and Gray Shirt. There are boxes with labels that read “Sponsored goods.” The children are holding up handwritten signs. Gray Shirt’s reads, “Sponsor, thank you.” Hong Se Geun, the sharp-jawed man we’ve seen supervising the children at the orphanage since 1992, when Older Twin first arrived, yells at Gray Shirt and roughly pushes his head twice then motions as if to hit him, “Hey, I told you to smile. Show him some smile, for God’s sake. Don’t you dare glare at me.” Ju Young Do is called over for the photo despite HSG saying “Not him” because the woman, Kim Myeong Ja, says “The more kids, the better it’ll look.” Later we see Gray Shirt brushing his teeth at the orphanage, then encountering Ju Young Do. He sees JYD has his own toothbrush, toothpaste, and towel. He greets JYD with, “Your dad won’t return. You were abandoned, too.” JYD insists his father will return because he could tell his dad wasn’t lying when he said he’d come back. JYD asks Gray Shirt’s name, who responds, “I don’t need a stupid name.” He intentionally stomps on JYD’s foot, then shoulders him, when walking past JYD. It also looks like this is the twin who later, in 2020, visited Dr. Ju’s psychiatric clinic, because stepping on Dr. Ju’s foot is repeated as a threat.
It sure seems like at this point in time Gray Shirt is the older twin who has been living in the orphanage. But when did this happen? We find out that Ju Young Do was eleven years old when his brother needed a kidney transplant and his father hid him at Nanum Jeil Prayer House. JYD was born May 10, 1984, so he was eleven years old in 1995. Older twin was sent away from Nanum Jeil Church in December 1994. I think Grey Shirt is still the younger twin, but now is at the orphanage. His boast that he doesn’t need a name may be a red herring; like his older brother who preceded him at the orphanage, he may have been teased about sharing a name.
We get further clues at the beginning of ep. 5 when the twins, as teens, reunite in South Korea. USA twin comes back, appearing unexpectedly outside the home of South Korean twin: I suspect USA twin went there because it was the home he knew before his mother abandoned him. South Korean twin, wearing a school uniform, comes out of the house. It is obvious he’s been beaten: his nose is bleeding and his mouth looks like it has taken a punch. They change clothes: we know this because we see the twin with an uninjured face–the USA twin–entering the house wearing the South Korean school uniform. The interior of the house is strewn with belongings, as if there’s been a violent fight. USA twin is first shocked, then becomes emotional, when he sees a woman lying unconscious on the floor. It is not Kim Myeong Ja from the orphanage: I believe it is the twins’ mother. But the drunken, aggressive man who comes out of the bathroom is Hong Se Geun, from Nanum Neil Prayer House. He speaks to USA twin as if he believes he’s seeing South Korean twin. “I knew you’d come crawling back soon. You brat. Come here. Look at you glaring at me. I should teach you a lesson.”
What I think happened is that the twins’ mother and Hong Se Geun entered a relationship at some point after the twins were born. There was no father on record: no father named on the South Korea registration of one child born to this woman (when, in fact, she’d borne twins). Perhaps they met before 1992 and he’s the one who convinced her to give up one twin for adoption. Back in 1992 she did draw the line and refuse to give up both twins. But it seems that by December 1994 Gray Shirt could appear before Hong Se Geun during the bookfair without raising suspicion. If Jacket had been dressed at Nanum Jeil Prayer House in preparation for his departure that day, and had been brought to the church by the orphanage supervisors, Hong Se Geun would look for the twin in that clothing. He was probably instructed to remain inside the church, not mingle with the neighborhood children attending the bookfair. Gray Shirt could mingle because he was still his mother’s son and technically a kid from the neighborhood, but his “stepdad” Hong Se Geun probably forbade him from taking a book for himself. That’s why he was the only kid in the photo with no book in his arms. Gray Shirt likely had heard from HSG that his older twin was leaving that day, so he hid under the Christmas tree to avoid being sent away with, or in place of, his brother. And because Hong Se Geun and his mom lived together, Gray Shirt may have accompanied his “stepdad” to work at Nanum Jeil Prayer House when his mom wasn’t home. That is a logical reason why he was at Nanum Jeil Prayer House when Ju Young Do was there in 1995.
This is how I sort out the twins:
Older twin = abandoned 1992 at NJPH = Jacket in Dec 1994 = USA Twin = twin with cut to forehead (from being hit with a chair) = Dr. Ian Chase
Younger twin = kept by mom in 1992 = Gray Shirt in Dec 1994 = photo with JDY at NJPH in 1995 = living with mom and HSG in 2003 = DJ’s Stalker = sociopath = visited Dr. Ju’s clinic with alias Chae Jun = fingerprints and name registered in South Korea as Choi Jeong Min = died in fall (alleged suicide) in 2020
Why would Choi Jeong Min kill Kim Meong Ja? Ian Chase has the memories of her unkindness to him his first day at NJPH. But if the younger twin also spent time at NJPH, it is likely he’d also have experienced her cruelty. During USA twin’s visit to SK twin’s home, HSG died when he slipped on go game tiles strewn on the floor and hit his head on a jagged piece from the wooden chair he’d broken over USA twin’s head. The twins didn’t kill him: HSG’s death was an accident caused by his own violent actions. That happened in March 2003. Kim Meong Ja was killed March 13, 2003. Either one of the twins could have motive for killing her.
We see the teen twins in high-end lodging in Seoul 12 hours following the fight in SK twin’s house during which HSG died. USA twin appears affluent. He provides clothing for SK twin: gray sweats that match his own. While together in the pricey lodging, SK twin says nothing, but USA twin speaks (judging by the wounds on his face and neck, which differed from SK twin’s wounds). USA twin says, “Don’t forget how far I went for you. A shadow…shouldn’t covet the light. Because it’ll vanish.” I’m not sure how to interpret this, but it sounds condescending and threatening. USA twin seems to think himself the better of the two, and that SK twin is beholden to him.
I’ll leave it at this for now. Episode 11 will drop on Netflix in just a few hours. We’ll see if it confirms or disproves any of my suppositions.
Hah! I’m glad I didn’t go further in doing the same thing as you @Welmaris! Thanks! You’ve saved me the effort and I agree with you.
One thing that may confuse us is JYD being 11 years old. Koreans often add a year upon birth, (ie one is 1 year old when born), therefore being 11 years old might still mean that JYD was at the orphanage in 1994. If if it was early in 1994, he could have met either Chae Jun or Chase at the orphanage. So I’m still uncertain if it was really just the younger twin who stepped on his foot or not. I expected that it was still Chase who was at the orphanage.
However assuming that the twin who stepped on JYD’s foot in the orphanage is Chae Jun, makes more sense.
@Welmaris, I think you have nailed it. Totally agree with you.