“And what a perfect way to bookend the episode, come to think of it. We begin it, with Ji An showing Dong Hoon unconditional solidarity, and we end the episode, with Dong Hoon giving the same, to Ji An.”

Beautifully said, kfangurl!

The fight with Kwang Il was so difficult to watch the first time I saw it….I thought Dong Hoon would get beaten to a pulp. But when he said, “I’m warning you…I grew up with three brothers….” I started to think, “Wow, he can actually take Kwang Il!” And to put himself on the line like that, to offer to pay Ji An’s debt and to empathize so fully with her when he heard she had killed KI’s dad, was such a powerful moment, both for him and for us the viewers. I really liked how he said he felt like every cell in his body had woken up.

By the way, one of my favorite moments in Episode 10 is when the policemen find Ki Hoon outside the convenience store and say, “Hugye Morning Soccer Club – go home already.” Hehe.

So much good stuff coming up in Episodes 11 – 16.

Episode 10

Just as it felt to me that Episode 9 was the culmination of the first part of this narrative, I feel episode 10, for all the drama of its climax, is the beginning of the part to follow. We are back to 80 minute format, the collection of scenes that both move our plot and various sub plots forward, but with more the sense that by the end of this episode, all parts of it are driving toward a climax of equal power and seeming significance as that of episode 9.

What grabbed my attention:

Starting with the opening scene, reiterating the closing action, a common enough structural trope in K Dramas, often by use of flashback providing information that clarifies what actually was occurring unbeknownst to the audience. My Mister eschews such a choice, rather focusing much farther in on Li Ji An and her reaction to hearing the fight. We see she had begun tearing up almost from the beginning. We see her gasp for air when she hears Gwang Il tell Dong Hoon that she killed his father. We see her breath go out of her with Dong Hoon’s response.

Aside–did anyone else notice the gigantic fool moon above the staircase where Dong Hoon and Gwang Il were fighting. That moon over Soeul–almost looks like pictures of Jupiter!

Our first real take of Dong Hoon speaks to the tightness of the neighborhood men in their active concern for him and the numbers involved, first as they search him out, then when they confront him–Dong Hoon true to character–it’s nothing, his sense of circumspection–other people do not have to know about this shameful experience, and if they do not know, it’ll die down to nothing. We feel the tightness of the community at Jeong Hui’s–outsiders turned away, and when Ji An passes by she is nonverbally rebuffed from entering if that might have been an idea in her head. Of course, we see the tightness of the most internal group of pals, but the numbers go beyond just those guys, and as Dong Hoon later explains to Ji An–everyone knows everyone, also implying as such, everyone has each others back. This makes me think about how Li Ji Ah plays Yoon Hui when she is at mother’s house or at Jeong Hui’s. Doesn’t it seem that she feels out of place?

Between this subtle, rising to my consciousness, only after some reflection, sense of alienation–not a matter of dislike or even snobbery, just out of place, Li Ji Ah portrays with Dong Hoon’s people, the gradual reckoning she is coming to for hooking up with the disreputable Do Jun Yeong, whom we now know should have known better–she knows she should of known better–driving her to greater seizures of shame, along with the way she goes at this prime number one example of what is known as these days as “toxic masculinity,” the ruthlessness at which she goes at him with the express purpose, this very female feeling female, of emasculating the sob at every opportunity–I am quite enjoying her performance myself. And once again, what can or cannot one say about the way Kim Young Min is projecting Do’s abjectly sweaty seeming sliminess. Even when he says stuff that seem to reveal a feeling person, Kim just makes the guy seem like such a weasel, at least I am right there with Yoon Hui, handing her the scissors, rooting her on.

Though not half as much as I did just how Ji An, that kid, is playing him. She has him coming and going. The first time, when she goes to meet with the fellow, knowing he has found out about the friendship between Dong Hoon and her, she sets up a way around his suspicions, by first out talking him, and then setting up that phony photo spy situation, in which she will seemingly save his bacon. Then, at the end of episode, when she sees how Do Jun Yeong has taken a page from her book and employed a stalker photographer, she comes up with this amazing on the spot plot to get the guy to not only see that there is no hanky panky going on but that Dong Hoon, with all his sense of propriety is likely to be outraged or at the very least very resistant to her making a move on him. The first deed of course was just our girl, three steps ahead of that wiseguy Do, who always thinks he’s so smart–a tiny bit of schadenfreude for Ji An there. The second, however, costs her, and she knows it will. Ah yes, Li Ji An is far gone for Dong Hoon, quite willing to sacrifice herself to his cause.

On the other hand, I know a lot of folks in the past have wanted our protagonists to hook up eventually. Soul mates, why not lovers. But when I see Lee Sun Kyun’s stupified reaction to Li Ji An’s love confession, it most certainly reminds me of the couple of occasions in which having misread the signals, I allowed myself to crush on a good friend, intimate friend, a friend one does not want to lose, who did not reciprocate my feelings. That look on his face of “Don’t. Don’t do this. Please. Don’t,’ implying a kind of double rejection, the first of a lover’s affection, the second of the possibility now that the friendly intimacy is also at profound risk from here on out. Dong Hoon really does not think of Ji An that way, at least right now, and part of that has to do with how deeply embedded his moral code of behavior inhabits his core. This is a man for no matter how unambitious he is who is profoundly committed to doing what by his lights is the right thing–a man of convictions.

But…it appears that his willingness to fight Gwang Il, more, his actual fight turns out to be the question he asked of himself and Do Jun Yeong in the rooftop confrontation. How far can he take this situation; well despite all lack of ambition, he is quite ready to take up the mantle of his candidacy, and devil take the hindmost insofar as Do Jun Yeong is concerned.

art in general, especially theater and cinema, is a mirror of life, us and all that functions or dysfunctions in this world, all that builds or destroys. we humans like to see ourselves in that mirror, identify, hate, love, condemn, rejoice, cry and laugh… that is all human. that is THAT drama.
a few things that impressed me in those two episodes. you ra with her neurotic nagging demands comes to the brother’s cleaning business. and suddenly it looks like a strong wind blew in and opened the closed book of ki-hoon – he talks to her and he’s completely open (like an open book) and sincere and vulnerable “how would he feel if you-ra truly makes it as an actress on the big screen??? ” his words like a pure translucent stream coming down from the top of a mountain and spills on stunned you-ra. this drama is full of lessons. lesson here: if you are searching for a path to somebodies heart – the pure truth, sincerity is the way.
dh is talking to the old man, the genitor, who tells him ja’s sad story. question: why does the truth matter? answer: our hearts don’t move based on logic. the deep gap between heart and mind – that is the gap dh has to mend and reconcile by finding “the middle ground”.
episode 10. dh and kwang il are in the middle of a ferocious wild animals fight over ja. at the same time ja on the background of the city, a tiny ball of misery crouching on the bridge, city towering behind her as a symbol of her grief, as tall, as grey, as unyielding, as overpowering as all those tall big buildings, a huge concrete jungle. the juxtaposition – stunning visuals, that is called art.
acting: (here, but also throughout the drama) ja – she does not speak, but tells more than words can say. her acting is more than i can express in words.
her grandmother – little has been said about her here, but i truly appreciate this actress, i like watching her face, her micro expressions, from the very first time when ja is taking her in the shopping cart from the nursing home wrapped in a blanket, with only her eyes and her nose picking out and now, when she interacts with ja – so touching, so expressive and quietly impressive. again, no words, but no need for words – that is called acting. love it.

Episode 9
My very favorite episode in the drama, because as you note K, all the little turns, all the nuanced changes over the course of the first eight episodes, crescendo with the climax of episode nine. From the fellows at their tuna to the fight scene in the end, the confrontation between Yoon Hee and Li Ji An, Sang Hoon’s vision of his mother’s funeral, the appearance of Yu Ra bringing the vision back to reality, and the many pov misunderstandings we as the audience are privy to, this episode, which also has a considerably shorter running time than all the previous episodes, packs an indelible punch, most strongly delivered by I U’s incredible performance in this episode.
One thing in this episode I would like to proffer an alternate take on is Sang Hoon’s desire for a grandiose funeral for his mother, his obsession with it. First of all, by inference it strikes me that Korean society has a deeply embedded Confucian sensibility to it, and read Confucious, nothing was more central to his philosophy than an appropriate, and in the case of one’s elders, profoundly filial observation of very ornate funeral rites, an observation in its contemporary South Korean iteration that is largely repeated but not so deeply emphasized in other K dramas–simply the de rigeur death photograph, for example. While Gi Hoon is clearly the most modern and sophisticated of the brothers, Sang Hoon is the most stuck in times past. And his whole pathos is contained in the reality that he has failed as a husband and as a son. When he speaks to Dong Hoon about this at the tuna dinner, he breaks down–not what the oldest brother should ask of a younger brother. For me, I can only say, there is something beautiful, and not morbid at all about a grandiose funeral with lots of flowers and food and folks giving their one last huzzah to family members about the life of a loved one. I know when my sister passed away, I was quite gratified to have so many people come up to me, and tell me what a wonderful person she was. I felt it was something she deserved, because, indeed, she was a wonderful person. There is no doubt mother is a simply wonderful human being in this, and aging. Sang Hoon is fifty so not quite so old, but nonetheless fifty does seem from my experience the beginning of the time of funerals, just as in my country the twenties commence a time of weddings. Personally, I love those funeral feasts I see in these shows, and love even more the New Orleans style wake in which musicians and mourners dance in the streets at a loved one’s passing. I do want people to dance at my funeral; a funeral should be the celebration of a whole life, and a final wave breaking at the shore. I get why it is so important to Sang Hoon, who in his cups is always so startlingly willing to touch upon maudlin topics (think of his commentary on drinking for example), which make everyone else feel uncomfortable (not unlike Yoo Ra if one thinks about it).

Another point I would like to pick up that I did not express in my discussion of the previous episode in which it is really brought to light for the first time is Li Ji An’s body language and facial expression when she is running, as she does on a couple of occasions in this episode. This is part of a directorial achievement as well, which I touched upon in my comments on the first two episodes. When Li Ji An walks, she has a tough girl strut to her, an attitude. It comes up again, when walking home after she has discovered that Dong Hoon has found out about the stolen bribe money and is certain from overhearing his conversations and his refusal to take her to eat, she is convinced that he has found her out, but it is a gait that IU never wavers from in her characterization. But when she runs, there is such an ernest expression on her face, so young, almost child like, and in her arms pumping. It is as she expressed to Dong Hoon over their beers, she disappears into her truer self. When folks who have not seen the show ask why IU gets cut so much slack early on, it is in part because Li Ji An when she runs is such a sympathetic character. As an older man in the audience, and I assume she brings this sympathy out in folks of either gender and every orientation and age each in their own way, I want to protect this fragile soul, who can only be herself when running to be with or protect the first person in her life whom she deeply admires. Of course, we see it as well, as with the screen shot shown in this post, with her grandmother, the two of them touching foreheads.

Watching this episode this time, I found one of its dramatic master strokes to be how we are consistently being shown how characters’ various points of view are all somewhat tunnel visioned. Li Ji An is certain she has been shown up for who she is once she realizes what Gwang Il’s partner has revealed to Dong Hoon. The despair she feels is written all over her face. And truth be told, since the audience has from the get go known about her theft of the bribe, but put it in its own rear view mirror, Dong Hoon’s immediate pause before after some time he goes to her janitor friend, is also quite striking. Maybe he does not jump to conclusions, but he does apologize to his workers, even Assistantn manager Kim, who has had a hard case for Ji An from the get go, for hiring the wrong person.
And of course, there is something pathetically comic about Supervisor Yoon’s take on the whole thing, but also a bit of a hole in Jun Yeong’s game for not really realizing that Dong Hoon has more stuff to him than he can imagine. Indeed when Ji An calls Dong Hoon ahjussi, he responds by telling her that he is her boss; part of Dong Hoon’s strength and pov is truly determined by his sense of hierarchy that seems so much part of Korean culture that it inhabits speech.
But where the greatest irony lies is with Yoon Hee and Dong Hoon. She has a legitimate complaint with him that he tells everyone but her about his candidacy. Of course, he spilled the beans to assure Sang Hoon from going off the deep end, and it snowballed from there, and the brothers were actually the ones that told their mother. But Yoon Hee is also feeling guilty, ashamed, because mother informed her while praising her to the high heavens as her son’s wife. Then we have Dong Hoon’s legitimate silence, because he knows she is plotting to have him quit, and start up a company of his own, in order to ease her conscience; because he knows that she knows everything about how Jun Yeong has been plotting to get rid of him too; because he is not yet aware that the two of them have completely broken off and Yoon Hee is bereft of shame for having had an affair with such a creepy guy; and because the fact is Dong Hoon is a naturally reticent guy, as likely to have kept this from her, as he had wished to keep it from his mother, in order to keep from getting anyone’s hopes up about a situation fraught with difficulties.
But even larger is Yoon Hee’s ignorance of Dong Hoon’s knowing, which prompts her to invite Ji An for a tete a tete. One can easily see the added shock that Jun Yeong was paying Ji An to perpetrate a sexual scandal by getting it on with Dong Hoon. She is so irate, she basically tells Ji An–look it kid, I will match anything Jun Yeong is offering, but butt the eff out of my marriage. And in doing so makes the big mistake of looking down her nose at Ji An as a lowlife creep. Ah, this other irony of Dong Hoon and Ji An, while Dong Hoon thinks sweeping things under the rug preserves the sanity of any situation, allows time to pass, people to change, Ji An, even despite being found out and seemingly heart broken at the upshot, believes quite the opposite. And she is po’ed with Yoon Hee. She wavers for a second and then just dumps on her–the subtext, listen lady, who are you to look down at me, your husband, whom you and I both know deserves better, knows everything about you and that slimy toad, Do Jun Yeong. What a fell swoop! Not enough is said about Li Ji Ah in this show, but this scene and what follows, my goodnesss!
The final scene of episode 9–what can one say? Episode after episode, IU just with the barest of nuances, body language, facial expression reveals her character, it’s changes, but in this scene there is no nuance to it. Her friend, the janitor, Chun Dae (who lives out his days in a shack of corrugated aluminum in what looks like a junk yard) says something true to Dong Hoon about the logic of affection. There are people we know, if we just looked at their behavior, and told others about it, they would find that person reprehensible, but because we know that person, we cannot help but feel sympathetic, affectionate. Dong Hoon represents that–the true friend, the person who loves us despite our failings. The one all of us, let alone a child/woman who has suffered and perservered through that suffering without such a friend, longs for. That is the kind of guy he is, and that is who he especially is for Ji An. That he risks injury, maybe even death, on her behalf, after she has betrayed him already in so many ways she above all is aware, oh, this girl whom we know cares so much about the ones she loves that she was willing as child to ruin her own life over, just broken down to the ground, sloppy and sobbing her face out, feeling for Dong Hoon, so that we feel it too, this fiction, as if it were real. What a scene! Bring out the kleenex; here we go.

These two episodes were so emotional and gripping…. Where to start? The whole sequence in which Dong Hoon finds out about Ji An’s secret was very well written. It starts with the visit to the janitor’s place happening while Ji An is talking to Yun Hui (and we find out that Yun Hui is just a cowardly snobby one, who doesn’t really have her husband’s best interest at heart). Then Ji An’s backstory is narrated after Dong Hoon leaves the janitor’s place. The visual flashback is simple and elegant, recreating Dong Hoo’s POV after seeing a photo of young Ji An in which she is holding a bouquet of flowers. And finally Dong Hoon discovers that Ji An killed Kwang Il’s father during the most emotional and violent fight. The last scene is Ji An crying her eyes out. Her secret is out. Symbolically speaking both fighting men represent the duality of her feelings about her sin: Kwang Il is the devil on her shoulder, condemning her, whereas Dong Hoon is the angel, forgiving her.

We also find out in that sequence that Ji An did not know that she didn’t have to inherit her mother’s debts… So this puts to rest the debate we had last week about her being helped by social services when her mother abandonment and subsequent death: she wasn’t. It appears she had nobody advising her.

Kwang Il is still an enigma. He’s a piece of trash but his dad was even worse! Was it insinuated that he used to rape Jin An? That’s what I understood, that he used the grandmother to force Ji An to do “everything he wanted”… it doesn’t seem that Kwang Il has sexually assaulted her yet, but he does seem to be going in that direction…

I’m feeling slightly sorry for Yun Hui. She feels pushed out of Dong Hoon’s life and that’s probably why she had an affair. I mean, it’s obvious she and Dong Hoon are pretty different… What is imperdonable is her falling for that twerp… honestly, what was she thinking?

I am finally seeing how this show is making us feel Dong Hoon’s son’s absence: by having his photograph (either in focus or out of focus) in every scene shot inside Dong Hoon’s house. During any conversation, any silence, any pensive moment within those walls we see a photo of the boy. It’s subtle and I’m starting to feel more comfortable with this narrative choice. It is a reminder that these people’s existence is centred on this absent child, whose company their parents have sacrificed for a brighter future. Alluding to the boy’s existence in such a muted way adds to the melancholy and slight dystopian feel of this drama.

I love these two episodes, and that scene at the end of episode 9 just kills me, every time. I’ve mentioned before how effectively the director has been in juxtaposing Ji-an’s eavesdropping on events with the effect of what she’s hearing has on her, and this is an outstanding example. That picture of her running as she realizes the confrontation taking place, how stricken she looks when Kwang-il screams that she killed his father, and how she crumples and just starts sobbing at Dong-hoon’s response.

The scene at the end of episode 10, I think you are right that Ji-an clearly knows about the tail (she sees them watching Dong-hoon at the little restaurant where they’ve eaten together before), and she knows they’re looking to get him on “scandal” grounds, and she is acting to defang that attack, by provoking him with a blatant come-on so that he angrily rejects her in front of the spy.

But the way I read that scene, I think there’s some more complexity to it as well. I get the impression that there are layers to what Ji-an is saying: she is speaking to provoke him, but ironically, she is also at least somewhat telling the truth. She is struggling with her feelings for Dong-hoon, it is causing her at least some internal turmoil, and maybe she does want him to forcefully reject her so she maybe she can get some clarity and find her way back to some calm and apathy or something.

(Here I am somewhat reminded of that iconic scene from late in Reply 1988,

Anyway, great episodes, and things are getting more tense and dangerous: for Dong-hoon, as he really enters the ring to contend for promotion; and for Ji-an, as the various factions become more aware of her and really start sniffing around her background and what she’s doing.

[…] For the main discussion of episodes 9 & 10, which only deals with spoilers up to the point of the group watch, go here. […]