[Drama 2012] Beloved 친애하는 당신에게

[Guest reedtrip82]

Still afraid to watch it lol. Have the OTP commit adultery yet? Had they fall out of love?

[baduy]

I suspect that if you're approach this drama with the sort of categories you seem to be wanting to apply to it, then you'll be disappointed, and you'd be better sticking to the output of more conventional terrestrial channels, once the Olympics stop monopolizing so much of their schedules.

The same goes not just for this drama, but for most of the recent output of JTBC. Not for nothing are some of the more hidebound Korean newspapers now calling JTBC  "The Immorality Channel", and if you look at the website of the Korean broadcasting watchdog, you'll see that they are being deluged with complaints about this drama and its predecessors, Love Again and A Wife's Credentials, for their refusal to take a moralizing attitude towards questions of human relationships.

JTBC's recent productions are very much 'adult' dramas, not in the sense that that term has been stolen as a euphemism for pornography, but in the sense that to understand fully what they are trying to do and appreciate their delicacy and complexity -- meaning above all their genuinely moral complexity, light-years away from what passes for "morality" in the eyes of those who are canvassing to get JTBC's production policies changed, via government intervention if necessary -- requires the sort of perspective on life that few people attain before their mid-thirties, and many people never attain at all.

As a matter of fact, there has been no physical infidelity in the drama so far. But that's not meant to be the issue here anyway. There are other sorts of infidelity within and outside marriage that don't show up on conventional morality radar screens, partly because, although they are very real, and have the potential to inflict very real heartbreak, they are desperately difficult to pin down, or even to recognize for what they are until it's too late to reverse or step back from them. There has been plenty of such infidelity in the drama so far, but it's being portrayed with a degree of empathy and understanding that transcends any black-and-white judgements.

As for whether our foreground couple have fallen out of love... There is a huge question mark over whether they actually ever were in love in the first place. In the latest episode, talking to her friend about her response to seeing Ran and Jin Se together (she doesn't go into details about what Ran actually said to her at the bus stop, though, or her somewhat patronizing response to a girl she plainly underestimates) and rising to the challenge to say how she really feels about the prospect of Ran stepping into her place in Jin Se's life, Chan Joo confesses that throughout their marriage, she had an underlying feeling that Jin Se was not so much a younger husband as a devoted young brother who it was great fun to have around. And so she find herself now viewing his prospects of a future with Ran in the same way as a fond older sister would respond to her favorite brother finding someone he can be happy with. That's not the whole story, of course, as her very subdued tone indicates plainly enough, but it is substantial part of it, and it's part of her sense that she did Jin Se a serious wrong by agreeing to marry him against her better judgement, and that, in the latter part of the latest episode, she mustn't perpetuate that wrong by letting him succumb to the moral pressure her father placed him under on his deathbed.

For anyone who can't pick this up from the dialogue until the subs come out, Chan Joo's father has found out earlier that day about the Chan Joo / Eun Hyeok scandal and the divorce, though he knows nothing about Sin Je and Ran and believes that it's his daughter who is the sole "guilty party". That's why he asks her to leave the cubicle while he pleads with Jin Se to forgive Chan Joo and give her one more chance, mindful of the written promise he gave her father to care for her all her life. He never suspects for one moment that it's his daughter who insisted on a divorce, nor does he have any inkling of her real reasons for that insistence, and as they  witness him dying in that ignorance, which makes his last wishes so impossible to fulfil, both Chan Joo and Jin Se are riven with guilt and anguish, which they need to handle in their separate ways. Chan Joo's way is to tell Jin Se that from now on, she will "go with" Eun Hyeuk and to drive off his car. How Jin Se will cope we will begin to see in the next episode.

[baduy]

There's a decent enough (320p) streaming version of ep 11  with good sound on Toudou now
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/xbUdtH4t4U0/
No public torrent so far. If none appears I guess I'll have to rip the sound from the Toudou stream and mux it into the video from the Xvid version posted above so I can actually watch this episode properly.

[rizza123]

I hate Ran .. I would like Jin se and Chan joo work their marriage .. They should have change the title of this drama " Infedility " instead "Dear You/Beloved"

[whome]

rizza123 said: I hate Ran .. I would like Jin se and Chan joo work their marriage .. They should have change the title of this drama " Infedility " instead "Dear You/Beloved"

[Guest Bradamante]

Source: nate



Source: nate



Source: nate



Source: nate




VOD Links: JTBC
VOD Links:

Source: JTBC

[Wasabi-Mui]

Hi could someone give me a brief recap on ep 12!  I'm sooo anxious... ahah.

I'm strongly rooting for Chan Joo and Jin Se eventhough they've divorced too! Ran just gets on my nerves. And I kinda skimmed through the last 10 minute of episode 12, what's the status of Chan Joo and Eunhyuk's relationship? And omgosh, is she moving in with Jin Se!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????????

[Guest tiffany.shin]

WHAT???? noooooooooooo GO AWAY RAN. eurgh so uncool man. i want chan joo & jin se to work things out! the drama's main characters are them... it shld end on a happy w THEM (( no.. *denial mode HIGH ALERT* i still have hope that they'll know how much they love each other & run back into each other's arms!

[rizza123]

nooooo ... I don't want him to be with Ran !!!! I felt sorry for Jin se though the way chan joo did int he funeral.. I think Jin se is trying to go back with her but chan joo is pushing him out .. once again eun hyuk abandon her .. they supposed to go to New York? but eun hyuk didn't show up ...

[baduy]

You really need to understand the dialogue in detail to get what's going on here. The subs will no doubt be out soon and it will be clearer (though it's important to pay much close attention to the visuals, tone of voice and subtle changes of mood and atmosphere, as well as actual wording of what's said to avoid some of the crass misunderstandings that are all over the DrameFever "reviews" section for this drama).

Simplifying drastically, the parting between Chan Joo and Sin Je in the café in ep 11(a meeting he engineers on the pretext of passing on the cosmetics delivery and the mail that's arrived at the house for her) is meant by her as a final goodbye (though he was hoping for something different). At this stage, she has by no means decided she is going to get back with Eun Hyeok; all she's certain of is that she and Jin Se must break up, because she's certain their marriage was wrong for him as well as her. She makes that very plain, and he sadly accepts it. Putting a brave face on it, his last remark before they leave the café is to say "let me know if you have any good news" This is code for "Let me know if/when you marry Eun Hyeok so I can duly congratulate you" (but of course a subber can't translate it that way: that's a good example of what I mean by saying the verbal subs aren't enough to get the meaning). In reply, she utters a barely audible "You too" which us hard to distinguish from a held-back sob. In other words, she's saying she hopes to have "good news" about him and Ran in due course, but she can hardly bring herself to say that (for at least three reasons I can think of, but can't go into here, otherwise this post would never get finished).

After their actual parting in the street outside, heard in close-up but seen in very long-shot across a stream of busy traffic, Jin Se reflects that this really is the end then, and it's time for a new start. For him that new start consists in starting to date Ran. But then Chan Joo's father death intervenes. The outing Jin Se and Ran are just setting out on at the moment when Sin Je gets the fateful call from Chan Joo's friend is to visit Ran's parents grave to "introduce" themselves as a couple (just as Ran promised she would do when she last visited her parents' grave and almost died of exposure there). That part of why Ran is so devasted when Jin Se stops the car and tells her he has to go somewhere urgently and he'll explain later. She sees that as a cruel and disrespectful affront to her parents as well as to her, and decides in her fury and disappointment to give up on Jin Se (until that is, she decides, a day or so later, to go round to his workplace and confront him about it, but instead she encounters Han Soo in a black suit on his way to the wake, discovers what has happened to Chan Soo's father, and tags along behind Han Soo to the hospital (Many Korean hospitals have funeral suites on the premises where such wakes are held: all part of the service).

As I already outlined, Chan Joo's father has learned earlier that morning about the scandal involving Chan Joo and Eun Hyeok, and about her divorce, which she hadn't yet dared to tell him about herself. He asks her to leave the cubicle while be pleads with Sin Je with what proves to be his dying breath to forgive his daughter and take her back, unaware of the full complexity of events and that it was Chan Joo who insisted on a divorce, so he's pleading with the wrong person. She complies and goes out, but in the later flashback (after her collapse at the wake and her frenzied despair when she regains consciousness and relives what happened) we see that she was in fact listening just outside the cubicle and heard every word her father said to Jin Se. Jin Se doesn't know she heard, as will become very apparent later on.

What triggered Chan Joo's collapse at the wake was the arrival of Ran, who angrily tells Jin Se that he has no business being there as principal co-mourner, especially not wearing the arm-band that identifies him as the son-in-law of the deceased (which Ran sees an even more visible counterpart to that wedding ring he's still wearing). Ran insists that he must leave with her, right now, and with everyone watching, to prove to himself as well as to her that things really are over between him and Chan Joo. Chan Joo's collapse just after she's said that means Jin Se can escape directly responding to that challenge, but Ran sees it as a final rebuff anyway and leaves in disgust and despair.

To understand the horrible dilemma both Chan Joo and Jin Se are now in we have to bear in mind the huge value set on filial piety in Korean culture and the equally enormous weight placed on respecting the last wishes of the dead. [And let's throw into the filial piety mix here Ran's conviction, expressed several times, that Jin Se has been "sent" to her by her deceased parents, and In Kyeong's insistence, a little later in the episode, that Eun Hyeok must attend her father's death anniversary memorial ceremony that night instead of flying off to the States with Chan Joo, though the full reasons why he complies with that demand and stands Chan Joo up are as yet unknown to us, because his scene with In Kyeong's uncle is deliberately cut off after the uncle has fiercely told him to "sit back down. I haven't finished what I have to say yet". What he had to say, we don't yet know, but it was enough to make Eun Hyeok leave Chan Joo standing in the cold with only an enigmatic text to tell her their departure had been postponed.]

Jin Se has received his ex-father-in-law's dying wish that he should "forgive" Chan Joo, and it breaks his heart that there's nothing he can to to honor that request, because there's nothing he feels he needs to forgive, and he knows that what Chan Joo's father-in-law wants could only be granted by Chan Joo. But he thinks Chan Joo didn't hear her father's words, and he doesn't know whether or not to tell her, because he doesn't want respect for her father, rather than love for Jin Se himself, to bring them back together again. But Chan Joo did hear what her father last wish was, and she can see that Sin Je is quite deliberately not telling her, because he doesn't want to add to her suffering by giving her a choice between respecting her father's last words and doing what she feels is right for both her and Jin Se. And she knows how painful it must be for Jin Se, who had such a close relationship with her father, to be placed in that position.

It's important to realize that, right up to the moment in the hospital parking lot where the cortege is about to set off for the cemetery with her father's coffin, Chan Joo has not yet decided to throw in her lot with Eun Hyeok. She makes that decision on the spur of the moment when Eun Hyeok suddenly shows up and Jin Se tries to engage him in a fistfight. "From now on," she tells Jin Se, "I will go with Eun Hyeok", and of course she means more than go with him in his car to the cemetery rather than riding with Jin Se (who feels so shocked and rejected that he doesn't follow the cortege to the burial at all). She doesn't reveal it in the car to Eun Hyeok, either. "I don't want to talk about anything now. Let's lay my father to rest first. Then I'll talk." Which she does later that day, lying exhausted on the bed in Eun Hyeok's apartment, saying she will indeed leave everything behind her and run away to New York with Eun Hyeok, the sooner the better. What Eun Hyeok doesn't realize is that to a great extent she has reached that decision for Jin Se's sake, following through her attempt earlier in the day to draw a final clear line between them that would free him from the burden of feeling he has somehow to carry out her father's dying wish.

She goes to clear out her father's house (refusing Eun Hyeok's offer to go along and support her) and finds his box of cherished well-oiled tools which he had always joked about leaving to Jin Se. So, back in Seoul, she calls out Jin Se to one more final meeting, handing the toolbox over and telling him she's leaving for the States the next day and that they're unlikely ever to see each other again. As she walks away, Jin Se's nerve fails him and he calls after her "What your father's dying wish was... don't you want to know it?" She pauses for a moment, then carries on walking determinedly away, leaving him to draw the conclusion that she doesn't.

Ran, BTW, is a more complex character than most people can recognize if  they can't fully follow the Korean (including many subtle and untranslateable aspects of her speech exchanges with both Jin Se and Chan Joo)  One specific aspect is her strongly mixed emotions when Jin Se, finally taking off that wedding ring, invites her to move in with him. She is very conscious that this is Chan Joo's old house she's moving in to, and she feels uneasy and guilty about that. She makes Jin Se promise they'll move to a new place of their own as soon as possible.

[Guest Bradamante]

Source: nate



Source: nate



Source: nate



Source: nate












Source: JTBC





Source: JTBC










Source: JTBC






Source: JTBC








Source: JTBC

[wink]

I have a question... Does Chan Joo and Jin Se have a platonic relationship all those 3 years, since they mostly sleep apart and only have a single bed?

[baduy]

No. He sleeps on the floor because she's what she herself describes as "a rough sleeper", i.e. she habitually kicks out and thrashes around in her sleep. It isn't a single bed, by the way (except by US standards) it's a small double of the kind common especially in Seoul with its sky-high real-estate prices and consequent small room areas (even the supposed "mansions" that Kdrama Chaebol characters live in are hardly of Dallas or Dynasty proportions).

As one of the "reform" measures she proposes when she realizes she's been hard on him, she says  they''ll order a king-size double bed instead and in the meantime, she'll join him sleeping on the floor. But that very same day, she gets wind that he's been up to no good too, and so takes to sleeping in the living room. But seeing how the first sequence in this drama gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "sex before marriage" there's nothing platonic about their relationship.

[Guest ellenb5354]

i so hate this hong ran character and the actress who plays her.  i've also seen her i think in dream high2 and her buck teeth is distracting.  can somebody tell her and this eun hyuk guy that marriage is a commitment and when you take vow 'to love, cherish, etc. etc.', you can't just break it up and forget it never existed.  how can this hong ran live in a house originally chosen by the first wife.  to her, everything seems to be a play, like she wants to have things just to go her way.  how immature!  and also,i skipped ep 2 and 4 but how does she support herself?  i love this drama because it is mature with real emotions, not the usual garden variety drama of boy meets rich girl and vice versa with the usual irritating antics of the supporting actors.  also, jin se said it best in one of their confrontations that it was the first time they were unmasking themselves and discussing their hidden problems.  they were living together but not showing their true feelings and emotions. jin se by his own admission was always tiptoeing around his wife afraid that he might hurt her feelings. 

[Guest mireillesan]

baduy said: There's a decent enough (320p) streaming version of ep 11  with good sound on Toudou now
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/xbUdtH4t4U0/
No public torrent so far. If none appears I guess I'll have to rip the sound from the Toudou stream and mux it into the video from the Xvid version posted above so I can actually watch this episode properly.

[baduy]

@mireillesan: (and anyone else interested in a remuxed xVid with proper sound) Please PM me. Forum rules mean I can't post direct links here.


@ellenb5354: welcome to Soompi and this forum.

I agree 100% with you about the refreshing freedom of this drama (and other recent JTBC productions) from the battered plot cliches that the mainstream networks feed us, along with maddening "comic relief" characters who are forcibly inserted into every plot from the mainstream stations to give the soundtrack musicians plenty of practice at playing pizzicato.

One of the many things that makes JTBC dramas different from the output of the mainstream stations is that the producers are allowed to create dramas purely on their own artistic judgement, without PR people insisting that this or the other element has to be worked in to appeal to specific audience sectors. We all recognize those elements in mainstream dramas and cheerfully skip them, because they're nothing to do with the main drama, and left to themselves, the writers and PD would probably never have put them in. But in this drama, every single moment is present because the writers felt it needed to be there to express their dramatic vision.
 
So that's why I'm a bit disappointed to see you admit that you skipped two whole episodes but then go on to express judgements that really need to be qualified by things about the history and relationships of the main characters that those episodes attempted to bring out. You've every right to skip whatever you like, of course, but if you do that with this drama you are pretty sure to miss out on things the writers, PD and players badly wanted you to see.

The construction of this drama is incredibly tight. Nothing is redundant, not even the (sometimes quite lengthy) repeat flashback sequences, which are always there to revisit past events in a new context which shows them in a powerfully different light. A good example of that is in ep 11, where we get to hear the father's dying words in full twice over within the space of around 20 minutes of air time. But what a difference in the way we hear them: the first time in the belief, shared by the onscreen characters, that they are the only listeners; but the the second time round seeing that Chan Joo was also hearing every word and feeling the devastating impact on her. The writers then build this into the stunningly powerful final parting scene in ep 12, where the whole force comes from the fact that we know what happened from both sides of that cubicle curtain and so grasp what lies behind the way Chan Joo walks away, apparently ignoring Jin Se's final question to her.

There's no doubt that Hong Ran is a highly problematic character; but then so is Chan Joo (not to mention In Kyeong, but then she seems to have some sort of psychological disorder on top of that diabetic condition which is the focus of her destructive self-pity). The male leads have their problems, but they aren't really problematic people. They're both pretty simple types (I mean non-complex, not simple-minded) although they're complete opposites, in background, personality, behaviour and morality. Neither of them really understands the women in their lives, and as a result their attempts to relate to them misfire in all sorts of ways.

There are a lot of possible responses to Ran (many of them understandably negative) that would chime in well with the way the drama portrays and develops her character; but I really don't think "hatred" is one of them. I suspect that once you have given all the episodes the attentive viewing which the production team's efforts deserve, you may find your response to her becomes a little more differentiated and less flatly dismissive.

That said, I am becoming more and more aware while watching this drama and sampling the (generally very good) DF subs of how many things in well-written and acted Korean dialogue defy translation into English (and I mean into Western ethical and social concepts as well as just English words and phrases).

Koreans interacting with each other have a much richer palette of linguistic and non-verbal expressions to select from than their Western counterparts, and it's massively difficult for any subber, however skilled, to convey nuances for which English language and Western culture offer no corresponding vehicle. That can lead to all sorts of things being missed. I should also add that some Korean-Americans who learned "family circle" Korean in infancy don't always recognize these subtle social messages either).

A tiny, but fairly typical, example from the second scene in ep 11, with Chan Joo and Ran meeting at the bus stop. Ran has asked Chan Joo to promise to stay away from Jin Se while he's having such a hard time. Chan Joo's reponse starts with her saying, according to the DF sub "Your name is Hong Ran, isn't it?" 

Now there's no doubt that that's a verbally correct translation. The problem, though, is that although in English it's a perfectly innocent question, in Korean, in this context, it's a heavily loaded one.

It's impossible to overstate the importance of hearing, retaining, and using people's names accurately in all East Asian cultures. Koreans of all ages and social stations always introduce themselves with their full names. It's a vital part of etiquette to hear that name correctly and remember it on future occasions without further prompting: failure to do so can be taken to be a sign of disrepect for the person concerned [i should add, though, that Koreans readily exempt foreigners from this code, though they are always pleased to see foreigners attempting to observe it, even if they slip up]. But that means that if a Korean makes a point of needing to check up on someone's name in circumstances where they know full well what that name is (as we can be 100% certain Chan Joo does here) they're implying that the person whose name they pretend to be not quite sure of is beneath their notice. In other words, Chan Joo's question here, when translated culturally not just linguistically, is not an innocent enquiry but a calculated insult. And that sets a tone that carries over into the remark Chan Joo follows up with.

The DF subs read
"Ran, although we are no longer married, we will have see each other when we need to. A promise like that is a bit funny."

In this case, I would have myself tackled the actual translation differently. My version of these lines would read

I believe your name's Hong Ran?
Listen here, Ms Hong. Even after a break-up, if a couple needs to meet again, then they do. Can't you see that it's silly to ask for a promise like that one?

The DF translator has truncated the original (somewhat icily) polite Ran-ssi of the soundtrack into the rather familiar-sounding "Ran". I have elaborated it into something quite different because it's necessary to get across somehow the tone which Chan Joo's question has established, which her opening remark, translated word for word, can't be made to convey in English. Chan Joo (not for the first time with Ran -  compare their encounter in the washroom at the bar in Hongdae) has got on her high horse and is patronizing Ran, giving her a little lecture on how grown-ups behave and implying that a little kid like her knows nothing about such things.

But Ran turns the tables on her, suggesting that it's Chan Joo who's behaving inappropriately and needs to learn a lesson. The first line where she begins her counter-attack is oddly translated in the DF subs as  "Isn't it right that you think of it that way?"  I don't really understand what that's supposed to mean in English, and it doesn't match how I understand the Korean. Maybe there's a typo in there somewhere. My translation of Ran's response would run

Isn't it a bit rich of you to take that line? Just think of how you treated him. Even before that scandal broke, I knew your little secret. I knew you were deceiving him, and all the pain you were putting him through. And now you're standing there so complacent and superior?

In other words, "if anyone deserves a moral lecture, you should be the first in line, not me." We see that Chan Joo can't help feeling the force of that. So she does exactly what Jin Se does when forced into such a corner: she puts on a not very convincing brave face and walks away from the problem. The DF subs have her parting line as "Please, do that for me", which I think doesn't catch the correct nuance here of the Korean auxiliary verb behind the "for me" bit. I'd have translated that as
Great!  That suits me fine.
though her face shows that that's very far from being true, signifying that she knows she's been beaten on that one, re-inforced by the fact that she walks off alone into the suburban darkness rather than face Ran any longer, even though we know she'd been intending to catch a bus.

Incidentally, I could write at equal length on the hugely significant eye-contact messages in that little scene, but I won't tax readers' patience any further right now.

[luci888]

Thanks, Baduy, your version of the lines DO make a huge difference in how they're perceived.  While watching the drama, I thought those lines in that scene came across as weak compared to Chan Joo's rigid body language.

I am immersed in the drama's characters with all their complexities as it is very unique from most mainstream korean dramas.  Too bad not many people
are watching it.

[Guest flydolesqueue]

This content has been removed by a moderator.

[joccu]

I love this drama. this so different from others k-dramas.
baduy thank for always translating and underlining things that may not make sense to people who doesn't live or understand korean.
I

[rizza123]

baduy thank you very much..
there will be 4 more episode left  ,, I wish Jin se and chan joo back together....Ran is really in hurry to live  together with Jin Se ... Is Jin se and chan joo divorce finalize already ? all I know she gave the divorce paper to him but I don't think he accepted it or sign the paper.. He kept the paper and the ring .. I beleive they loved each other .. they just need some space to each other w/ all this obstacle in their marriage life ,,
I want Ran to disappear .. and eun hyuk , please go back to your wife and take care of her...she's so obsessed w/ him ,, he can control her ..make a deal with your wife .. stay w/ her and tell her not to treat you like a slaves or dominated you .. gggrrrr !!