[Drama 2012] Beloved 친애하는 당신에게

[Guest kngdrama]

Baduy, I registered today because I have been reading your insight and now a recap (THANK YOU!) on Beloved after watching episodes raw. 
I think that there are two married couples re-evauating marriage, commitment, and shared history. 
I don't believe that Jin Se is sexually attracted to Ran or that he is falling in love with her. He is desperately holding onto Chan Joo, interpreting Ran's touch as his wife's touch. I think that he feels responsibility for Ran and is kind and caring toward her. He cannot abandon her now but does not "cross that line." Nothing holds him back from crossing, except love. Those love chains are the most powerful and irrational. 
I have no idea what is going to happen but I hope very much that Chan Joo will be able to forgive herself and accept Jin Se's love. 
Again, thank you so much for giving me so much insight about this slow, painful, and beautiful drama. 

[rizza123]

thank you Baduy for your recaps ..yes!I agree with you .. tagalog is my main language but can't stand there telenobelas .. I am an addict kdrama since 1999 but still cant speak korean or understand .. maybe i am just a slow learner or just relying with the subs or recaps..
anyways how  much I appreciated your efforts doing a recaps with this drama .. and 2 more episode this will be ended ..
are you going to do a  recaps of some  kdramas ?

[Guest Bradamante]

Source: nate



Source: nate










Source: JTBC








Source: JTBC







Source: JTBC




VOD Links: JTBC
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Source: JTBC

[Guest flydolesqueue]

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[Guest ellenb5354]

well, episode 13 just validated what woody allen said when he fell in love with the korean adoptee of his then partner mia farrow' you cannot teach the heart who to love, it will follow its own rhytmn'.  true hong ran maybe very sincere in her love for jinse, but he does not reciprocate in the same manner she wants him to. maybe she should love herself a little more, restore some of her pride and lost dignity.  will her parents approve of  how she's living, living like his personal assistant.  there is no chemistry between them.  he loves his wife,love moves in mysterious ways, you may love a person to death but if he does not reciprocate in the same manner, better cut your losses and restore your dignity.  stop forcing yourself thru his heart, how can you live in another woman's house, her memories are still there, remember in the first episodes how they were shown cooking breakfast together , eating together, joking around  etc. they were happy, they just didn't know how much they were happy i just hope all will be resolved in the way i want it in the last 3 epis.  i ahven't watched ep 14, not yet subbed.

[luci888]

I too feel, like most of you, that Jin Se still loves his ex-wife. You could see his longing for her, especially in ep 14, where he looks at their picture hanging in the photo store while drinking beer before Hon Ran interrupted.  Hope our couple can reconcile in the end.

[baduy]

Some thoughts after sampling the DF subs for ep 14...

One of the techniques this drama shares with Alone in Love is its use at crucial points of voiceovers by the main character, especially the female lead, reflecting on the foreground plot events and drawing out their more general relevance to large questions of human experience we all face. Since the Korean screenplay here is not by the same writer who did the dramatization of Alone in Love, I assume this feature stems from the approach of the original Japanese novelist behind both dramas.

Getting these voiceovers to have the same effect and resonance in English subtitles as they have on the Korean soundtrack is a major challenge for a subber. It is much easier in Korean to express thoughts that cover both a specific foreground situation and a more general set of human issues than it is in English, because Korean allows so many things to be left implied (and hence suggestively open) that have to be made specific (and hence pinned down to one thing rather than another) in English.

So I was especially interested to see how the DF subs would cope with the very important voiceover in ep 14 that starts at around 13:12 with Ran sitting outside the convenience store after sending off Jin Se in search of some paper tissue [the sub says "a napkin", but, this being Korea, he'll come back with a few sheets from that roll of toilet paper that so disconcertingly hangs on the wall at downmarket eateries, but we don't get to see that] and extends over a good two minutes, ending with Chan Joo coming back to her apartment and sitting alone in the semi-dark.

The first thing we hear spoken in Chan Joo's voice while Ran is still in full shot (mulling over the fact that Jin Se has obviously just lied to her about his whereabouts during the day, and sensing that the explanation has to do with Chan Joo) is
뭣을 확인할 오는 걸까?
Alas, the DF subs don't get off to a very promising start with handling this line, since
Why did I come here to confirm?
simply isn't English. [One of several indications that the subber's native language may not be English, since no native speaker would find that an intelligible sentence]
Moreover, there's no "why" in the Korean here, which means more like
What is it I set out to establish?
This line seems to suggest that at some level, Chan Joo knew she was visiting her father's memorial not just to mark his birthday, but to check up on her suspicion that Jin Se would do the same.

Why should that matter to her? Because she knows Jin Se has moved Ran into her former house, which seems a clear enough sign that he wants to put her behind him (a sign she views with very mixed feelings). But if he were to continue to treat her father as if he were his father, too, then that would point in the opposite direction, as it indeed does. That's why Chan Joo asks her friend in such intense bewilderment just what kind of man Jin Se is, if he can so honor her father's memory and yet move another woman into what was her house so soon after she left it.

Overlaying Chan Joo's sound-track question about what she went to the memorial hall to confirm on to the shot of Ran silently pondering why Jin Se has just lied to her about his whereabouts during that day suggests that Ran, too, had an unconscious ulterior motive in her surprise visit to Jin Se's workplace. Both women's subconscious suspicions stem from their intuition that Jin Se isn't really feeling what he thinks or says he's feeling about either of them.

Then we see Jin Se packing things into the fridge and opening another can of beer for himself, while Chan Joo's voice is saying
뭣을 확인 하구 십은 걸까?
for which the DF subs have
What do I want to confirm?
though I'd have made that
What is it we crave certainty about?

The problem with translating both that line and the one before it is that there is no "I" there in the Korean, but any English translation simply has to supply a pronoun, narrowing down the sense, which in the Korean remains broader and more open precisely because no specific pronoun is present. [Descriptive linguists say such pronouns in Korean (or Chinese) are "dropped" but I find that a very Anglocentric way of looking at it: why not say English "inserts" a pronoun, rather than claim that Korean or Chinese "drops" it?]

Now there's no doubt that, since we are eavesdropping upon Chan Joo inner thoughts, even though we don't see her on screen till the very end of the voiceover, an "I" is the obvious pronoun to supply here (there are in addition some issues of Korean grammar that I won't venture into here, which also mean that the particular verb ending there is associated with first-person speech).

Now if at this point we were seeing Chan Joo on screen as well as hearing her, there would be no problem about inserting an "I", referring to her alone, into the subtitle. But there is in fact a problem with that, because the "I"  up front in the first line of the sequence, spoken in Chan Joo's voice, seems odd to English-speaking viewers when what we are actually seeing is a sequence of other characters, Ran, Jin Se, then Eun Hyeok, all pondering their individual predicaments, predicaments to which the questions we hear Chan Joo asking herself apply equally well, though she has no way of knowing that, and she isn't, of course, seeing what we are seeing as we follow her thoughts.

That's why in my recap of the episode, when I paraphrased this voiceover, I wrote "Chan Joo's voice is heard, reflecting on our common need to find certainty..."  Now a  recap can take more liberties with the verbatim original that a subtitle can, but all the same, I would still prefer to supply a "we/us/our" as the implied pronoun in the voiceover, rather that as "I" as in the DF subs. It seems to me that what the writer is aiming for here is to show all the main characters in the grip of the same dilemma (and taking the same gloomy view of the likely outcome) even though is is only Chan Joo's voice who is making it explicit; and beyond that, her musings are meant to extend this dilemma to an issue we all face in our lives where complex emotional entanglements and commitments are involved.

The DF subber has an "I" for the first two lines (where first Ran then Jin Soo are on screen) and switches to a "we" only at the very end, where Chan Joo is finally on screen and an "I" would seem less of a problem ("However, what we've really verified is only the sad truth," the DF sub says, with a rather unfortunate ambiguity in the English ("only the sad truth" could mean means "merely the sad truth" whereas the Korean means more like "the sad/painful truth is all we've confirmed")

Anyway, for anyone who wants to try to get a little closer to the mood and scope of the soundtrack at this point, here are my alternative translations of the lines in question.

[Jan Se at the fridge]
What is it we crave certainty about?

[Ran in the bedroom, staring at the bed with its sole teddy bear occupant]
About lies?

[Eun Seok being interrogated and looking at the diagrams on the whiteboard of the conspiracies he's meant to confess to.]
Or about the truth?

[Chan Joo coming back into her apartment]
In the end, the only certainty we find ...
is that the truth is very sad.


Moving on now to a later point in the episode, I'm sorry to say that I feel the DF subs fall down rather badly at what may prove to be a pivotal scene in the entire drama, namely the confrontation and acrimonious parting of Jin Se and Chan Joo at the riverside after he has rescued her from the besieging reporters.

After admonishing him to listen very carefully to what she's about to tell him, Chan Joo says what I would translate as "You've no need to be concerned about me, no need to be concerned even the slightest little bit. [The subber here appears to have confused an expression meaning "pretend" with a near-identical-sounding one meaning "not once, ever". As a result Chan Joo is made to say in the DF subs "you don't have to pretend that you are worry about me," which is rerettably not acceptable English grammar either. A little earlier in the same scene, she did indeed use the expression usually correctly translatable into English as "pretend"; but even there the subtitle translation "Why are you pretending that you care?" is a little off the mark. The Korean concept she used there covers pretension (=excessive show) as well as pretense (=deliberately deceptive show). She wasn't accusing him of insincerity, which is what the English sub amounts to, but of making far too big an issue of caring about something she claims is none of his business. So "why are you making such a big thing about caring?" would have been a more appropriate translation of that earlier line.]

Now Chan Joo is certainly wanting to make a very plain and firm break with Sin Je, but she isn't trying to be spitefully offensive by claiming that his concern for her is "pretense", and having her apparently say so in the sub introduces an undertone of petty malice which isn't in the Korean. It also distracts us from the absolutely crucial words in which she goes on to provide her explanation for why he "need" not have such concern for her: 우린 처음부터 몬너던 사이니까

I translated that in my recap as "Because we've always been strangers to each other from the very start," and I think I'd stick with that.  I certainly don't think the DF sub "We really don't know each other that well since the beginning", quite aside from being another piece of ungrammatical English, comes anywhere close to doing justice to that line and its vast implications for the entire plot.

Saying you don't know someone you were married to for three years "that well" is certainly not a very positive verdict on a marriage, but it's mild indeed to what the the Korean words claim, which is much more radical, and, to Jin Se, devastating. Literally it's "We from-beginning not-knowing relationship have-because." (And of the many ways of saying the equivalent of "because" in Korean, the one she chooses here has an overtone of adding to the bare explanation an exasperated chaser of "how many times to I have to say that before you get it into your thick skull?".  

As I said already in my recap, by choosing those words, Chan Joo is trying deliberately to undermine their past as well as block off any future. She's asserting there's nothing worth hankering back to, because there was never really anything there in the first place.

So I'd claim the entire drama hangs on that one single sentence (which is why its pretty important to translate is as well as we can manage). It's a very clear claim she's making, and it's either right or it's wrong. If it's right, then the best thing for both of them is indeed to walk away from a deluded past and make new separate lives for themselves. But if she's wrong, then by doing that they would be wantonly and self-destructively turning their backs on something precious, deceiving themselves about their own past and heading into a deluded future.

The heart-rending irony of all this is of course than Chan Joo wants Jin Se to believe it so he can be free of her and the "scars" she's convinced she's inflicted on him by letting him "save her life" when she was on the brink of despair. And maybe she wants to believe it herself, so she can feel justified in telling herself that she's breaking their relationship because that's the best thing for both of them. But Jin Se doesn't believe it for one minute, and (despite what Chan Joo tries to persuade herself) that's not just from a sense of obligation and neglected duty to her father. He knows her, very well, and he knows that he loves her and always will. That's why he's holding back from Ran, as Ran herself is also completely aware. Ran told Chan Joo that as long as his ex-wife is around, Jin Se will never open up to her, Ran, because "he's afraid he'll break my heart". But he also holds back from Chan Joo, letting her walk away, because he respects her independence and her wish to be in control of her own life.

Sometimes we sense that Chan Joo would welcome it if Jin Se could just acquire some of Eun Hyeok's more demandingly virile assertiveness. Their meeting in the café that ends their marriage is a case in point. "Supposing..." Jin Se said back then in an almost shamefaced way, reluctant to look her in the eye, as though he were coming out with something preposterous, "supposing... I were to say... that I loved you?"  She looks at him silently and steadily, for a long moment, with a tinge of something close to benevolent pity in her gaze, then pulls out from her purse the envelope containing the divorce papers and places it on the table, before taking the ring she's still been wearing right up to that moment from her finger, laying it down on the envelope and leaving without another word. We can't help wondering whether she'd have done that if, instead of wrapping his words of love in both a conditional and a reported speech expression, "supposing I were to say that..." (because of the way Korean grammar works, the "double wrapping" is far more obtrusive and obvious that it is in English) he'd just said straight out "But I love you!" and taken her into his arms? Maybe the envelope would have stayed in her purse and the ring on her finger. But then, a Jin Se capable of doing that wouldn't be the Jin Se she knows very well, despite her forceful claims that they've never known each other...

To the end, he will always be ready to take her back, but never willing to take any initiative in a direction which she says or implies she doesn't want. It really is, and always will be, down to her what becomes of them. We shall soon see what that is.

[Guest kngdrama]

Sometimes I am glad I don't understand Korean and can watch pure body language, voices, music, postures, and facial expressions. What I got from watching episode 14 raw was Chan Jo's steel facade with hurt and self-inflicted shame, doing penance for her "sins." Jin Se's life is seemingly settled down with a pretty young girl who is madly in love with him but he is lost and longing. Both Chan Jo and Jin Se suffer from phantom pain, when you lose a limb but it still aches... They both are living in a bad dream that impossible to wake up from. 
This drama is more complex than Alone in Love. There is a deep emotional wound that marred marriage from the very beginning, betrayal, shame, and promises/obligations that came from the past. 
While Ran is hurting too, I have no sympathy for her pain. She does understand that Jin Se loves another woman. She chooses to cling to him with a fake smile, pretending that their relationship is normal. It's like she swore to pretend and go on hoping that at some point the barely moving ghost of Jin Se turns into a happy, carefree, loving man. Magical thinking. 
I don't see how Jin Se can "make" Chan Jo come back to him. It's ultimately her decision and no amount of wrist-grabbing and love confessions can break her resolve to walk away from him and to give him freedom. She retreated inside herself, into darkness and loneliness. Chan Jo's change has to come from within. 
This drama leaves me with a heavy heart...

[Guest kngdrama]

I am giving up this silly hope that Beloved will follow the happy ending of Alone in Love. 
Different dramas, conflicts to resolve, and the undertone is different. It's not like Beloved is a second season of I Need Romance. 

[baduy]

@kngdrama  One pretty ominous difference between Alone in Love and  Beloved comes out if we consider what happened to the wedding rings.

Chan Joo's and Sin Je's are in a little plastic bag in a box in drawer in Sin Je's bedroom, where Chan Joo knows and apparently cares nothing more about them or the marriage they once symbolised. But Eun Ho and Dong Jin's rings were buried in their child's grave, where they both, separately but simultaneously, decided to inter them when they finally concluded their marriage was over. The symbolism of that is obvious, but moving, all the same: if the "buried" issue of what happened on the night of the stillbirth can be "dug up" and brought to light, their marriage can come back to life, too.

We might see the germ of a resemblance between Sin Je, out in his car looking for a Chan Joo whom he presumes to be in the grip of despair after her humiliation over the cancelled interview and the message it sends about her prospects of an independent life, and Dong Jin when in the final two episodes he deserts his new wife and takes the East coast night train that Eun Ho is riding (believing as he does, thanks to the note his ex-sister-in-law semi-forged, that Eun Ho is intending suicide). But even if the final two episodes here do bring something structurally akin to the all-night train-ride and the ensuing walk along the ocean front in the first light of day, you are surely right in pointing out that the substance of what lies behind the foreground couple in this drama is very different, and much more resistant to a positive outcome, than the past which Eun Ho and Dong Jin were able to put behind them.

[Guest shred]

i lied when i said i'll catch up on this drama slowly. watched the last 13 episodes within 2 nights. thank you baduy for your insights/translations for the crucial narrations because some of the DF subs did not make sense. (i'll save my peeve for the translation/subs next time.)

my thoughts - edited for the nth time ^-^

- LOVE how the characters in this drama leave me conflicted.

- Chan Joo was a broken woman who leaned on another man to survive. it was cruel of her to marry Sin Je on the day her ex-bf was marrying another woman. when she froze upon seeing Eun Hyuk (while she was with Jin Se) that was proof that she never really got over what happened to them (including the miscarriage). she may have her flaws but i am Team Chan Joo. loved it when she shot down Ran's "your kitchen is now mine" speech  and when she confessed to Eun Hyuk her intentions of running away with him. at least, she admitted to it. i'd be lying if i say i don't want her and Jin Se to reconcile but if this drama ends with her living solo but finally at peace with herself, it's all good to me.

- {edited} from my shipper's point of view: Jin Se staying with Chan Joo in spite of her past (miscarriage) was a solid confirmation that he sincerely loved her. but what is it with his knight in shining armor syndrome? i get that he's a caring person but it was frustrating to watch him get involved too deep with another woman. he should've ran away from Ran (HA!) right after the first time she hits on him she confesses she likes him. i admired how he stayed firm to not cross that line but by continuing to look after this girl, he had one foot treading it. (did he emotionally cheat first? i'm still not sure.)

- as much as i want to keep an open mind and understand what Ran has been through - losing her parents at such a young age, tough childhood, feeling completely alone and scared,  to not have anything or anyone she can call her own - i don't like her :| selfish, stubborn and has no self-worth/pride. girl is willing to live like a doormat for the man she's in love obsessed with and begging his ex-wife to go away. this GIF  (not uploading it here cause i might get censored by the mods) sums up what i want to ask her:

- i don't hate Baek In Kyung. i actually feel sorry for her. i think her b-tchyness was more of a facade because she's alone and unloved/unwanted by the man she loves.

- i don't feel sorry for Eun Hyuk. he dumped his ex and now he wants her back? man needs to live with the consequences and respect his ex and HIS WIFE.  he deserves to be miserable. i'm very concerned about his liver though. (i think he's in the bar on almost every single episode.)

- i've been watching k-dramas for years now and i still get astonished with their questionable style for home decor - especially the rich people.

kngdrama said:

This drama is more complex than Alone in Love. There is a deep emotional wound that marred marriage from the very beginning, betrayal, shame, and promises/obligations that came from the past.

This drama leaves me with a heavy heart...

[baduy]

Ran as doormat prompts me to remark that in the latest episode I was reminded of a cartoon I once saw somewhere. A woman is asking her friend "Why do men always treat me like a doormat?". And we see that she's wearing a T shirt with WELCOME emblazoned across her chest. Well, we saw Ran walking round the supermarket sporting a T with the word Oui! equally prominent on it. I couldn't help wondering whether the costumes co-ordinators had seen that cartoon, too.

[Guest kngdrama]

Well, can't help it but go back to Alone in Love. Even after I decided that these two dramas are different. But. The husband in Alone in Love divorced his wife out of love. He thought that if he stayed with her, she would not be happy and would be in pain, unable to move on. He thought that if she looked at him, she would remember a stillborn baby. Now, I think that Chan Joo divorced her husband for the same reason; Jin Se would not be happy with her and she would bring him pain. 
That's Chan Joo's convoluted act of love toward Jin Se. She wants him to move on, to find happiness with a more deserving person. That's why she asks Ran if Jin Se is happy and in love with Ran. I don't think now that she investigated Ran just to put her down. She really wanted to know if he moved on. I think that there are cracks in her line of reasoning since he is not happy and keeps seeking her out. Did she start to doubt her decision? 
I also think that in marriage and even now she was the one with the most power. Maybe because she was older or because Jin Se's love was so great and he wanted to please her? At the same time, even with Ran Jin Se seems to be more reactive than proactive. Will he grow up? Will he stand firm in his convictions so both women know what he wants without guessing or trying to influence/manipulate him? 
In Alone in Love it took both husband and wife to openly say about their feelings and stop dancing around the truth. Will it happen in Beloved? 
In Alone in Love the new wife had enough dignity and sensitivity to walk away from someone whose heart was with another woman. I wonder if Ran is capable of achieving this type of maturity or if she would  continue to "doormat" herself and manipulate Jin Se's kindness until the end. 

[Guest kngdrama]

Yes, I know I want the happy ending hence this slew of attempts to find parallels with AIL. 
"Beloved" means dear to one's heart, right? There is no room for others? 

[Guest kwave06]

the character which surprised me is in kyuk who is willing to give up everything just to save her beloved husband.  she is not selfish with her love, very magnanimous.  re: hong ran with the 2 big teeth in front, i so hate her character for being immature and childish,  @baduy, she is not a very honorable woman.  in fact, she's a stalker who tries to force herself into jinse's heart.  about the confused and dazed chan joo, she is right she should try to find herself and make her own fortune without a man at her side.  this eun hyok guy is also something, he is unhappy with his marriage , so he wants chan joo to break up with her husband and live with him. how selfish. he should have known that when he chose that rich woman, he made his own bed and now he must lie in it.  these people should know that marriage is a commitment and not just a game.  i find ' beloved ' refreshing from all those silly, shallow dramas. (noticed that a lot of dramas these days are peppered with boy band members).

[Guest Bradamante]

찬주는 홀로 감당하기엔 너무 벅찬 일을 겪다보니
위경련에 쓰러지고 말았습니다...





찬주는 함께 떠나기로 한 날,
모습을 보이지 않은 은혁의 방문에 냉정히 말합니다...
그리고 그 말에 상처받았을 은혁이 걱정되는군요 (토닥토닥//)

Source: JTBC







자고 일어난 거.... 맞나요?
깨끗하고 맑고 정직하게 카메라를 보고 빙-긋 웃어 보이는 진세씨~





동거 중인 진세가 술에 취해 인사불성 되어 왔...지만....
해맑은 란!
미니선풍기 사용하는 란! (크크)



피자를 앞에 두고...
웃음만 나오는 한수?







이혼서류를 손에 들고 그렇게 귀여워도 되나요?
극중 카리스마 인경과 상반되는 모습이네요^^ (앙증앙증)
언제쯤 극중에서도
이렇게 귀엽게! 장난스럽게! 예쁘게 웃을 수 있을까요?
하루 빨리 그런 날이 오길 바라요~

Source: JTBC

[baduy]

In case anyone's worried that they slept through a bit of the drama, those last 6 photos (unlike the three of Chan Joo before them) aren't stills from the actual production, they're all BTS shots from the set. It's Choi Yeo Jin clowning about with the divorce papers there between takes, not her character Baek In Kyeong.

When putting both captures and BTS in the same posting, it's a good idea to mark the difference. On the original site from which these are taken, there's less danger of confusion, but there is here.

[baduy]

kngdrama said: Yes, I know I want the happy ending hence this slew of attempts to find parallels with AIL. 
"Beloved" means dear to one's heart, right? There is no room for others? 

[Guest kngdrama]

At least in AIL there was a fun break with the sister and the doctor. This drama is pure sadness and regret.

[Guest Bradamante]

VOD Links: JTBC | youtube

친애하는 당신에게 [15회] 예고편