Let’s go hand in hand.
1. The Potions
Lol. I get now why our heroine HongJo (HJ) works in the Park Maintenance Team. Her previous life as a shaman would have “encoded” into her soul an affinity for plants and flowers which she would have used for healing and spells.
For example, she volunteered to beautify the highway median with flowers. This was going over and beyond her duties as a ninth-grade civil servant. She also recognized scientific names of plants. I was surprised that she knew what a “rhododendron fauriei” looked like. And she instantly made a connection between ShinYu’s “I am Groot” and his dislike for bracken-fern.
This is Groot. It’s a twig.
When Groot’s flatulent, the gas he passes becomes a leaf. Lol.
And this is gosari, a young stem of fernbrake.
Source: sustainable sachi
An aside: Interestingly enough, gosari is considered edible in Korea, and is cooked as a side dish or in bibimbap. But here in the US, it’s considered carcinogenic.
And more important, she found the ingredients of her potions easily.
Love Spell:
Before casting the spell, cleanse your mind and body by bathing. Be neatly dressed. Do it quietly at night when the moon is at its highest. Pour the mild of a goat with deep maternal love into brassware. Add canola honey, powdered poria mushrooms, dodder seeds, and a red rosebud. When the rose starts to bloom in the milk, burn this page and mix it with the ingredients. When the rose blooms completely, filter it in a burlap bag. When the water comes clear, it’ll become a love potion. Make the person you want to charm drink it.
Cure Disease Spell:
Before casting the spell, cleanse your mind and body by bathing. Wear neat and white clothes. Cast it at night at a place full of grass when the full moon is at the highest. Place brassware on red silk embroidered with plum blossoms. Add chocolate vine, wild ginseng fruits, antler reishi, and rhododendron fauriei. Mash them with a pestle and squeeze out the juice. Sincerely hoping for the person to heal, use the juice to write on the palm of the sick person the character “life.”
She then burned the page again and blew the embers. ShinYu inhaled them.
Poria mushroom, dodder seeds, chocolate vine, wild ginseng fruits, antler reishi (a kind of mushroom), and rhododendron fauriei. These ingredients aren’t pantry staples like bread, butter, and sugar that anyone can find in the supermarket, much less recognize by sight. But HJ was familiar with them.
It wouldn’t be far-fetched to imagine a 21st century shaman working in a respectable job with the Provincial Parks and Recreation Dept.
2. ShinYu’s awakened memories of his past
Thanks for reminding me that this screenwriter wrote “100 Days My Prince.” I had a beef with that writer. In that drama, it was only the male lead, the Prince who remembered their first encounter. I thought it was stupid and unfair. It was a sign that the a) she left more of an impression on him, and b) he loved her more. I hated this imbalance.
It seems like the writer is repeating that same flaw in this drama: only ShinYu (SY) remembers their past encounters. Before he even drank the Love Potion, he was already triggered by her, whereas she’s been impervious to him ever since she discovered that he was the owner of the abandoned shrine.
I’ll list examples of him being triggered.
a. In Episode 1, he had a nightmare after HJ visited him at his office about the abandoned shack. He dreamt of a bunch of daisies and a shadowy image of a girl in hanbok.
b. In Episode 3 (after he drank the Love Potion), he grabbed the Book of Spells from her, and she tickled him to get the book back. They landed on her couch, with her on top of him. He was unsettled by their closeness while she didn’t even notice anything.
c. They went to Mt. Jirisan to search for a rhododendron. She found it but he had to help her reach for it. She looked self-conscious. But he covered up the awkwardness by telling her to pick the flower already.
SY: Even wizards don’t entrust their wands to Muggles. You’re a witch. I’m a muggle. Pluck it yourself.
HJ: (doing as she was told)
That night he dreamt of a young girl reaching for a red berries from a tree, and a young boy helping her.
I hope that they both awakened their memories of their past life. I don’t get why only SY remembers her, and she doesn’t. As I said, I hate the discrepancy because it suggests an imbalance of sentiments.
3. Signs of his being under the spell
You know I’m a big fan of lists, right? Instead of doing recaps, I prefer organizing the events in the episode into lists. Lists bring order to the twist-and-turns of the story and help us see the progression in the plot.
a. The first sign: SY’s heart started beating louder when she landed on top of him when they were tussling over the Book of Spells. This is a variation of that tripping-and-landing-on-the-guy trope.
But he started it when he didn’t want to return the book to her.
b. SY repositioned her head as she was sleeping so she wouldn’t wake up with a stiff neck. He also adjusted the shade.
This is the Love Spell in action. He becomes more considerate and caring for her.
He could always blame his hand for this act of kindness.
c. SY was aware of her proximity when he helped her pluck the flower. Ugh. This is a variation of that tall-guy/short-girl trope. The actor Rowoon is tall so he’s always getting something from the tall shelf for his leading lady.
d. SY’s heart beating faster after the cure disease ceremony. He told her to go inside the house. She wanted to stay with him and laid a hand on his arm. He brushed it aside. Then, in a raised voice, he repeated his order to go back in.
She protested.
HJ: Are you getting mad at me? When I came all the way here, wore this strange dress, and did my best to help you?
SY: What’s strange about it?
Wellll…hello? It looks like a bridal dress? I thought he had a photographic memory? Can he even remember what brides wear to weddings?
SY: (continuing) I think you look pretty in it.
d. SY thought she looked pretty in the white dress.
He couldn’t help complimenting her. This is one sure sign of the potion at work. He would yell and ridicule her one minute, then say romantic things the next.
By the way, did anybody else here think that buying her a white dress was an odd color choice, considering that he had just told his girlfriend to give him a little bit more time to figure out something on his own. He asked her, “Can you wait a little longer for me?”
This was on the night before he drank the Love Potion.
If he bought her the dress AFTER he drank the potion, then the white dress would be in line with him being under the spell. If he had bought it BEFORE he drank the potion, I’d consider it cheating.
e. The word “Life” that she’d written faded into his hand.
This is a foreshadowing. She’s going to be his new life.
f. More signs of the Love Spell at work: he dreamt of a girl in hanbok reaching for berries and being helped.
g. He was annoyed when coworker Kwon Jae Kyung (JK) called up HJ. SY noticed her tucking her hair behind her ear and her foot tapping the ground, and he slammed the door.
h. He didn’t want to eat but followed her inside the aptly called “Flower Garden” restaurant (she’s into flowers, remember?) after she scolded him.
HJ: Skipping wild veggie bibimbap at Jirisan is like not bathing in a bathhouse.
SY: Since you’re so excited, go eat it yourself.
But left alone in the car, he had a change of heart (literally) and showed up in front of her. It’s notable that he sat down first with his back facing her. This showed that he didn’t really like to be there, but he found himself compelled to be there to join her.
So…this is how the Love Spell works. SY loses his free will and self-determination and obeys whatever she wants. The contrast between him and his coworker JK is set up. Unlike JK who called up HJ by his own choice and volition, he has no choice but to pursue HJ.
I also get now where this kdrama is going. It wouldn’t be real love if the devotion had to be forced. Obviously, coerced love is artificial love. But then, what happens if SY ends up loving this untenable situation and opts to keep this slavish/bonded life even when his freedom is offered?
i. Back in the car, he inquired about JK’s text. He pretended to ask out of curiosity when actually it was the first stirrings of jealousy. She didn’t want to reveal it.
SY: What did he text?
HJ: It’s a secret.
SY: (annoyed, he nitpicks at her) Take your feet off the seat.
Because he was under the Love spell, he replayed this scene in his head when he got back home.
j. when they met at the elevators the following afternoon, he was bothered when she got up close and personal to tell him about JK’s date with her.
SY: You’re too close.
HJ: (changing topic) How do you feel? Did you get better?
SY: There are even side effects?
HJ: What side effects?
SY: My chest feels tight. My heart beats fast. It’s hyperventilation or arrhythmia.
HJ: You didn’t have them before?
SY: Of course not.
These new physical conditions were obviously related to the Love Spell. This is also a common trope: lovesickness.
But another common trope is the hand clutching the wall. Usually it’s the female character who clutches the wall when the guy pushes her up against the wall and she’s restraining herself from touching him. But in this scene, it was reversed. Lol.
She left him to join her team dinner, and he went to the car park. He couldn’t drive away. His hand wouldn’t let him open the car door.
This moment is noteworthy for two things:
One, this is a sign of his being under the spell. Just like he followed her to the restaurant in Jirisan, he felt the urge to follow her. He couldn’t simply drive off.
Two, his hand had a “life” of its own, literally and symbolically. Remember? He used to call his bloodied hand the “Red Hand”? It would grope him when he didn’t want it to. He had no choice but to go along with it. Now, after that “Cure Disease” ceremony when HJ wrote “life” on his palm, his “Red Hand” seemed to have been taken over by a new life. This time, his hand wanted him to go near HJ.
k. He followed her to her date with JK.
He felt compelled to barge in on them. His hand was already on the door, ready to push it open.
But he stopped himself. He began to suspect that his weird new affliction had something to do with her love potion. So he checked out the CCTV and got his confirmation.
l. He made a heart sign with his fingers.
This is the Love Spell at work. He knew it made him do this cheesy gesture. He tried to hide the heart sign from her because for him, this kind of conduct was beneath his dignity.
To me, this is a sign that “Red Hand” was transformed by the Love Spell and given a new life. It was no longer a female stranger’s hand drawn to him. Now, it was his own hand drawing himself to HJ. There’s a 180° reversal.
4. Just a brief word on the cinematography
As SY watched the CCTV, there was a montage of flashbacks of his encounters with HJ. The close-up images of his face were merged with the flashbacks and his face was shown circling clockwise.
Like this:
Visually, the camera roll is trying to convey that he had confused thoughts. When the camera shows his face upright, it’s to indicate that he managed to make sense of the confusion. He could gain the upper hand if he put his mind to it.
Then he stood outside the CCTV room, and he was filmed with the camera rolling again.
Like this:
The whole point of this camera shot is to show his disequilibrium. And NOT to show how good he looked in a suit.
Visually, the camera movement is showing us that his world was turning upside down. the camera movement matches the panicked thoughts he was having about the Love Spell drink he ingested. Then, the camera ends on a Dutch tilt. A Dutch tilt (I’ve discussed this before in other kdramas) is meant to convey confusion, disorientation and anxiety of the character as well as to shift those same feelings onto the viewers.
This camera tilt is a sign that his world is about to spiral out of his control like never before, and that audience can expect a major upheaval coming soon.
5. The hand over the face
As I have shown in my above list, his hand is very important in this episode.
And yet, Rowoon’s silly fans plastered his face all over social media. Darn it. His face wasn’t at all the critical element. Especially in this episode. It’s his hand, duh.
After all, it was his hand that made him reach for that Love Spell drink.
Was it accidental or destined? He suspected that his hand was up to something, Hence, he went to the CCTV.
The bloodied “Red Hand” might be out of sight, but his hand was still creating havoc in its own way. 🙂
Thanks @pkml3! What fun to watch what his hand is up to, against his own volition. I loved his arguments with himself, saying stuff that he had to counter and still admit that he didn’t want to say, and then scolding himself to get a grip.
I love lists too. Shorter and clearer.
I thought the white dress was part of the spell. It’s not made clear if HJ knew in advance that he was taking her away to find the flowers and concoct the magic brew for the spell. For an overnight stay, HJ wouldn’t pack the hanbok, but SY had prepared for the spell, knowing that a white dress was needed, hence he had the dress in readiness.
I felt that it was a dress that showed rather more skin than something HJ would have chosen herself. And yes, it did look somewhat like a wedding dress. In his suit, SY looked like a bridegroom himself.
Inadvertently they may have taken an oath on his hand to start a new life together!!! LOL.
@GB,
She knew when she agreed to go on a trip with him that she was going to do a spell for him.
She just didn’t know which spell till there was in Jirisan. He said he needed the rhododendron flower and she knew then that he was doing the Cure Disease spell.
She scolded him. Saying it was crazy to believe in spells when he should be going to doctors.
Yes. I knew it looked bridal. She in white; him in black. That’s why I pointed out that it was highly improper that he bought her THAT particular dress, considering he’d just broke up with his girlfriend of two years.
Any
dressoutfit would have done except for that white lacy really dainty feminine dress. White hanbok perhaps? A white suit? A white blouse with a conservative neckline and a white long skirt ensemble? A white sweater over white pants? White coat?Anything but a white wedding dress. It must be subconscious mind (or his hand) 😂 that chose the bridal dress.
If I were the GF, I’d be annoyed with him.
@Growing Beautifully and @packmule3, I thought the white dress wasn’t to her normal taste, but it was one of the requirements for the spell, so she wore it. Yes, it looked like it could pass as a wedding dress. SY chose as much as he could to fulfil the rules of the spell (his photographic memory came in handy).
Thanks for the idea that a modern shaman would fit in well with the Provincial Parks and Recreation department.
I’ve noticed that when, in K- and C-dramas a couple is connected in the past, whether a past life, infancy or childhood, one may remember it and the other didn’t. In this drama, when the connection is especially crucial to the outcome, it does seem unfair that one remembers it before the other.
Don’t you get what I’m saying, @Fern? 🙂
I’m saying that it’s pretty TACTLESS and imprudent of him to buy THAT particular outfit. All that was written on the Book of Spells was that she wore “NEAT and WHITE clothes.” As an attorney, he would have read/remembered that fine print and should have worked his way around it so that it wouldn’t be misconstrued by the Girlfriend and the general public should it be discovered later on that they spent the night together.
As I noted above, there are many ways to satisfy the requirement to “wear neat and white clothes,” none of which involved a bridal-looking dress. The obvious discreet choice would be a white blouse and skirt.
It’s what attorneys or great attorneys do. They take care that their own interests (i.e., finding a cure for his illness) do not materially or adversely affect their duties (i.e., duties of a loyal boyfriend) to a client or third person (in this case, the Girlfriend). lol. It’s called conflict of interest.
I’m afraid this screenwriter is good on the grand scale of things but he/she (or maybe the director and costume director) doesn’t THINK of these details when he/she pushes the plot forward. And it bugs me especially because the character is supposed to be an ace attorney. (That’s one reason I can’t watch legal dramas. Now you know….haha.)
@Packmule3, point taken that the white clothing dictated by the spell could have been fulfilled in a wide variety styles. White and neat were the only requirements, so fashionable, bridal, and pretty (and expensive!) were SY’s choices.
About SY’s girlfriend of two years, I get the impression his heart was not in that relationship: he surrendered to her relentless pursuit. He, under the effects of the Love Spell, is now doing to HJ what his former girlfriend did (and still wants to do) to snag him. It could be that part of the curse affecting the Jang male line is that they aren’t able to truly love their partners. We see that SY’s parents have a contentious relationship, with his mom being particularly unhappy in the marriage. All the father wants from SY’s potential marriage is an heir to carry on the line and someone to keep SY company as the curse ends his life. (SY seems to have been affected more severely by the curse than his grandfather, who has lived to age 70, and his father, who has managed to be cured of his life-threatening symptoms.)
By the way, when I was in South Korea (a few months before the pandemic began) and visited the Korean Folk Village (a tourist attraction where a lot of Kdrama scenes are filmed), I had lunch in the cafe and ordered the wild vegetable bibimbap. It was delicious!
I think fern shoots (bracken) are only dangerous to eat if not prepared properly. I’ll have to check later, because I need to run out the door for a lunch get-together, but I think potential poisons are neutralized when 1) the Fern shoots are picked at the correct stage of growth, and 2) they’re cooked in a way to eliminate toxins.
@packmule3, thanks for the explanation. I write slowly, so I may have been writing and didn’t see your follow-up post. It didn’t occur to me that that particular style of dress could result in a conflict of interests for him. I forgot about attorney-ness and thought he was just being ‘bloke-y’ as in, white + outfit for lady = this works (perhaps for the first white clothing he saw).
@Welmaris, there’s a lot of bracken where I live, particularly up on the moors, but eating it isn’t popular as I believe it is in parts of North America and Asia. I got curious and looked it up. According to an article in the Atlantic magazine, the poison or carcinogen, ptalquiloside, needs to be rendered as harmless as possible by the preparation and cooking, so whoever eats it needs to know how to carefully prepare it. In another article, it said to only eat the well cooked fiddleheads of the ostrich fern as others can be poisonous or carcinogenic. But then I saw a recipe for hartshorn fern fiddleheads. I’ve never knowingly eaten any and I don’t think I’ll tempt fate.
Howdy!
I haven’t watched this episode but I like this drama more than MLL. 🙂 I like it more that I slept late last night. LOL.
I think RoWoon has improved a lot in his acting here.
Right? I’m enjoying this drama more than MLL, too.
You know who I wished was costarring with Rowoon in this drama instead of Jo Boah?
Kim Sejeong. 😂😂 I think she would be a better match for Rowoon. Prettier, too.
Oh well.
I got stuck with Ep 4. I don’t know what to write about.
Oh I have to agree with Kim Sejeong. She can definitely pull this off. 🙂
I’m actually updated with The Uncanny Season 2 as well. I was surprised I ended up watching it anyway.
I can’t wait to watch the rest of the current episode though. What happened to episode 4 to make you stumped?
I don’t mind Jo Boah though. 🙂
This drama is giving me flashbacks. In addition to Dr. Strangelove’s dissociative hand, I just had a flashback to that song, Love Potion Number 9.
I watched the first four episodes over the weekend. It feels very Korean Odyssey to me. The love potion is affecting him and causing him to behave much the same as the Geumganggo bracelet (I had to look up that spelling) affected Son O Gong.
If FL really stole the now ex girlfriend’s boyfriend in high school (ex girlfriend’s version of the tale) and she did something so cruel in response that the FL still won’t forgive her all these years later – what will the ex do now that FL has “stolen” SY?
@packmule3 thanks for highlighting the importance of the hand in this episode. I was wondering why the camera kept zooming in on his hand. Now I know why and could really appreciate the episode more.
Loved the way you explain the cinematography! I was confused as I following the camera. With your explanation, it gave me a greater appreciation of the scene.
Oh you are stuck at episode 4? I was waiting eagerly for it to read for insights I might have missed. My own take on episode 4, revolves 3 Cs
Cheesiness
I am wondering if deep down inside SY lies a cheesy bf persona which would only emerge when met with the right person. The cheesiness rating of that episode is a 10 for me! Many cheesy lines were said by SY. E.g.
The scene which SY went to make his confession. HJ was confronting him outside the building.
HJ: Wait.Why are you suddenly speaking so openly.
Sy: I want to get closer to you. No. I feel I already am.
Confusion
There are many conflicting statements made by SY that I find it confusing and can’t help but wonder..which are the statements that are actually true.
For e.g.
When he was speaking with Shaman.. he kept asking shaman for the way to break the spell and when shaman said she doesn’t no..
SY said that’s a relief. I don’t really want to break the spell at all…… what if I really end up loving her?
So which part of the convo is true ?
Control
I thought this episode is about control too. SY controlling himself to ensure he does not do things out of character…but he failed terribly.
Looking forward to reading your review
I continue to think about the love potion trope and am trying to think of dramas that use it. I feel like it is not uncommon especially in individual episodes of series – but I am drawing a blank. There’s this drama, Korean Odyssey (mentioned above), and at least one episode of Buffy the Vampire. There is a Kdrama that I haven’t seen called Evergreen that involved a spell or a love potion and there is a Chinese drama called Love Potion that I haven’t seen but assume involves this trope (and this may be a big assumption given the random names of cdramas).
Anyone else think of some kdramas involving this premise – of a potion, spell or amulet or whatever that causes one to fall in love? I think it is a funny premise when it is done well. For example, I enjoyed Son O Gong falling in love with the woman he intended to have for dinner. Him crying describing the sauces he made to eat her with cracked me up. I may check out Evergreen although it got bad reviews. I
Yes, thanks for pointing out the white dress pick. The comment that she looked pretty can be attributed to the love spell but the dress?? It would’ve been a good scene to watch him pick out a simple, conservative white ensemble and then the hand involuntarily grab the pretty bridal look and place them both on the counter and then she could’ve been given both options and decide which to wear for the ceremony. Even without the love spell effects, to me his behavior towards his gf at dinner and at his new apartment just made him seem like an irresolute asshole.
@birdie007, good catch that the white dress may have been influenced by the hand/love potion. Your imagined scene would have been perfect and funny, too.
Yes, I agree that SY didn’t handle the encounters with his gf well. He had just fought for and lost control of his car to the red hand. He had recently been diagnosed with an illness that was incurable and could be deadly at any time. He kept thinking of the shaman’s words that the curse could be undone and he admitted to HJ that he was clutching at straws. My feelings on first watch was that he perhaps wanted to try the cure spell before he committed to the gf and he wanted to keep the spell secret (it’s very weird after all), hence him saying that he wanted to figure it out himself. By the time his gf met him at the apartment, he was feeling consciously attracted to SJ. For a lawyer, he doesn’t have good interpersonal communication. He seemed tongue-tied, even given the shock that his gf suddenly wanted to move in.
My opinion here: I didn’t have the impression that SY was deeply in love with his gf. I think he was fairly comfortable with her, with her family being friends of his family and perhaps he was okay with a ‘suitable’, loving relationship developing over time. I’ll have to re-watch some bits pre-love potion to see if his body language suggested that he cared deeply for her.
I like @packmule’s thought that the ‘love’ SY is manifesting isn’t real in the sense that it doesn’t involve his free will. To me, any love that is conjured up with a potion rather than evolving naturally will be flimsy and artificial, regardless of how intense it may seem. I am interested to see how this will pan out since neither SY nor HJ consciously wants to be in love with the other at this point.
I wonder if SY or HJ will come to appreciate each other apart from the spell? We know that there is some big catastrophe that will happen if the spell is reversed but no details. Could it involve the other spells that were cast?
I meant to stop at ‘ass’ and post the less crude version. I think the apartment scene is episode 4 so apologies!
I meant to add another thought. Previously, I said it was a good thing he had pretty hands since they seem to get a lot of air time. Now I think his hand should be its own character. I keep thinking of Thing from the Addams family.
@birdie007, I was more struck by your “irresolute” because it describes his mindset so well, particularly in the first encounters with his girlfriend. Did he really want to marry her or not, and how far had their relationship gone? Those were my thoughts.