For whatever reason, episode 5 of Arang and the Magistrate dropped a pretty significant amount in ratings (over 2%), and I’m not sure if this fantasy-detective sageuk is simply not the viewer’s cup of tea after they realize the tone and subject matter of the drama, or because Gaksital’s second-to-last week is hooking all the viewers. I wish I could say that episode 6 flipped my switch, but it remains that I enjoy watching the drama but can’t feel a personal vested interest in it. I suppose justice for Arang is important, but justice is hard to connect with unless the character is fleshed out and we see what Arang has lost by having her life cut short. I guess Eun Oh’s mommy search is compelling, but knowing that his mom may be the ultimate soul-sucking Big Bad makes me shudder for his eventual discovery of her.
Strangely the writers haven’t capitalized on any of the great chemistry between Eun Oh and Arang, with their relationship development crawling at snail’s pace so that we’re about half a step forward six episodes later as we were from the outset. The two of them are more comfortable with each other and appear to care about each other beyond curiosity and mutual need, but the lack of an emotional hook between them renders their relationship devoid of any urgency for me. I don’t need them pining over each other or making out like rabbits, but I want to see them slowly falling for each other so that the Arang’s final fate becomes one that becomes personally and important to both of them. The drama is now all about the detective mystery, which granted is eerie and compelling, but the character development remains wafer thin.
Episode 6 recap:
Joo Wal stands in the courtyard deep in thought, probably praying for reprieve for his failure to secure her a victim. Lord Choi arrives to mock his fake son for failing Lady Seo, believing this may be the end of their fake father-son relationship if Lady Seo casts Joo Wal aside. Lord Choi chuckles, wondering how “the wife” (WTF!?!?!) will punish Joo Wal since she’s gone hungry due to his failure. Lord Choi tells Joo Wal that, as his sunbae down this very road, “the wife” will just change her diet if she can’t consume the pure souls of girls. I am totally grossed out now.
Eun Oh finds his mother’s hair pin embedded in the wall of the sacrificial hut and worries what might’ve happened to his mom. I can’t fault Eun Oh for not making the monumental leap of logic in assuming his mom might be the perpetrator instead of the victim in this situation. Dol Swe, waiting outside and taking a leak break, stumbles over a burial site dug into the ground. He screams for Eun Oh to come take a look, and Eun Oh immediately runs over.
The area is covered with wooden boards and Eun Oh removes them and jumps into the hole underneath. He starts digging, worrying that he may find his mom’s remains. The hole contains lots of rocks and stones, but underneath it all Eun Oh unearths a set of female bones. Looks like Mommy sucks souls and then chucks the bones. Shudders.
Up in Heaven, the Jade Emperor stops playing his gayageum because clearly he’s distracted. The King of Hell reminds big brother that he doesn’t have faith the humans can do the task properly, and cackles for big brother to take good care of his “body”. When Eun Oh opens the mass grave, the Jade Emperor summons Moo Young to see him.
Eun Oh yells for Dol Swe to bring the magisterial gang and Dol Swe complies. The entire magistrate’s office heads into the mountains and bears witness to the mass grave. I swear, this drama has got some cojones and manages to make it spooky. Eun Oh wants all the bones in the grave unearthed, as well as any belongings that remain, and take back to the magistrate’s office so it can be sifted through to find out who the victims are.
Lady Seo senses a disturbance in the Dark Force and sends her padawan Joo Wal to hurry to her mass burial site. Joo Wal arrives and hides behind some foliage to assess the situation. He sees Eun Oh directing the collection of bones. He wonders if Eun Oh was responsible for taking Arang’s body away last night, and what Eun Oh possibly knows.
Arang wakes up finally, after dreaming about the pain of being stabbed last night. Poor baby, getting offed twice is like beyond unfair. She wonders why she’s not dead, especially when she sees that her stab wound has healed.
She cuts her own arm and then wipes the blood away to reveal the wound has sealed itself. She wonders what she is – alive but not completely human. Hey girl, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. You’re like a regenerating super being right now! Arang curses out that old (looks young) bastard up in Heavens, resurrecting her and then allowed her to get killed again. But then allowing her to regenerate and come back to life. She wonders what games he’s playing with her.
The Jade Emperor, still sporting his beyond hideous coif, summons Moo Young for a chat. He discusses how these unnamed deaths have been going on for four hundred years now, deaths where the decedent’s soul and body disappears afterwards. Moo Young takes the blame for this. The Jade Emperor reveals that the burial site for those decedents will be revealed soon and for Moo Young to be prepared. Moo Young asks if the Jade Emperor sincerely wants to help Arang right the injustice of her death hence he was the one who released her rope when Moo Young was leading her away? The Jade Emperor just smiles.
The remains collection is completed and Eun Oh realizes nothing belongs to his mother. He wonders to himself what he’s worried about? If his mother had died, her ghost would have come to find him. But he can’t figure out how her hair pin came to be at that sight, and what could have happened to her aside from being dead or missing?
The three magisterial officials confer about this shocking state of affairs. The discovery of this mass grave means the entire nation is now watching what is happening in Miryang, and likely their happy free days without a magistrate will never return again. They curse the new magistrate for ruining their good gig, and worry that Lord Choi will be so mad at them that he’ll slay them when they sleep.
Eun Oh is frustrated the find has yielded no additional clues about his mother. He senses Arang standing behind him and turns to grab her arm and take her away to talk in private. He tells her about the mass grave discovery and asks her to go investigate that location. Since she wore his mother’s hair pin, and the hair pin was discovered there, she might remember something if she goes there.
Arang refuses because she’s scared she’ll die again, though Eun Oh points out that she can just resurrect herself. Arang explains that the moment of death is a frightening experience and he can’t know what its like since he’s never died before. She’s regained the memory of how the magistrate’s daughter Lee Seo Rim died. Arang agrees to go investigate when she’s ready, which is not right now.
Lady Seo discusses with Joo Wal about how her mass grave has been unearthed, and all because of that new magistrate. She orders Joo Wal to kill the new magistrate and retrieve the dead body of the girl Arang. Joo Wal agrees to do as she bids. Lady Seo will deal with Joo Wal after he’s take care of this new complication.
Joo Wal exits and runs into Lord Choi outside, who cackles with glee about Joo Wal falling from Lady Seo’s grace. He hopes this will mean the end of their fake father-son pretense. When Lord Choi enters Lady Seo’s chambers, before he can ask her what she wants him to do, he starts choking and writhing on the floor. So this woman has supernatural powers she can inflict on humans. She really is resembling Emperor Palpatine more and more.
Arang heads towards the mountains, wondering what she needs to remember her own death. Perhaps that memory is the beginning of solving the mystery, though she rages at the Jade Emperor some more for putting her through all this. But she is determined to solve any difficult problem he places before her.
While Arang is in the sacrificial hut, she climbs back on the altar hoping that laying in the same position will trigger some memory. Initially she remembers nothing and that frustrates her. Suddenly a flash of memory appears and she remembers pulling the hair pin off the head of a woman whose back was to her.
Eun Oh waits outside in the courtyard for Arang to return. He sighs that he knows how she feels and mutters for her to come back quickly. We see Joo Wal wearing all black getting ready to assassinate Eun Oh. Eun Oh is getting angsty and wonders why Arang isn’t back yet. Just because she was a ghost before doesn’t mean she should be so cavalier about staying out late. Before Joo Wal can strike at Eun Oh, Arang returns and seeing her stops him in his tracks. He mutters that she ought to be dead.
Eun Oh asks grumpily why she’s back so late? Arang happily informs him that she’s remembered something, but Eun Oh wants to act like he wasn’t outside waiting for her since even a lost dog would cause him to come out and look for it. Arang reveals she grabbed the hair pin from the back of a woman’s head though she never saw her face. All she felt at that moment was fear or anxiety. Eun Oh wonders how she remembered this and learns that Arang went to the sacrificial hut by herself. He is upset she went alone and didn’t ask him to accompany her.
Arang turns to go inside when Joo Wal, changed out of his ninja outfit, walks up to her as if he was just passing by. He stares at her in shock, though he pretends its shock over seeing that she’s a girl. Arang explains her cross-dressing as an officer due to other reasons and smiles at him. Eun Oh sees this and grabs Arang’s arm to take her inside. Hee, he’s so jealous.
After Eun Oh and Arang leave, Joo Wal stands there still processing the shock at learning Arang isn’t dead. He wonders what he did wrong? I would ask what you did wrong in terms of bring innocent girls to be sacrificed to a soul-sucking succubus first, douchebag.
Eun Oh thinks to himself about Arang’s memory of plucking the hair pin from a woman’s head. He wonders if that woman could be his mother? If it was his mother, does that mean she’s alive? And if she’s alive, what was she doing there?
Joo Wal goes to see Lady Seo and she tells him to hurry home since his “father” Lord Choi has fallen ill. Lady Seo thinks back to her conversation with Lord Choi, wondering if she should spare his life or Joo Wal’s. She knows that things have begun at last. Lord Choi promises to do anything she asks. Joo Wal goes to see Lord Choi, who warns that Joo Wal will end up like him one day. Lord Choi’s minion returns from his trip to Eun Oh’s hometown. Joo Wal says his father is ill and cannot meet with him right now. The minion reveals he was sent to find information about Eun Oh.
Dol Swe watches Arang sleep, since she’s too scared to sleep alone in the room where she was almost murdered again. He remembers how happy he was to find his master safe and sound. He was all worried something bad happened to Eun Oh. Dol Swe tearfully tells Eun Oh that he’s like a servant, family member, best friend, spouse, all rolled into one when it comes to how he feels about Eun Oh.
Eun Oh wonders what’s gotten into Dol Swe for him to gush out an emotional confession like this? Dol Swe says that Eun Oh is also the son of a slave, just like him, though the circumstances are somewhat different. Eun Oh informs Dol Swe that he’s going somewhere to investigate further.
The three magisterial officers are conferring about what to do with respect to Eun Oh. They wonder if they should off him, and if that is what Lord Choi would want. They decide to go ask Lord Choi first. They are turned away from meeting with Lord Choi who is sick, though Joo Wal does manage to learn from them that the girl currently residing at the magisterial residence is the daughter of the master who taught the new magistrate.
Arang can’t find Eun Oh anywhere and she sees the three magisterial officers huddled together. She stops to chat with them and then realizes that one month has passed in the three months she was allotted.
Arang discusses with Dol Swe about where Eun Oh is. Dol Swe vows that he will drive Arang off no matter what he needs to do.
Bang Wool is calling out for customers to tell their fortune when Dol Swe walks up to her and asks for a talisman to drive away an unwanted female. Bang Wool says a simple talisman is cheaper than a complicated one and asks what the relationship is between the woman and the man? Dol Swe huffs that there is no relationship and his master is completely pure and untouched. He’s so incensed by what he assumed Bang Wool is insinuating that he shakes her roughly and she ends up smashing a metal lid on his head to get him to release her.
The Jade Emperor, the King of Hell, and Moo Young all stand up in Heaven and stare at a crystal ball intently.
Eun Oh goes back to the mountainside and wonders where all those souls went? It can’t be that they all went to the afterlife. Eun Oh finds black strips of cloth nailed to trees and on it is a symbol that he compared to the symbol painted on the wood planks used to cover up the mass grave and sees that it’s the same. He heads off.
Thoughts of Mine:
This drama does fantasy better than any K-drama I’ve ever seen, which means it’s completely immersed in the mythical world created and presents it without any tongue-in-cheek. The cinematography is dazzling, the saturated colors blending with the murky darkness transitioning into the glow of the Heavens. Eun Oh’s colorful dopos are just like candy pops and Lee Jun Ki rocks each one like no other. Shin Mina remains effervescent and luminous, and the world of Arang and the Magistrate is both like a dream and a nightmare. But without spending time on character development and focusing on the detective mystery with macabre elements, this drama remains all style and little emotional substance.
I am sufficiently freaked out by Eun Oh’s mom in every way. She looks freakishly plastic, with her face pulled taut and her wide eyes screaming “I am a crazy bitch!”, and every revelation of her actions and intentions sends shivers down my spine. She apparently “feeds” on the souls of innocent girls, but can also sate her hunger in other ways, ways that sound like “mating” with a man? To say that grosses me out is an understatement. On one hand I wonder if she’s really Eun Oh’s birth mom? On the other hand, Eun Oh’s powers of seeing the dead probably came from having a mom with her own supernatural abilities, so that makes sense. But what of her rage at the death of her “family”? Is she talking about human beings, or an entire family made up of creatures such as herself, whatever she is?
Joo Wal continues to elicit not a shred of sympathy from me. I don’t care how sad and pathetic his childhood was, and how much he’s under the control of Lady Seo now, he’s got to pay for killing all those girls over the years. I know he’s not relishing in the task of being a serial killer, what with his looks of guilty conscience at times, but knowing right from wrong and still doing wrong makes him even more despicable in my eyes. I think it fascinating that Lord Choi was in the same position of Joo Wal when he was young, so that makes Lady Seo’s reign a very long one indeed. What kind of monster is she? And what exactly is the Jade Emperor planning to do about stopping her? I’m curious about all the great plot threads in this drama, and simply wish I could care more about the characters that inhabit this fascinating world.
Thanks again for another great recap. Love this drama’s scary spookiness!
tnx again ms. koala for the superfast recap!
Oh, I’m loving this series.
Agreed about the mom. Scary.
I can only hope that we are seeing things unfold at the pace (that I’m okay with) because there will be a AATM season 2.
Thanks for the generous recap!
While I love the plot itself, I do agree on character development, especially between our OTP. Each episode I find myself wanting for them to spend more time together and develop their relationship (and eventually fall in love) but so far, not that much. This is probably the slowest developed OTP I’ve seen in a k-drama, haha.
Here’s the thing – the drama can’t have it both ways, it can’t claim to be a romantic fantasy sageuk while at the same time focusing on fantasy and neglecting the romance.
I don’t necessarily want/need Eun Oh and Arang to fall in love, and in truth they are adorable together as partners. But the drama tried so hard to set it up in episodes 1-2, what with the skinship and dream kissing and promos all tingling with OTP-cuteness, that it feels so abrupt to see it completely stagnate for the sake of delving into the fantasy mystery of the dead girls and soul sucking demon moms and Heavenly machinations.
Either/or, please. Either have no romance and make this a fantasy murder mystery, or actually spend time developing the romance it promised. I don’t much like wasted opportunities or promises to the audience that are not kept.
Agreed 100%. I do think they’d make great detective partners together (really, so adorkable!), but that almost feels like it should be a whole other drama. They promised us romance! I want my romance darnit! 🙂
I do agree this drama potentially to have no romance but only a fantasy murder mystery but what a waste if the PD don’t present a cute & sweet romance when they have two beautiful Shin Mina and Lee Jun Ki, arghhhhhh……
Yeah you’re right. They tried to set them up with the romance in the first 2 episodes so I basically expected more to happen in the next episodes but after 4, they’ve only moved a couple of inches. I guess I’m disappointed because they promised, or at least heavily hinted at it. 🙁
I feel that Eun Oh has plenty of reason to hold back—especially since he doesn’t know what Arang really is. Plus, I don’t think he really knows himself. He’s been so focused on finding his mom for so many years, that he’s never even opened himself to anything else, so it would be difficult to completely change that so fast. I would love to see more progression in their relationship, but I get it, too.
Awesome recap.
I have to say, the relationship between Lord Choi and Lady Seo, and then that transitioning to that of Joo Wal and Lady Seo, reminds me of the movie Let the Right One In. Supernatural creatures gotta have their minions apparently. Super creepy.
And speaking of creepy, this show has certainly taken a turn in the creepy direction. I mean, it was always sort of creepy, with the ghost aspect, but I think it was a little more light-hearted at first. I’m loving it.
Like you pointed out, this is the best fantasy kdrama. Each episode I’m totally immersed into this world. Unlike other fantasy dramas there are no distractions that push you out of the moment, everything feels so fluid and together.
The characters could be a little more developed, yes, but I don’t find that bothering me as much. Especially with Arang, probably because she doesn’t remember her past anyway so it’s almost like she’s a blank slate. Still, that moment when she saw her body and freaked out, that got me. And they way that Eun Oh tried to protect her from that. I would have liked to have seen *slightly* more freak out from him when he discovered her bed covered in blood though. Their relationship has kind of stalled. I’d like to see a little more forward momentum at this point.
I’m thinking that when his mother was talking about her family she meant more creatures like herself. Especially since this has been going on for at least four hundred years… And perhaps the person she’d like revenge on is the Jade Emperor himself? Who knows? The one thing I like most about this show (other than the beautiful cinematography, the costumes, and the brilliant acting by the leads) is that as the story progresses and answers some questions it makes you ask so many more.
It’s intriguing if nothing else. (And pretty to look at.)
I also don’t pity JW. He had a sad past, yes he was a kid when he accepted the Shaman’s help, that is right, but he is adult by now and he knows what he is doing.
I agree about Arang and EO.
I still find weird how he didn’t call the doctor. If they showed us he found out her wound was healing alone I would be ok with it, but thing is he just checked it in the morning.
Plus EO didn’t even care about Arang at all in this episode,it was all about his mother. Yes I know he really wants to find his mom but still dragging arang like that is not the way.
He is just using arang as a tool to find his mother and doesn’t really care about Arang and her death at all. When she was dead he showed more feelings for Arang than now.
It is like their feelings for each other are going a step back.
But that is not what is missing for me.
What I wanted to see and so far didn’t was:
More ghost’s appearing. Maybe Arang and EO can use them to find about things, you know, we help you, you help us. Ghost can see and hear things that maybe helps them. But since arang came back no ghosts appeared… I’m disappointed if the writer won’t use ghost anymore in the story.
Another thing I was waiting is Arang meeting the young Shaman. Heh. It’ll be so funny now since Arang is alive. But she didn’t meet the shaman at all.
Thanks for the recap!
I think EO does care about Arang, though he’s trying hard to keep it inside. In this episode he waited for her to come back and when she did (after going to the mountain) you can definitely see the sigh and look of relief on his face. Plus when Arang was gushing over JW he looked jealous and grabbed her hand. 😉
I guess their relationship is just at baby steps right now, though I hope it’ll pick up pace soon!
I agree. Plus, he thought long and hard to try to understand her feelings. And he did. He stopped letting his obsession with finding his mother block his ability to feel for her. And he was definitely anxious and worried and jealous this episode. Love it!
I wonder if Moo Young is Lady Seo’s brother?
omg I hate JADE EMPEROR’S NEW HAIR STYLE WITH A PASSION!!
Hate all of his hairstyles.
I don’t understand why they don’t have him a more realistically sized wig.
Why does he look like he has the biggest noggin ever?
I can’t even say his hair takes me out of the moment. It blocks me from actually getting in the moment in the first place.
Me too! As if the last one wasn’t bad enough, they found a worst one to replace it…kkkkk…poor ideas from the costume crew.
This drama is perfect! I hope the ratings does not affect the original storyline!
As much as I’d love to see Arang&EO together happily ever after, I am so happy that they are not focusing on their feeling for each other, but their story.
I care about the characters a lot! 😀
I am more interested in EO’s character than the others, what the hell is he? Without his ability Arang can’t take her task to find out what did happen to her. Without him, the Jade Emperor can’t find the missing souls. They need him more than Arang, she just needed him to look in the right place for his mother. If she is really her mother, than it has something to do with his abilities.
The mother/evil character is also very interesting, a man killed her all family members in one day, leaving her alone in purpose. I hope it wasn’t the same day she become pregnant.
Arang is lovely, smart and brave. She is so naive and pure, got to love this character. Feels like she was the last girl JW brougth to the evil mother alive, because she ran away in time but injured enough to die in a way. I think the Jade emperor felt her different, that is why he let her go in the first place. I hope her amnesia does not belong to the Jade emperor himself.
A very unique drama, I hope the rating goes up soon, they all deserve it.
I don’t think Arang could have been an intended victim before. Otherwise, this wouldn’t have been Joo Wal’s first big failure. Since it is, Evil Mom got what she wanted last time, a.k.a. 3 years ago.
I love how much seems to hinge on Eun Oh, but there’s also so much about Arang that drives this drama. Jade Emperor is specifically using her as his tool, which may have something to do with how she can influence Eun Oh.
We’ll see about that! 😉 Think about it, why do you think JW engaged her?
Yes, the Jade emperor using Arang, but I don’t think it has anything to with her influence on EU.
@K-what – Hmmmmm…..you are right about this being his first failure.
But maybe he did lose Arang three years ago when she ran out of the Shed o’ Death, but found another pure soul in time to sate Creepy Crazy Mom.
@Irene—I think he got engaged to her because it was a step forward to the perfect life he wants. She was the daughter of the 2nd most powerful man in Miryang, after all, so that would improve his status greatly. She was a tool for his political progression, which is why he doesn’t really care about her all that much.
@Jomo—I think Joo Wal seemed pretty genuinely panicked about losing his corpse, in a way that makes me think it hadn’t happened before. He doesn’t seem like the greatest improviser to me. I wonder if mom was the real offering last time, and Arang somehow got involved before the body takeover happened.
Yeah, but Arang remembers pulling the hairpin out of EO’s mom’s hair over three years ago so what about that failure?
Perhaps the last attempt with Arang did not fall during the leap year and the fact that her current spirit is that of a newborn, which holds more significance for evil mom’s soul stealing during a leap year moon that just passed….Also, does anyone else get the creepy feeling that when she mates, she’s draining the men’s souls during their time of “oneness”?
I don’t know that that was a failure. I think Arang may have been there and secretly witnessed some of what happened, and got killed in the process—maybe trying to flee. When she pulled the hairpin, Mom wasn’t wearing gisaeng clothes. I think Evil Mom needs a new body as well as a new soul on leap month, so she took over Mom’s body that time.
Arang rocked this episode! Facing her fears head-on, and so soon after she was attacked/killed. Awesome! I love that she did it, but I’m glad that she did it when she felt ready, and not because Eun Oh pushed/dragged her into it. Even if the difference was only a few hours. SHE needed to break down her barriers and overcome her fear. And he needed to understand her and why he was demanding too much from her.
I also love that Arang is now basically a Damo, and she has the uniform to prove it. Good job writers! At least she has (fake) authority to investigate.
Another part I loved was when Evil Mother told Joo Wal to find the corpse at all costs. I giggled at the thought of his reaction when he saw the corpse walking around. And it was awesome when it happened.
Thanks for the recap.
I think they are using EO’s desparate search for his mother like a sling shot.
As hard as he pulls away from Arang and her feelings, when he realizes what Oma really is, he’s going to be hurled towards her with that much more impetus.
I like that EO’s memories of time with Oma don’t tell us the whole story. We see a loving son being pulled away, we see him trying to build a bridge to her in crazyland.
My (recent) guess is there were LOTS of other bad, icky memories he is repressing.
If Creepy Oma is a 400 year old supernatural being, can she birth real babies? Let’s say she rescued or stole EO when he was a child, but when she realized the kid could see dead people, she had to find someone else. Obviously, you can’t have someone with soul radar detector living in your house of doom and death.
EO’s father either is EO’s blood father, or another of Creepy Oma’a errand boys. That she was the one who set his family up with power, so he had to take little EO with his toudenim hat.
what the Jade emperor mean is that it has been 400 yrs since such a thing like spirits disappearing without a trace has happened. C’mon the mother is not centuries old, she was a perfectly normal human being before, like Eun Oh’s flashbacks tells us. I guess her thirst for revenge against ‘that man’ who destroyed her family drove her to become what she is today.
I love this drama whether i get romance or not 😀 its so interesting i’m left wanting more and with all the excitement for what’s to come next, simply engaging! On that note, lets just hope the writers know where they’re going with the whole cliffhanger thing and such because if i get a nonsensical end huh huh i’ll go mad!! And guys chill man we have like 20 episodes, I’m sure we’ll see a lot of blooming romance along the way plus too much of romance is corny and boring :p
Oh, my subs were tough to understand on that.
She may not be a perfectly normal human, though. Everything is not what it seems here.
But the mom has been doing this for a looong time. If Lord Choi was her minion before Joo Wal started as a kid, it’s been a while. Plus, there are a lot of bodies down in the pit, and if she only does this on leap month, that’s more than just a few years.
This drama has had a hell of a turn recently, the humor is gone and now there’s this dark atmosphere surrounding the characters. I’m trying to find it interesting because I like detective stories, but, so far, it seems a bit absurd. These horrible crimes were perpetrated and people don’t want them solved, including the magistrate, since he is too busy thinking about his mother. Where the hell did he live or come from to be so insensible to those massive crimes? I’m not saying that he’s not interested in solving them, but his motivation is totally selfish, he’s only investigating because his mother might be involved. How can it be possible? Nobody is asking questions or trying to find out who was burried in that grave. No real investigation is going on, everything seems so childish, so unrealistic even for a fantasy.
About the romance…I believe it’s a manipulation to grab the audience, since there’s no romance in the folk tale.
Still, I love the cinematography…it’s what keeps me going.
Koala, thanks for another recap and for the laughs you gave me by reading it – love your sense of humor.
EO is not a real magistrate, remember? He was kidnapped and put their the three Stooges. Anyway, they are the ones who should have been investigating the mysterious disappearances of young maidens in their district.
The ghosts that refused to leave and the ones that begged EO for help in ep 1 tell us injustices have been going on in that locale if not every locale I daresay. This drama could have another season with Arang placed by EO’s side as his Damo and we get the BW and DS too.kkkk
I did not pick this drama up for the “romance” only but for the entire package that it presented itself to be.
*put in place as their magistrate by…
He wasn’t the real magistrate, but after they tried to “persued” him to become one, he decided on his own free-will to assume the magistrate’s position even if it was for a short period of time.
What I miss in this drama was the funny vibe it had in the beginning, now it’s all tense and morbid, and the investigation part is so poor…I love detective stories and mysteries, but this one is leaving me bored.The mystery is already solved, we know who did it, we’re just waiting the “why” part, why they did it.
I started watching it out of curiosity, fantasies are not my cup of tea. When I saw that the first episodes had this mix of comedy, romance and mystery…I was thrilled, it seemed a perfect combination. Now they killed the comedy, the romance and the mystery…what’s left? To me, cinematography.
Oh. I’d stop watching.
What do you think about the rings? As far as I remember, Only JE, KoH, Evil Mom and JW have rings. The one JW has is almost the same(except its color) as the Jade emperor’s ring. Is it a coincidence?
Evil mom gave him the ring, but how did she acquire it?
I think she is the woman who first approached little JW and we see her being wealthy by her dress. This may have been before her family’s fall. Like little shaman girl asking for a general spirit to come possess her, why not evil mom doing the same for revenge?
Yes, I know she gave JW that ring, what I meant is that ring is also looks like it comes from the underworld/heaven.
I also think she is the same woman, but not her soul, only her body is the same. Someone using her body. I wondered if the Jade Emperor comes to Earth, what form/body would he use?
Oh, and I think JW and EO are the same age.
I like this drama so much, it’s different and interesting. I’m kind of full of “love drama” so, less love lines and more fantasy/detective story it’s better for me. From time to time we all need something new, like in JXFiles.
“This drama does fantasy better than any K-drama I’ve ever seen” – my feelings exactly, such a beautiful cinematography.
I can tell that I re-found joy of my Wednesday-Thursday.
did anyone else notice that the actress plying the head-shaman in JW’s childhood memory was different then the actress playing EO’s mom and the new head-shaman. We can’t clearly see it, but i’m pretty sure it’s not the same person.
http://i1223.photobucket.com/albums/dd503/kaze-asa/arang/shaman-head.png
http://i1223.photobucket.com/albums/dd503/kaze-asa/arang/shaman-head2.png
Hi koala
Thanks for your recaps.
I looove this drama like i never love a drama before. I care for the character especially arang till i cant sleep. Usually in a drama i really seek a deep character development but for me the way this drama is devlop is what make it stand out. The character is mysterious, the before, or the past is waited to be uncovered slowly as well, by evolving the mystery and plot the character will be evolve, understood and develop. That what i found for this drama, it done it intentionally to keep the chrarcter devlop and eagerly waited to be unwarped by the same time we waited the intriguing plot. I.e the amnesia of arang is craeted. Otherwise, we can just see the usual character development by telling the past etc, etc. of course i hope more from eun soo since ithink his character should be mor indepth but im positive and love just the way it is. Cant wait for more.