[Drama 2015] The Village: Achiara's Secret 마을- 아치아라의 비밀

[baduy]

In case anyone is lost over these references to Five Fingers, the trick played on us in that drama was that for many episodes, we thought this was a plot about a domineering father foisting his illegitimate child by another woman on his resentful wife, who then for years on end went to all sorts of villainous lengths to make life hell for what she thought was another woman's son.  A familiar Kdrama motif, of course. But it eventually emerged that what the domineering husband had done was pass off his wife's illegitimate son as his illegitimate son, thus punishing his wife for her infidelity by tricking her into tormenting her own and her lover's offpsring, thinking it  was her husband's.

The ambiguity I referred to came in the first meeting in an early episode of the patriarch with his supposed son, who much later was revealed not to be his son at all (something the supposed father had known all along).  Introducing himself to the boy, he used a form of words that literally means "I am the person who is called your father". Now that is a (nowdays not very frequently used) way that someone can introduce themselves in Korean. They can say, again literally, "I am the person who is called XYZ" which is just a politely oblique way of saying "My name is XYZ". So viewers were meant to think the man was simply saying "I am your father" in a slightly hi-falutin way, and think no more of it. But the truth was hidden in the literal meaning of the expression he chose, and with hindsight it was plain enough to see.

[Moronic_drone]

So there's this scene in ep 4 where Park Woo Jae visits Agassi in order to retrieve more information. Their conversation goes along the lines of:

PWJ: When you wear clothes like those, how do you feel?

Agassi: Only people who have experienced that would understand. Ajussi you won't know. 

 

and I'm here like: DUDEEEEEEEEEEEE IF ONLY YOU KNEWWWWWWWWWWWWWW -_________-

 

[Guest skeletonworks]

There are six murder cases (added the last one) around Achiara Village. Sunbae officer said it only take 30-40 minutes to reach each other place. The possibility there is only one murderer its okay, but the sixth murder case broke the boundary and more bold, seems the murderer want (s) the police to work harder than before. Sometimes I think this case is about A Murder Case In The Middle Of Serial Murder Case. They are KHJ mureder case and the murder case of five victims. KHJ case is a mystery with no clue, so far. Just like I said before everyone can be suspected, and personally I suspected Teacher NGW. And the murder case of five victims also still a mystery. This time I suspected, The Agasshi. I can’t say he is innocent. He proved himself as a innocent person for KHJ case since his alibi suited. But when you looked the way he saw a girl walking in the street when he transffered to Seoul, I think its not normal. And he was there (in the bus) when HSY landed her feet for the first time in Achiara. I am sure his appereance for this drama will not for nothing. Did he and KHJ know each other before he transform into “Agasshi”??? I still has a lot of questions and doubtful feeling about this Agasshi. Everything about his actions so suspicious.

The way he looked at the girl walking in the dark alley was indeed a bit intriguing. I can't tell whether that look has malicious intent in it or that he was concerned about the girl. Whatever it is, he sure seems like he knew something more than what he told Officer WJ.

I don't think they've met before but I'm still perplexed over what HJ said to Agasshi. She said to her "What would your mother feels if she knew you're like this (cross-dressing)"... This implied that either she knew about his mother (maybe they're somehow related??) or that she has an inferiority complex towards a mother figure. It's just weird that she emphasised "mother", not "parents"...

It's only been 4 episodes so I guess it's too early to connect the dots.. but it's driving me insane...

 

EDIT:

@Moronic_drone This is when I missed the old Soompi. I wished there's a LOL button to click because that is funny!! YSJ cross-dressing hahahaaha

[riya988]

 

@riya988 your observation make a sense for me.. but, I want to share my observation too. There are six murder cases (added the last one) around Achiara Village. Sunbae officer said it only take 30-40 minutes to reach each other place. The possibility there is only one murderer its okay, but the sixth murder case broke the boundary and more bold, seems the murderer want (s) the police to work harder than before. Sometimes I think this case is about A Murder Case In The Middle Of Serial Murder Case. They are KHJ mureder case and the murder case of five victims. KHJ case is a mystery with no clue, so far. Just like I said before everyone can be suspected, and personally I suspected Teacher NGW. And the murder case of five victims also still a mystery. This time I suspected, The Agasshi. I can’t say he is innocent. He proved himself as a innocent person for KHJ case since his alibi suited. But when you looked the way he saw a girl walking in the street when he transffered to Seoul, I think its not normal. And he was there (in the bus) when HSY landed her feet for the first time in Achiara. I am sure his appereance for this drama will not for nothing. Did he and KHJ know each other before he transform into “Agasshi”??? I still has a lot of questions and doubtful feeling about this Agasshi. Everything about his actions so suspicious.

This all my thought about the last two eps. I might be wrong, because its all predictions. Now I will patiently wait for next week eps and SBS always give me a torture of waiting every Wednesday and Thursday.

 

This means the killer who committed the sixth murder is not the serial killer ...but someone else who committed the murder to remove suspicion from agasshi... and very next day he(agasshi) was released from the police custody....the killer even left the corpse in the open...didn't hide it ...because he wanted the police to find it soon..resulting agasshi out of police custody the very next day 

agasshi has accomplice...and both want so yoon to discover truth or they want something else ....who can be that accomplice.....hye jin  or gun woo ....

kim hye jin is so jung ... so jung is kim hye jin ? really what if kim hye jin is a different person ? so jung is faking as kim hye jin ....the person who is dead is the real hye jin... so jung is alive

we need to wait for this ahjumha ....hye jin omma to come ...

YES YES KIM HYE JIN IS MY DAUGHTER ...BUT THIS NOT MY HYE JIN......DUN DUN DUN

LOL how epic that would be!

 

in the very first episode the way gun woo comforted yoona by telling her...

 that body is absolutely not Teacher Hye-jin

 

AND THIS

 

I dont think this was done just to create little humor ...the police sketch provided by the police and kim hye jin ...its too different maybe this indicate to something...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally started this drama and I still have no real theory to go on. Every time I think I have figured something out at least halfway, there's something that counters that so I'm still lost lol I think I'll just continue to read your theories  

We are all on the same boat dear!!...Welcome aboard !!!!

[riya988]

 

from the painting and pregnancy books that were found in hye jin's apartment hint to that hye jin was pregnant....who was father of her child....ji sook husband

I went looking for those books (the painting is of course impossible to miss) but all I could find were the ones Woo Jae flips through when executing the warrant for seizure of her possessions. There are four books the camera shows in closeup.

 

 

Mod Edit: Do Not Quote Images

The first book is called "Foot Massage: the best gift I can give my body", then there's one called "Abdominal Massage 30 minutes daily", subtitled "Revitalizing the five viscera and six entrails". Here it is, a real snip at only ₩26,550 with accompanying CD. I wonder was that what some viewers mistook for some sort of pregnancy manual?  It's not, and I doubt whether massage of this precise type would be advisable in pregnancy anyway. (See any basic text on Chinese medicine or google away if "the five viscera and six entrails" are a mystery to you.) The third book we only catch the vaguest blurred glimpse of, but it looks to me from the part of the cover illustration we very briefly see like a book on cranial massage, while the fourth and final one is "An Introduction to Social Welfare Law", which is a law studies  text book.

No hint of pregnancy in those volumes, then, but perhaps someone spotted one somewhere else?

 

its great to have you on board ...thanks for detailed explanation  @baduy ...well I read the recap on DB for ep 4...and it's mentioned there that books were related to pregnancy.....

[IBELIS]

 

@riya988 your observation make a sense for me.. but, I want to share my observation too. There are six murder cases (added the last one) around Achiara Village. Sunbae officer said it only take 30-40 minutes to reach each other place. The possibility there is only one murderer its okay, but the sixth murder case broke the boundary and more bold, seems the murderer want (s) the police to work harder than before. Sometimes I think this case is about A Murder Case In The Middle Of Serial Murder Case. They are KHJ mureder case and the murder case of five victims. KHJ case is a mystery with no clue, so far. Just like I said before everyone can be suspected, and personally I suspected Teacher NGW. And the murder case of five victims also still a mystery. This time I suspected, The Agasshi. I can’t say he is innocent. He proved himself as a innocent person for KHJ case since his alibi suited. But when you looked the way he saw a girl walking in the street when he transffered to Seoul, I think its not normal. And he was there (in the bus) when HSY landed her feet for the first time in Achiara. I am sure his appereance for this drama will not for nothing. Did he and KHJ know each other before he transform into “Agasshi”??? I still has a lot of questions and doubtful feeling about this Agasshi. Everything about his actions so suspicious.

This all my thought about the last two eps. I might be wrong, because its all predictions. Now I will patiently wait for next week eps and SBS always give me a torture of waiting every Wednesday and Thursday.

 

This means the killer who committed the sixth murder is not the serial killer ...but someone else who committed the murder to remove suspicion from agasshi... and very next day he(agasshi) was released from the police custody....the killer even left the corpse in the open...didn't hide it ...because he wanted the police to find it soon..resulting agasshi out of police custody the very next day 

agasshi has accomplice...and both want so yoon to discover truth or they want something else ....who can be that accomplice.....hye jin  or gun woo ....

kim hye jin is so jung ... so jung is kim hye jin ? really what if kim hye jin is a different person ? so jung is faking as kim hye jin ....the person who is dead is the real hye jin... so jung is alive

we need to wait for this ahjumha ....hye jin omma to come ...

 

YES YES KIM HYE JIN IS MY DAUGHTER ...BUT THIS NOT MY HYE JIN......DUN DUN DUN

LOL how epic that would be!

 

in the very first episode the way gun woo comforted yoona by telling her...

 

 that body is absolutely not Teacher Hye-jin

 

AND THIS

 

I dont think this was done just to create little humor ...the police sketch provided by the police and kim hye jin ...its too different maybe this indicate to something...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally started this drama and I still have no real theory to go on. Every time I think I have figured something out at least halfway, there's something that counters that so I'm still lost lol I think I'll just continue to read your theories  

We are all on the same boat dear!!...Welcome aboard !!!!

 Agasshi  was never a suspect for the serial rape killings he was only suspected of killing HJ, at the time HJ went missing he was in a coma in Jeju that is why he was released. SY fear of him was triggered by the bus drivers story about the serial rapist murders.The police know that the serial killer did not kill HJ that's why they are two separate cases. Plus agasshi get's excited by girls realizing he is a man in drag and run off screaming, he became intrigued by HJ because she wasn't afraid of him and admonished him about how his mother would feel if she saw him. When I was growing up it was common to blame the mother for any bad or disgraceful  behavior of the child on the mother, suggesting that she did not raise you right.  I think the rapist is going to be someone older because I believe that he is GY father, her mother's flashback made me believe that she was one of his victims and she managed to survive. Also all of the victims have been murdered within 30 minute's of Achiara. Have they even said how long the rape/murder's have been going on?

 This town is full of birth secrets and fatherless children, makes you wonder if the accident that killed SY parents wasn't an attempt to cover up another one, and maybe that's why the sister's were listed as dead in the newspaper as well. 

[bebebisous33]

@IBELIS I believe that the serial killing might be connected to former crimes from the past. Maybe, in the past, someone used to rape women from Achiara and many of them got pregnant. GY's mother remembered that night and maybe, she wasn't the only one who experienced it. Moreover, when she was chased, it was a windy and raining night... to conclude the same weather with the actual serial killing. Sure, it has changed a little with the last victim, but we know that serial killer have urges and can't control their pulsion as time passes. Nevertheless, GY's mother never went to the police station afraid of the consequences and ashamed. Maybe the other victims felt the same way that's why Achiara has such a low crime rate. The birthmark could be an indication that someone must have something similar, because birthmarks are genetically inheritated. 

The problem is we know nothing about the actual victims from the serial killing. Sure, WJ noticed the location but maybe they were all connected to rapes from the past. 

[baduy]

.well I read the recap on DB for ep 4...and it's mentioned there that books were related to pregnancy.....

Well, now you know what the books actually are, you'll have to form your own judgement as to whether they're related to pregnancy or not. I personally don't see how they are, though with a certain amout of mental gymanastics, they could be linked (Abdominal massage to help restore flat tummy after chlldbirth, social welfare legislation to know how to claim most child  benefit and on what grounds, etc etc). Not that I'm denying there are other hints in this and the previous episode that point in the direction of a pregnancy, but I think it would be misleading to create the impression that those books are titles about ante-natal health etc, which they plainly aren't.

A pity she didn't buy a book on the Care and Feeding of Goldfish. It wasn't her fault that the poor creatures starved to death, but she had  subjected them to the trauma of being carried along in a lustily-swung polythene bag, so their spell as her menagerie got off to an inauspicious start. Still, as even the briefest trip to a public market will confirm, East Asian countries have rather different ideas on animal welfare than now prevail in the West.  Though the same goes for what you'll see  at markets in rural Greece or southern Italy, EU regulations notwithstanding.

@ibelis I also ['also' refers to a whole chunk of this post which this awful new soompi software gobbled up without a trace in which I endorsed your points about the Young Lady not being a suspect for the serial killings, and hence the unlikelihood of the latest murder being a diversion set up by an accomplice of his]   think what you say about the significance of HJ's words to the Young Lady is very important, and would actually be re-inforced by a more accurate translation that the one @skeletonworks quoted, which I take must be from a sub: "What would your mother feel if she knew you're like this (cross-dressing)"...  Although it's not as dire a mistranslation as my own horrible first effort, based on mishearing the soundrack on the live stream first t ime round, it still fails to get across a lot of what's in the Korean, while managing to insert something that isn't there (there's nothing disapproving/judgemental about her words, as that translation rather suggests there might be) Actually, I'm not wholly satisfied with my own second attempt which I already posted, namely "Seeing you like this, I wonder what would be in your mother's heart?" 

I won't go any further into this right now, because  I am under strict orders to fit a new toilet seat before my wife gets back from the shops, and if I fail to comply she'll ban me from the drama-viewing activity which she calls, as people who've been in other threads with me may know already, "ogling Korean women".

But I'll have more to say on that line and its connotations, before today is out, I hope. That's a promise (or a threat, depending on one's taste for baduy-ish linguistic rambles)

 

[hankitae42]

OMG.. this drama.. all the time the words that came out of my mouth while watching it was "What?!"  "What the hell?!  What?!" Not because I didn't understand what's happening.. it's because a series of surprising events just kept popping up.. also, good timing again on the jumpscare on this one~

*Insert sudden orchestral horror noise*

 

[NRGchick]

Popping in to say how much I am enjoying this drama.

The mystery deepens and I can't be but suspicious of the prodigal son who returned. If you ever watched On Joo Wan in The Five with Kim Sun Ah, you know why he is believable as a killer!

[riya988]

Popping in to say how much I am enjoying this drama.

The mystery deepens and I can't be but suspicious of the prodigal son who returned. If you ever watched On Joo Wan in The Five with Kim Sun Ah, you know why he is believable as a killer!

oh i have ....

[riya988]

 Agasshi  was never a suspect for the serial rape killings he was only suspected of killing HJ, at the time HJ went missing he was in a coma in Jeju that is why he was released. SY fear of him was triggered by the bus drivers story about the serial rapist murders.The police know that the serial killer did not kill HJ that's why they are two separate cases. Plus agasshi get's excited by girls realizing he is a man in drag and run off screaming, he became intrigued by HJ because she wasn't afraid of him and admonished him about how his mother would feel if she saw him. When I was growing up it was common to blame the mother for any bad or disgraceful  behavior of the child on the mother, suggesting that she did not raise you right.  I think the rapist is going to be someone older because I believe that he is GY father, her mother's flashback made me believe that she was one of his victims and she managed to survive. Also all of the victims have been murdered within 30 minute's of Achiara. Have they even said how long the rape/murder's have been going on?

 This town is full of birth secrets and fatherless children, makes you wonder if the accident that killed SY parents wasn't an attempt to cover up another one, and maybe that's why the sister's were listed as dead in the newspaper as well. 

and how we can be so sure that he was never questioned about rape killings....we saw two police officers who took him to other police station ...I strongly believe that the sixth murder was done to divert police attention ...the serial killer suddenly changed his pattern....we need to wait for the next episode to know that if sixth victim was also raped or killed in the same style .....

[ktcjdrama]

Up to this point, the shadiest character for me is JH. She is shown to be close to HJ, and HJ trusted and confided a lot in her too. Yet when HJ went missing, she didn't care/bother to report to police as well. She is my prime suspect for now, until further plot development.

[baduy]

Okay, time to keep my promise -- or carry out my threat, depending on your POV.

I said I'd explain my problem with the translation of  HJ's words to the Young Lady as "What would your mother feel if she knew you're like this (cross-dressing)" and explain the rationale of my own version, "Seeing you like this, I wonder what would be in your mother's heart?"

My main issue with that first translation is that is looks as though she's saying "What would your mother think if she knew you were a cross-dresser?" A sort of rain-drenched adult version of the standard kindergarten teacher reproach "Whatever would your Mommy say if she knew you'd hit little Jimmy with that book?"

Part of that impression comes from the use of "think" and "know", neither of which are a good match for the Korean. To catch more of the sense of the orignal, we need to substitute the concepts of "seeing" and "feeling" for those of "thinking" and "knowing". She's talking about an immediate gut reaction to something seen, not about an opinion or judgement concerning a discovered fact.

The first part is 이런 모습 보면  literally "Seeing such a 모습", where 모습 is a very common word, but one that has no straightforward single translation.

A 모습 is a visual perception of a person which has some sort of significant effect on the observer. So one group of senses of 모습 is parallel to "side" in English expressions like "I'd never seen that side of him before", or "I got to see a new side of him", denoting surprise on discovering something unexpected about a person's character. It can also be equivalent to "sight" in expressions like "I caught sight of myself in the mirror and did/didn't like what I saw" or "figure" in "he cut a dashing figure". Or "self" in "she didn't look her usual self today"  In other contexts, we have to resort to a verb phrase like "see (me, you, him, her) like this" to get the force of the Korean noun. It's a common trope in Kdrama for someone who's in poor health, or just been beaten up, or is shabbily dressed, to avoid encountering someone they care about, with an  explanation they don't what that person to be distressed by seeing the 모습 they currently present to the world. In all these senses we get an immediate visual impact and a direct emotional reaction of one kind or another. Hence my translation of the line in question as "Seeing you like this".

But before we get to the main part of the line, a bit more needs to be said about why I translate 보면 simply as a bare participle "seeing", not as a full phrase "If she saw you...". Unlike most other English verb forms, a participle like "seeing" doesn't require an explicit statement of who is doing the seeing. This gives us a rare chance to mirror in our English translation the Korean ability to leave the subect of a verb unstated, a chance we forfeit if we opt for "If SHE saw you". So we can retain a striking feature of the Korean sentence, namely the way that when it begins with the three words we're currently focusing on, we don't know yet who is doing the "seeing", and so we initially assume it's the obvious choice, namely the speaker HJ, and if for some reason the rest of the sentence got lost, we'd probably think "Seeing you" meant "If/when I see you" (Korean, of course, doesn't distinguish between "if" and "when" except via context). But then as the sentence continues 당신 엄마는 (pronounced here, as is usual, 엄만, though writing it that way is taboo) 어떤 마음일까요, literally "your mother, what sort of feeling would she have?" there's an obvious temptation to think "AHA! it was "당신 엄마 = your mother" who's the "dropped" subject of the verb "to see", not the speaker HJ,  so we can go back and make that "If she (= your mother) saw you like this..."  
 
But hold on a sec. That colloquial contraction 엄만, is "omma" plus the topic-marking particle. And in that position, attaching the topic-marker usually implies a switch to a new subject. Which suggests that if we really wanted to replace that handy participle by an English form that demands an explicit subject, we'd need to stick with "When I see you like this" after all, since if the topic shifts to the mother only in the second part of the sentence, she can't also be the implied subject in the first part.
 
This is where that participle form in English really comes to a translator's rescue. Starting off "Seeing you like this" lets us avoid committing ourselves to a subject for the first verb in exactly the same way that Korean does. And if we then re-order the remaining part of the sentence to produce acceptable English syntax, such as "I wonder what would be in your mother's heart", we manage to keep more or less exactly the complex effect of the Korean, arriving at a translation which, just like the Korean original, doesn't commit us to taking either HJ or the Young Lady's mother to be the one doing the "seeing" but allows both subjects to co-exist. And only when they do both thus co-exist can we capture the full effect of HJ's words on the Young Lady. [Noticeably, if we for some reason we decided to reverse the order of the sentence components and make that "I wonder what would be in your mother's heart, seeing you like this" then we'd throw away the advantage that participle has when in first position, because in final position the "seeing you like this" attaches itself too firmly to "your mother" alone.]
 
Once we have an English version that avoids any hint that HJ imagines the mother would be shocked or judgmental, rather than compassionately distressed, as HJ is herself, intuiting the Young Lady's inner torment from his expression and manner when other women ran away scared, we are then able to see the full sense of what the Young Lady adds to complete his explanation of why HJ so fascinated him and why he felt an overpowering urge to "watch" her (=guard, protect, as in "watching (over) a child, not "watch" in the sense of "put under surveillance" or "spy on").

"She didn't mock me, or condemn me, and she wasn't scared. That girl genuinely wondered about just one thing alone: what the mother who brought a monster like me into the world might feel in her heart."

 

[baduy]

 

we need to wait for this ahjumha ....hye jin omma to come ...

We might have some time to wait, though, because the poor lady may be in hospital on the Magic Drip after collapsing thanks to the Kdrama Police notion of Family Liaison.

Hello! Aichiara Village Police Officer Park at your service. Just a quick call to let you know your daughter's dead, possibly murdered.  But don't let me keep you from your cactus-tending. Have a good day now.

[bebebisous33]

Up to this point, the shadiest character for me is JH. She is shown to be close to HJ, and HJ trusted and confided a lot in her too. Yet when HJ went missing, she didn't care/bother to report to police as well. She is my prime suspect for now, until further plot development.

I am thinking the same... Moreover, she is also connected to GW, the mysterious teacher whom she keeps calling con-man. I suspect, she knows something about him! She has her brother-in-law's phone number that she can use when she needs him. She didn't use her connection through her sister. So Ji-Suk has no idea about her sister's action.

I am also suspecting that the last victim was a decoy in order to divert suspicion. Maybe the aghassi is connected. I am wondering what the serial killer left in the corpse!?

[bebebisous33]

I had forgotten, but there are the pictures from HJ's album. In the pictures, you see 6 different people: I had the impression, there were 6 girls, but I am not so sure! Anyway, those pictures from the past show 6 children and it seems they were pretty close to each other.

So if someone could post those pictures... with a better view, it would be great!!!

[andy78]

http://www.allkpop.com/article/2015/10/sungjae-discusses-the-village-achiaras-secret-says-he-wants-to-focus-more-on-acting

 

[Guest skeletonworks]

http://www.allkpop.com/article/2015/10/sungjae-discusses-the-village-achiaras-secret-says-he-wants-to-focus-more-on-acting

 

Well good for him. I don't think his acting is bad at all.

Yeah he's 20 years old. That's why I was surprised he plays this role and someone said he's the male lead against MGY. They are like 8 years apart. LOL. I guess his character in this is supposed to be older than his real age because it seems like he's interested in MGY whose character probably around 25-26?

[baduy]

I had forgotten, but there are the pictures from HJ's album. In the pictures, you see 6 different people: I had the impression, there were 6 girls, but I am not so sure! Anyway, those pictures from the past show 6 children and it seems they were pretty close to each other.

So if someone could post those pictures... with a better view, it would be great!!!

Difficult to grab these. There's no single shot where we see them all plainly, but here you go.

 

 

 

We need to bear in mind that at this stage, SY has no inkling of the possibility that that might be her sister. But they could well be group shots from an orphanage and presumably when the cactus-growing mother of HJ actually shows up SY may use these photos to make a connection, especially if the orphanage staff member who used to be a classmate of her lost sister turns up some similar pix.

BTW, does anyone have any thoughts about the opening "in previous episodes..." sequence of ep 4? In the recap sequences of eps 2 and 3, the "catch up" was achieved by replay snippets linked by clips of SY's voice from scenes we'de already heard. There was no suggestion SY was "narrating" those sequences. But suddenly, ep 4 has Gi Hyeon as narrator. The lines he speaks to connect the various reprised snippets aren't taken from his appearances in earlier episodes. The content and manner, even down the the speech style used, which is typical of Korean fictional narration, are those of a classic "omniscient" third person narrator with a privileged overview of things. This struck me as pretty odd, especially in view of the way he shows up in the cliffhanger sequence.