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

[kanzcech]

@liddi oh no... I wish they won't release background music. The scary BGM still haunts me a lot everytime I hear it..

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BTS from "The Village" PD, Lee Young Suk.

Spoiler

 

cr: leeyoungsuk IG

[khaiden]

really good ending,,i cried,,,,,:(

[Mico Ricco]

Will there be a Season 2? - more suspense and mysteries.

 

credit : http://osen.mt.co.kr/article/G1110308459

 

[cissmahs_3690]

Thanks @baduy for the translation and patiently explaining to us non korean speakers.Really helped alot especially watching those episodes in the raw. Waiting for episode 16 to be fully subs before watching both ep 15 and 16 at once. Although we would like more things explained maybe that's what the director wants us to realise. That the criminal does not always get punished and the victim continues to suffer the insult. This is the real world where shady people do shady deals like Chairman Noh and Mr Seo and get away with it. Criminals like Mr Nam getting away with his crimes because the victims are too ashamed to finger him. Actually I believe JS and GY mother are not his only victims. He was caught in Jejudo as well but because of Agasshi or young lady testimony he got away with his crime. But due to the legal stature,he escape yet again. His wife is no better than him trying to protect a criminal and even killing some one. As for Da In their daughter, it will be a matter of time she will pass away as she has the Fabry disease as well unless her mother donates a kidney to her. The irony of it all is that is what KHJ wanted, a chance to live with the help of her biological mother. Although I dont agree with her methods like sleeping with Mr Seo, how different is she from her mother in that sense for self preservation at all cost. This show leaves a bitter sweet feeling, Till part 2 fellow detectives, see you around.

[Guest my2centsworth]

Well, my friends, parting is such sweet sorrow. I will miss this excellent, bone chilling drama.  The ending....I give it 9 out of 10 stars.  That high for me.  I can be very critical of final esps.  It sadden me that Young Lady was the serial killer. I really didn't want it to be him. All the evidence pointed right at him and with only 2 esps left at that time, there was no one else it could be. I was wrong about JS killing KHJ, but she was just as guilty as the real killer. I was glad that  Yoona and her brother left to go abroad. Maybe Yoona can be happy now as she grows into a wonderful woman.

The time capsule. I felt all along that something didn't add up with it. Don't remember who it was that I discussed it with in this forum, but thought that the envelop KHJ put in was not the same one that the pharmacist gave to the Assemblyman. That envelope was fatter as it had that bloody cloth in it. When SY open the envelope with those pictures it made me cry. SY had to know how much KHJ loved her when she saw those photos.

The Assemblyman.....not the ending I wanted. And was that an alive and well Chairman Noh with dyed hair?  I guess if we ever visit the village we will find them running a casino now.....Lol

I was glad to see the art teacher and Ge Young's Mom leave the village and start new lives elsewhere. It was great seeing Office Park and Officer Han get awards for solving the case and all their hard work.

I need some clarity on this last issue. When Officers Park and Han caught Young Lady, SY ask him to finish what he was saying earlier. " The child...missed her so much."  "I did....and Kim Hye Jin did too."  Were Young Lady and KHJ twins?  That would explain the male child in the birth scene when right after JS gave birth. That would explain why they used a male baby in that scene and especially why Young Lady turned out the way he did. Starved for a mother's love making him so unhappy which in turned made want others to be happy. Wonder if Young Lady will end up in the same mental hospital with JS?  If true.....Mother and son finally united.

I want to thank the writer, director, cast and crew for this brilliant drama. I didn't miss a single esp. Even watch some of them twice. Thanks to all that "like" my comments and those who posted to me. See you a new forum.

[liddi]

@my2centsworth Although Assemblyman Seo told GH to take YN to America, which was also GH's original intention, I do not believe that they did leave in the end. The last conversation GH had with SY, GH is looking after YN, and applying for JS to get the medical treatment she needs - his priority being to see that she finally gets better. So from the looks of it, he is not leaving Achiara anytime soon... certainly not abandoning JS in her time of need.

Agasshi and KHJ are not related. As for Agasshi's words, he was actually referring to how he and KHJ are similar in the sense that they were rejected by their own mothers. As such, he could understand how, in the midst of the resentment for being abandoned, KHJ also missed her mother because he too feels the same way about his own mother. As for the child in the birth scene, that was not a male child... but a female baby with the umbellical cord still attached. Hope this helps to explain.

[nat_phoenix88]

I agree with liddi. It's no a perfect drama but it worth to watch. Sometimes, the clues appear so easily. But it's a drama, so it's okay.

Miserable KHJ the victim who suffers a lot from lumber ajushi's crime. It depicts the life of rape victims. It's more upsetting that the real criminal (lumber ajushi) doesn't receive the heavy punishment for rape cases. I remember that he also raped someone in Jeju 10 years ago. I thought the police will arrest him because of that case. But it didn't happen. And for the butcher case, finally I got the answer about the killer. But it's kinda weird to see Noh who is still alive and make a good friends with his fellow hunter friend  In the past eps, it's clearly showed that he was pushed into deep sleep by chairman Seo and then left in the cold woods, all alone. It's okay if he's still alive but being a good buddy with chairman Seo, it's weird! If they're doing this together, then why there's a scene that Noh was left behind in the cold woods.. 

Both are also dirty men but do not receive any punishment. The only one who receive punishment are only those two women and agashi

About the agashi and HJ message. I thought agashi will say that HJ missed her little sister and adoptive parents. I got this wrong.. But in the end we can see a piece of photo of her adoptive family. What a tragic life.

 

[Guest my2centsworth]

1 hour ago, liddi said:

@my2centsworth Although Assemblyman Seo told GH to take YN to America, which was also GH's original intention, I do not believe that they did leave in the end. The last conversation GH had with SY, GH is looking after YN, and applying for JS to get the medical treatment she needs - his priority being to see that she finally gets better. So from the looks of it, he is not leaving Achiara anytime soon... certainly not abandoning JS in her time of need.

Agasshi and KHJ are not related. As for Agasshi's words, he was actually referring to how he and KHJ are similar in the sense that they were rejected by their own mothers. As such, he could understand how, in the midst of the resentment for being abandoned, KHJ also missed her mother because he too feels the same way about his own mother. As for the child in the birth scene, that was not a male child... but a female baby with the umbellical cord still attached. Hope this helps to explain.

You are probably could be right about Yoona and her brother staying.  We can only speculate at  this point  since the drama is complete.  However, I am convince the infant on the blanket in that field was a male.   If  KHJ and Young Lady were not related,it's  ok. Maybe the director couldn't find a female child available for the scene. It doesn't matter, the drama is over.  It just my thoughts.I given birth to sons, that is way it appear to me as a male child not female.  I have a daughter too.  The drama is over. Thanks for you comment.

[nearsea]

On 12/4/2015, 2:29:51, hrkharis said:

 

You can find the answer in episode 15, in a conversation between SY and JH.
Our friend,  @baduy very clearly gives us the translation above.
I think, in episode 15 and 16, is where all of our questions were answered.

But it's still not clear why so yoon's grandmother died,why chairman noh is still alive and in hideout,why the butcher ahjussi was found wearing that exclusive shoe.I would really really love it if the show is revived again,as I think both the chairman and ji suk's husband need to get some punishment.Ji Sook\s husband is more at fault for sleeping with so many women and for lots of unclaimed wrongs he has done so far.

But about ep 15 & 16,I strongly felt the emotion that the finale tried to deliver.Someone above sed how the background music helped bring the sadness around,and it's so true.The music heightened hye jin's loneliness and nothing can describe how she felt at that time.Despite this being a mystery drama,writer succeeds to make this end on an empathetic tone,and this could not be better.We need more show like this.And series 2 should happen because I want so yoon and woo jae work as a team for more unsolved mystery around the village lol.So yoon was quite at action today with her speech at agasshi and the blank shoot.

While I read the news accidentally on the thread after episode 15 that jisook was the killer,and somehow a news regarding the actor playing ji sook surfaced online,so I had quite a bit of mix emotion about her for real lol.But anyway however she is,the role ji sook itself is quite an unique one,and I doubt if kdramas had any one like her before.She is raw,on the face and does not hide to show how she feels.And it's refreshing for a kdrama viewer.I always felt how she's trying to show that it's okay,that she's okay,while she's not.And it finally comes around on episode 16.Her perception became clear.The girl who was raped was an innocent one,but the girl she became was disturbed and never the same again.Somehow her image of happy family was there,but she tried to gain it in her own twisted way.Still it was nice to see her want to protect the child,even if she was tormented,and maybe she will have her salvation.Said that,I still don't get why she would want to hide the fact that she was raped.She was a victim,not a culprit here.Still the fact that someone made her this way,she wanted to bury it till the end.

But however the drama concluded,have to say I enjoyed it thoroughly and also because the writer gave us something new,which could maybe give us a bit more about society,or what happens behind the cover.Also while I never could take it that agasshi was the serial killer because how normal he looked but then again I forgot that's how they function in the real mundane world,giving us the false vibe that they are normal,while they are not.

[baduy]

I think what the Young Lady writes and says about Hye Jin and her mother calls for more careful translation than it's so far received in the English subs. It's a good example of the absolute need to consider context (including in a drama, plot and character) when supplying  elements that are left implicit in Korean (or a translation into Chinese or Japanese) but which need to be explicitly present in English. For a Korean viewer, the sense of those items comes from the viewer's own grasp of what's going on. It's a matter between the writer and the viewer alone. But as soon as English translation is needed, the subber's own grasp of the broader context is added into the equation, and if the subber's choices are insufficiently sensitive to the implicit meanings, that inadequate understanding comes in between the writer and the viewer. That's why line-by-line high speed translation by independently working subbers with very different levels of Korean comprehension and English idiom is such a perilous undertaking.

The Young Lady's note accompanying the clown mask reads 김혜진이 엄마를 미워하기만 했을까?  The decisive bit there is the "limiting particle" 만 attached to the verb 미워하다, "to hate". To get a sense of what that particle does in conjunction with the tense of the main verb at the end, let's try getting rid for a moment of both the 만 particle and the main verb. We'd be left with 김혜진이 엄마를 미워했다? which would mean "Did Hye Jin hate [her] mother?"  Now, to put back what we just took out, bit by bit, the 기 particle added to the verb 미워하다 turns it from a verb into a verbal noun, meaning something like "hate feelings". Add the 만 on to that verbal noun and we get "hate feelings only (and not other feelings as well)". Then we follow that verbal noun with a form of the verb "to have" that implies the raising of a possibility, and at the same time marks that possibility, depending on tone or context, as either highly likely or highly unlikely. The final 했을까 "loads" the question in the direction of either "yes" or "no". Now here, the basic fact thsy Hye Jin indeed felt hatred for her mother is beyond question. So it would make no sense to interpret the question as speculation about whether she hated her mother or not. What the question is asking is whether the feelings she had for her mother consisted only of hatred, while indicating that the overwhelmingly likely answer to that question is "no".

So... that give us something like "Can Hye Jin have felt nothing but hatred for her mother?"   I.e she did beyond all doubt feel hatred towards JS, but is it conceivable that hate was all she felt?

We encounter that note in a context established by the immediately preceding scene where Soyun met Yuna and Bawu in the "Study Café" [what an extraordinary light the very existence of such places sheds on the stressful lives of Korean high-schoolers, but that's a different topic...]

Yuna tells Soyun 우리 엄마, 아픈 거래요. 나쁜 게 아니라 아픈 거.  This line untranslatably hinges on the similarity of sound between 나쁜, "bad, wicked" and 아픈, "sick [but also 'suffering', a double meaning that will be important in what Soyun says of her own feelings shortly afterwards]"  But there's another thing that resists translation without losing a lot of the original's force. Yuna says her mother is sick, not bad twice over, but with different particles attached each time. The first time round, she says 아픈 거래요, where the 래 indicates that she's quoting something said to her by  someone whose judgment she trusts. (We surmise she's  been assured of this by Gi Hyeon, having finally shed the doubts about whether he was "really nice" or "just pretending to be nice" she expressed about him at the start of ep 2) But the second time, there's no "quotative" marker. When Yuna says 나쁜 게 아니라, "she's not bad" that's no longer marked "quotatively" as someone else's opinion: it's put forward as an assertion of her own in which she wholly believes.

That's why Soyun responds with "True. You're right" to re-inforce Yuna's judgment. Which in turn explains why Yuna replies with "All the same... [ = Even though you agree with me about that], you hate my mother, don't you?]  That then leads Soyun to reply "I do... but my heart aches for her. You know that, don't you?"  [The current viki sub goes badly wrong here by having Soyun reply to Yuna's question about whether Soyun "hates" her mother by saying she "dislikes" her. It's same verb in Korean in both lines and really needs to be kept as the same verb in the corresponding subs otherwise we lose the writer's intention. Catching and fixing such things is a basic task of an editor. In this case, I personally prefer to follow English usage by replacing the second instance the verb rpeated in Korean with a simple "Yes" in Soyun's reply (Koreans tend to repeat the verb in such circumstances rather than saying "Yes", a feature Korean shares with Japanese, Chinese, and -- it so happens -- Classical Latin, which had no words for "yes" or "no" at all. The Ancient Romans managed to conquer most of the known world without those little words: maybe their absence even helped their imperial expansion.]

So Soyun is saying that she  indeed feels some hatred, but not "nothing but hatred" for JS. Which means she goes back to her room in an emotional state that makes her susceptible to the lure of the Young Lady's note, which suggests the Hye Jin may have had similarly complicated feelings towards SJ, and tempts her with the prospect that he can elaborate on that if she's willing to risk meeting him.

In the chat room, she asks him "Did my sister say something about her mother?" but he replies they must meet if she wants to find out if she did , and if so, what. In the shack, when she's helplessly watching him mix the drug, Soyun again asks "What was it my sister said about her mother?" and continues 엄마를 미워하는 것만이 아니라면 뭔데요?  The more "literary" way of converting the verb "to hate" into a noun by attaching the 기 particle which the Young Lady used in his note has now been converted in Soyun's verbal question into a more colloquial method of turning verbs into nouns, using the expression ~는 것 but the sense is the same, and the crucial 만 particle is attached to this modified expression with the same effect, giving the sense "If it wasn't just hatred she felt for her mother, what did she feel"? But she's denied an answer until she's been "made happy."

Only when the Young Lady has finally been arrested does he tell Soyun what he means. This final time, he poses the rhetorical question significantly differently. The handwritten note, and his repetition of it when Soyuun had the gun pointed at him, asked specifically about Kim Hye Jin and her mother. But now, he puts it in a much more general way. 아이가 어떻게 엄마를 미워만 해요.  "How could a child feel nothing but hatred for its mother? A child longs for its mother so badly [NOT 'misses', because in English you simply can't 'miss' someone you've never known, a fact that seems to escape many subbers, not only in this drama].  I did. And so did Kim Hye Jin."

Finally, as requested by @liddi, here's my translation of the full dialogue of the scene where SY visits SJ at the psychiatric detention facility.

SY: I'll be going back to Canada soon. But I felt I had to see you before I leave. When you went back to the lumberyard to meet my sister, what was your real motive?
JS: I told you once already. I wanted to put a stop to what she was doing.
SY: I've given a lot of thought to what you said. You kept on repeating the same thing to my sister, telling her to get away from that place at once. Saying you both had to leave there without delay. My sister hadn't even actually told you where she was, yet you went straight to the lumberyard.
JS: Just what are you getting at?
SY: That place was the scene of your painful childhood memories, wasn't it?
[Intercut to JS approaching the lumberyard]
SY: Because that was where my sister was, all those childhood memories came back to you.
[Back to foreground scene]
SY: You didn't go back there to put a stop to her, you went there to save her from the monster, didn't you? All your childhood memories surfaced. You'd been for a consultation about a kidney donation in August already. That was before my sister set out to find her father. So it wasn't fear of your past coming to light that made you decide to donate a kidney.
[Intercut to JS's studio]
JS: The day after I told her how she came to be born, she came back again.
HJ: I've come to talk to you about what I said to you yesterday.
JS: I don't want to hear anything.
HJ: I won't be bothering you again. I'm going to call everything off. I'll expect nothing further from you. Neither my life, nor any money.
JS: Is that what you came to say?
HJ: The people I believed were my family turned out to have no family feelings. Someone I believed would love me as a daughter viewed me as a dark shadow threatening her existence. I set out to find you, not because you were my blood relative, or because I was anxious to save my life. It was simply... because I was so very lonely. The feeling that I was all alone in the world was so painful... I thought that if I met my mother that pain might be eased a little.
JS: You surely didn't hope to get that from me?
HJ: I realize now. That was all a delusion. I'm sorry. That you had to give birth to me. And for being a monster in your eyes. Goodbye... Mother.
[Back to foreground scene]
SY: So hearing my sister say that made you offer her a kidney?
JS: Though I couldn't accept her, I could at least save her life. I thought at the time that would be enough for her.
SY: Why didn't you tell her that? Before she went looking for her father?
JS: But supposing she'd wrongly taken it to mean I accepted her as my daughter? I loathed the very idea  she might even think that. I never so much as once thought of her as my child. I simply...
SY: But at least...  that meant... you saw her as a human being, not as a monster. If she'd known, even if she'd known no more than that, it would have given her some comfort. And anyway, she was no monster. She was my mother and father's daughter. And my sister.

 

[gerrytan8063]

@baduy

Thank you for your great enlightenment that you had rendered to this drama....I appreciate your insight in reading your analytical & precision accounts to the dialogue

[ktcjdrama]

@baduy Thank you, as always, for sharing with us a more accurate translation of the important conversations. And for explaining the language aspects. I'm learning a whole lot more of the language while watching this drama with you.

I wonder if anyone else notice. When JS answered HJ's call from the phone on the table, she just answered with a very casual "What?" Meaning she's been in touch and is close with the owner of the phone, which at this point we assume is the wife of Lumber Ajusshi. How could it be and why? Another loose end?

[Sunset]

I liked the ending... though I felt there were a few loose ends. It was nice... 

I felt really bad for JS. I can understand her obsession of having a happy family. 

[liddi]

@baduy Thank you so much for your wonderfully insightful explanations into the nuances of the dialogue, which brings new perspectives to the same scenes, watched multiple times in C-subs, then English subs, then via recaps, and now your translations. I am truly grateful for you taking the time and effort to painstakingly explain it all to us, and certainly our enjoyment of the drama is all the more enhanced because of your generosity.

In particular, the detailed translation you so kindly did of the last dialogue between JS and SY was truly edifying, and highlighted to me once more just how much could have been lost in translation or interpreted differently, and reinforcing the fact that I really wish I had your advantage of understanding the language so well:

This:
"Someone I believed would love me as a daughter viewed me as a dark shadow threatening her existence."
C-subs: "The person I always thought would love me as a daughter actually saw me as a shadow of someone else", which indicated that she was never seen for who she was, but whom she perpetually reminded JS of.

And this: 
"But supposing she'd wrongly taken it to mean I accepted her as my daughter? I loathed the very idea she might even think that."
C-subs: "I was afraid she would mistakenly think that I accepted her as my daughter. I did not want her to know how I really felt." - which indicated that JS began to see her as her daughter but could not accept her, and as such was afraid that her feelings, made known to KHJ would give the younger woman the mistaken perception that she was accepted.
Dramabeans: "What if I confused myself and thought of her as my daughter? I didn't want to let her know that I thought that even for a moment.", which indicated that JS did think of KHJ as her daughter, even momentarily, but was determined not to allow herself to waver because of that.

Subtly different translations... slightly different interpretations, but every single one granting a fresh understanding of the same scenes. As such, I am very grateful to every source - all the subbers, recaps and especially your explanations which are a godsend to all of us who would have been utterly lost without your contributions. Thank you so much!

[monalisa]

I am wondering where the ladyboy got the money to set up the lab and shopped to change his image while on the run from police. In the early part of the drama, he couldn't even afford to buy fried chicken for himself.

[liddi]

8 hours ago, monalisa said:

I am wondering where the ladyboy got the money to set up the lab and shopped to change his image while on the run from police. In the early part of the drama, he couldn't even afford to buy fried chicken for himself.

 

I think the inability to support himself was just a smokescreen to throw himself off suspicion.

And Lumber mill Ahjussi gave him cash as well as his card when he was escaping from the police, in part due to compensation for having beaten Agasshi up previously, as well as fear of being threatened with exposure for his past crimes.

[bebebisous33]

Well, I had hoped, we would get some answers about the car accident, the false article and the halmoni's death. There are the only things that left me unsatisfied. 

On the other hand, the end was really good. To conclude, I enjoyed watching this drama that was different from usual K-dramas. 

I really loved JS' character. I can understand what she went through and her need to hide the terrible event. Actually, she had been a victim twice. First she was raped and didn't report it. She knew how Achiara's people would react. Then she had to be reminded of the rape, when she gave birth. That's the reason why she only saw KHJ as a monster.

I do pity JS because her need to get acknowledged was so important. She wanted to have a family aand get happy and when she entered that Seo family, she thought, she could have it. But here she got abused again: the halmoni never accepted her and due to that, Seo even looked down on her after a while and had affairs. She really suffered a lot which reinforced her unstable state of mind. Neither her husband nor his mother seemed to be interested in the origins of KJH's birth. Both never bothered to ask her.

Her trauma was the reason why JS could be so cold and so emotive as well. I think now, she was sincere, when she cried at the halmoni's bed. She wasn't in her right mind, when she confronted the halmoni. I am glad that JS did see KHJ as her daughter even for a moment!

[lovehbhjw2013]

I believe the fact that JS was treated as a patient in the prisoner instead of just a prisoner and that GH was staying back to ensure she was treated until recovery already told us the immense pressure that JS dealt with in her life was taking a toll on her sanity.   Even when she was strangling HJ, she was mistaking her as the rapist ajisshi as HJ was speaking the exact same words as the rapist did whch triggered her bad memories....otherwise I do not think that she would strangle HJ without those words provoking her.

I supposed the part which was MOST hurting to watch was when HJ fell to the floor, struggling for help and eventually scratching the ornamental box leaving her broken nail behind as evidence of her death.......JS' instinct did not move her up a step to bend down and check HJ's injuries or immediately call for an ambulance to come to her rescue.  It was painful to watch HJ die this way....I think the hurt that HJ got before her death was worse than the death itself, watching her mum not saving her or not make any attempt to save her.   On the other hand, HJ was also not aware that JS' mind had somewhat de-railed and not exactly so normal by then....   Tragic but more tragic for HJ.

[nat_phoenix88]

On 5/12/2015 23.23.06, ktcjdrama said:

@baduy Thank you, as always, for sharing with us a more accurate translation of the important conversations. And for explaining the language aspects. I'm learning a whole lot more of the language while watching this drama with you.

I wonder if anyone else notice. When JS answered HJ's call from the phone on the table, she just answered with a very casual "What?" Meaning she's been in touch and is close with the owner of the phone, which at this point we assume is the wife of Lumber Ajusshi. How could it be and why? Another loose end?

Yeah I noticed it too. It's like she's been in touch with lumber ahjumma. Personally I think, it will be better if JS answered it with a simple 'hello' as if she received a call from a unsaved numbers.

[liddi]

@ktcjdrama @nat_phoenix88 My thinking is that when KHJ started demanding that Lumber mill Ahjussi turned himself in or be forcibly exposed, his wife had contacted JS about the matter, perhaps in an attempt to get JS to stop KHJ from her quest of exposing the crime, seeing that all of them - JS included, had everything to lose if the truth came out. This would explain why JS recognises her number, and was furtive in answering the call. Anyway... just my 2 cents