[Drama 2016-2017] First Love Again 다시, 첫사랑 Thanks for Watch.

[baduy]

9 minutes ago, maribella said:

Someone maybe you commented on the thigh baring skirt but strangely she was wearing a below the knee with the same top, a few moments after that.

 

This is getting uncannily reminiscent of an in-depth soompi discussion close on 10 years ago now about whether a certain character was wearing a very short skirt or very short shorts. (Anybody else here remember Ae Da in SBS's Happiness, played by Lee Eun Seong who'd just had her dimples newly deepened??) I'm sure most people will have better things to do than repeated fast forwards and backwards to capture brief glimpses of flesh, but the answer to this particular riddle is that the hemline was indeed some way below the knee, but the skirt had a split up one side, as is visible for a brief instant as she stands up and starts to walk out of the room. Whether the way that she sat down opened up that split accidentally or deliberately we shall probably never know.

[sava2sava]

3 hours ago, maribella said:

A huge bow and now asphalt like belt. I think MH has something to do with it. Did you see  how well put MH's clothes are? She wears pant suits mostly, the colours are lovely and the fit is excellent. Of course she is supposed to have experience running a fashion house  not a food company, HJ is a high flyer in the food industry, so maybe she does not have time... lol, who am I kidding

@maribella They make nice chefs uniforms, But thank god we not seeing her deck out in those instead at those power play meetings.. If she don't have the time hire a personal wardrobe assistant.. I'm scared the fashion police will be arresting her soon

Well HJ got MH on a recording that she would want to kill the person that kidnap her child.. Her own words will come back and bite her in the but and have the book thrown at her.. I think HJ better do something before Madam Kim gets released from jail and I think Jw really thinking about marrying HJ once GO has returned sine he thinks DY is going to die..

3 hours ago, baduy said:

In fact, she would like to record MH's thoughts on the evils of child abduction with a view to using them in her campaign for which she asks the Gathering's support. So she produces a voice recorder and invites MH to speak from her heart and say how she would feel if her child had been abducted, and how she would expect the perpetrator and instigator of such a crime to be punished. Thus she gathers the material which she replays to herself later in private, foretelling that she will force MH to pass judgement on herself and her crimes with her own lips.

Thanks @baduy On The Translation,  Yes this was nicely played by HJ.. I'm hoping here earrings have a mini camera in them as she video and audiob record MH saying she will kill the culprit herself.. Kinda od like giving HJ the go ahead to kill her because she sure said what if the culprit is sitting right in front of her.. Boy when the law go after her it's no place MH will have to hide her face nor her so called family..

[Misstwilightfan1416]

Episode 73

Credit: KBS World TV

[sava2sava]

3 minutes ago, stroppyse said:

I can't wait to see how @USAFarmgirl describes this scene. I'm sure she'll do more emotional justice to the scene that I could.

@stroppyse I also wants to see what she writes about this scene since she's a die hard romantic

[awsparkle]

@sava2sava

What's so funny is Mdm Kim behind bars still thinks she has the power to control people and situations.  She has not realized yet her power over MH and and her lap dog husband are the only one's she can still control. MH's world is falling apart piece by piece and she's starting to lose it. HJ is only digging the hole MH will bury her own self in. Everything she did is starting to unravel and she won't be able to stop it. MH should be discovering soon DY is awoke so her mother's idea of monitoring him and appearing as being a devoted wife will go out the window. 

With HJ digging into MH's butt her discovery of DY being awoke shouldn't be far away. It'll just be one more thing added to her pile of dirt that's about to fall on her head. 

@stroppyse

I'm also waiting for @USAFarmgirl to put into words the feels we felt watching that scene. 

@imgreatgal

If our prediction doesn't happen by the end of the next ep I think it will happen early next week. Jang's family is in trouble and they need him and GO needs his parents also. I think he will return GO on his own to put an end to MH and her madness. 

 

 

 

[viyra]

I am guessing Jang will  choose the lesser evil.  If  he turns himself in, he will get lesser sentence and probably a bigger compensation for his family from HJ and DY.  With MH, she will make sure he and his family are gone before she gets exposed - and that is one thing Jang wouldn't allow to happen.  He loves his family, especially his son GaOn.  Just like what DY said, Jang is a lowlife but has no guts to do what he is doing now (kidnapping) unless somebody is telling him to.

How about DY faking his situation in front of MH again?  The maid doesn't seem to know his current situation either even tho' she's in the same location as DY and MS.  DY heard everything MH was telling the maid when he was at  the hospital so he might do the same thing again. 

[baduy]

2 hours ago, viyra said:

If  he turns himself in, he will get lesser sentence and probably a bigger compensation for his family from HJ and DY

 

Actually, given the judicial practices of Korea, Japan and several other - mainly Asian - countries, it's perfectly possible he'll get no sentence at all, which is the message HJ was trying to put across to him in the broadcast to encourage him to come forward. In the main traditions of Western Law, criminal acts are offenses against the "commonwealth", not just the immediately affected victims, meaning that whether or not the victims "forgive" the offender or not has no bearing whatever on whether they must face indictment by prosecutors and trial by judges acting in the name of society as a whole.  If they are convicted, a request for leniency from the victims may indeed lessen the severity of the sentence, though that's purely at  the court's discretion. In Korea, however, the concept of offenses against society as a whole is largely confined to matters of national security or large scale fraud committed against companies rather than individuals, or to crimes eligible for the death sentence. In other cases, if the victims agree to a "settlement", almost always financial in nature, then the matter need not proceed to trial at all. This is a cause of flagrant injustices, since it means that the rich can buy effective immunity from punishment if their victims are in such dire circumstances that they need cash more than justice. Korean TV stations are loath to let such matters surface in mainstream dramas, but they are quite commonly aired in Korean movies, especially from independent producers, though they have little effect on a cultural climate where many offenses are viewed as a matter of clan conflicts which the clans concerned have every right to settle among themselves without "abstract legality" (or what's called the Rule of Law in the West) sticking its oar in.

Incidentally, without wanting to rain on the romantic mood of  @USAFarmgirl's anticipated commentary, my naughty old visual sense couldn't help notice a rather prominent item in the background of the scene in the café to which HJ and DY repair after their intial meeting at their outdoor rendezvous point.

Just look what's there, in almost ceremonial elevation between and a little above their heads. Yes, a glass receptacle containing four apples. So what? Well we should maybe not dwell too much on the number 4, though it's the unluckiest number in Korean folk belief, to such a degree that some elevators have buttons (and corresponding floors) numbered 1 2 3 F 5 6 etc in case it proves hard to rent out an apartment on floor #4 unless the baleful Sino-Korean (actually a harmless 四 but also understandable as a grim 死 = 'to die') is exorcized into an F for English "four".

Much -- pun inevitable --  juicier is the ambiguity of the word 사과 (sagwa) in Korean. As many Kdrama watchers will be well aware, the word can mean either "apple" or "apology". It's often loosely said that sagwa = apple and sagwa = apology are "the same word", but they aren't. They have the same sound, and hence if written in Hangeul script they also have the same spelling. But write them in Hanja instead and it becomes very plain what totally different words they are. The apple-sagwa is 沙果 in Hanja, whereas apology-sagwa is 謝過.

So are those really just harmlessy (if slightly oddly) decorative apples, or are they symbolic apologies stored up there waiting to happen, eventually triggering a mandatory repentance and forgiveness-fest in the closing episodes? Still, there's always a first time, even for weekly Kdramas, and a mold may yet get broken here.

 

[sava2sava]

2 hours ago, awsparkle said:

If our prediction doesn't happen by the end of the next ep I think it will happen early next week. Jang's family is in trouble and they need him and GO needs his parents also. I think he will return GO on his own to put an end to MH and her madness.

@awsparkle My thoughts is Jang is going to abandon GO at DY house. It's going to be the chairman that really notice GO looking like DY and wonder him and the mistress why would HJ child be drop off at they house.. Because Jang is going to leave GO to MH to deal with now he has no other choice but to hide for the rest of his life because he should be pretty much aware of HJ knows who kidnap her child and who orders that he was acting upon so he just trying to return the situation back to where it originated from..

I would love it if she brings DY home only to find GO in the house that would be enough to scare the crap out of her..

2 hours ago, viyra said:

How about DY faking his situation in front of MH again?  The maid doesn't seem to know his current situation either even tho' she's in the same location as DY and MS.  DY heard everything MH was telling the maid when he was at  the hospital so he might do the same thing again. 

@viyra I don't know kind of people MH hired instead of telling her to stay with DY at all cost she tells her to follow his mom ..Now who would leave a supposedly comatose patient alone and no telling when he wakes up..   

21 minutes ago, stroppyse said:

A little off-topic on the drama itself, btw, I read somewhere that Myung Se Bin in the first flush of her career, had been known in the press as Korea's First Love since so many of the boys and men then had named her as their first crush. Since this is her comeback drama in terms of being a lead, I wondered whether the title was chosen deliberately to invoke her old press fame. That's just speculation on my part, however. 

@stroppyse This is and interesting piece of news it do seem like it's some significance to the title

[baduy]

5 minutes ago, sava2sava said:

Because Jang is going to leave GO to MH to deal with now he has no other choice but to hide for the rest of his life because he should be pretty much aware of HJ knows who kidnap her child and who orders that he was acting upon so he just trying to return the situation back to where it originated from.

 

But that would make HJ a cynical liar in the light of what she said directly to Jang (not that he was listening at the time) in the broadcast. And apart from that, his family desperately need cash which simply dropping off the kid then going into long-term hiding wouldn't provide.. It seems unlikely that he would opt for a precarious resumption of handouts from Mme Kim's crooked Foundation which may be on its last legs anyway, but he has every reason to accept HJ's proferred forgiveness and gratitude and go home to his family with well-stuffed white envelopes. He's only hesitating because the plot needed stretching out, but that need can be met by other strands now that DY's Great Pretense campaign has begun. I class Jang as a character in rather the same category as @stroppyse has plausibly placed JW. He's not so much a character with a personality in his own right as a loose bundle of somewhat incompatible, not to say self-contradictory, traits which the writer twists into different configurations at different times, dependent on the needs of the plot at that juncture.

[maribella]

7 hours ago, baduy said:

 

This is getting uncannily reminiscent of an in-depth soompi discussion close on 10 years ago now about whether a certain character was wearing a very short skirt or very short shorts. (Anybody else here remember Ae Da in SBS's Happiness, played by Lee Eun Seong who'd just had her dimples newly deepened??) I'm sure most people will have better things to do than repeated fast forwards and backwards to capture brief glimpses of flesh, but the answer to this particular riddle is that the hemline was indeed some way below the knee, but the skirt had a split up one side, as is visible for a brief instant as she stands up and starts to walk out of the room. Whether the way that she sat down opened up that split accidentally or deliberately we shall probably never know.

Wonderful wonderful design!!

I don't know about you but if I have better things to do, you won't read from me here. Disecting episodes , clothes, facial expressions etc. of KDs are the highlights of my daysnow. 

[maribella]

1 hour ago, stroppyse said:

coordinating with HJ will make it interesting since HJ seems intent on keeping things from DY for his own good. I really wish she would stop that. Didn't she learn from when her mother did it to her? Though, the way it's going, it'll probably mean that HJ becomes m

I think  many of us had agreed some episodes ago that the title could be ' I am not telling'. HJ did not tell DY that MH was behind her fake marriage, her mother's surgery because she did not want to hurt his family! So this not telling has been written into her character from earlier on.

I was wondering how the writer was going to fill in 25 or so more episodes. Now with this not telling, it could start a whole new direction.

Much as I would like to see GO back with his parents, I don't think the writer and director are giving up their prime attraction so easily. Viewers are anxious to know what is happening to GO and more importantly 'when will he be returned?' So we get snippets of him enjoying the sea, food and getting along with his kidnapper from whom he ran away to make a phone call. So he knows the man is not someone who would allow him to call ajumma. He is not trying to get away. Ok ok he is emotionally damaged from abuse so will be docile. I would like to see him run away so Jang can leave for the US and MH will have to start looking for an 8 year old at every corner of Seoul.

It is normal KD strangeness to have an up and coming popular figure giving a heart wrenching message to her child who obviously is not with her. The authority does not seem curious at all. The 'save the children' advocates have not started 'bring GO home'. I must visit S.Korea before the year is out.

[Morelia]

1 hour ago, baduy said:

So are those really just harmlessy (if slightly oddly) decorative apples, or are they symbolic apologies stored up there waiting to happen, eventually triggering a mandatory repentance and forgiveness-fest in the closing episodes? Still, there's always a first time, even for weekly Kdramas, and a mold may yet get broken here.

The wicked in this drama deserve no mercy despite the custom in Korean dramas, because none of them would have the capacity for repentance even if they are forgiven.

So I hope MH ends up as in the image below

.

(Image capture from drama "The Women's Room")

 

[Guest]

  Even though I am lacking, I will protect you....   

  I'm here waiting, watching keeping to the shadows. But when you need me I'll step out of the shadows and protect what is MINE.....

  She destroyed our past, but together we will claim our future...

Just watched this episode and my mind is filled with so much emotion that even my finger tips while pressing these keys feel a bit rushed in fear that I can't express it well enough in words or choose the perfect words that can describe everything I felt...

As soon as it started with the view of that tender and long awaited embrace that still lingered in my thoughts from yesterday was there again and this time hearing HJ's added words  in response to DY " I Know...  You always keep your word.."  I realized I didn't need flashbacks to remind me of all that these two have endured from the beginning until now.  I don't need my mind to be refreshed on all the pain, brokenness, anger, hurt, lies and even  forced separation they faced.  Yet, in this moment what I was reminded of was the fact that NOTHING MH created, controlled, invented through lies, or destroyed.  Could change or touch the one thing she envied and wanted most the love she witnessed the first time she saw them together.  Oh yes, she wanted the power, money and prestige that he could provide but deep inside her ego wanted to be loved like that...

The quiet meeting in the coffee shop just the two of them still you could see they both were in a type of stillness and shock just looking at each other across that small table seemed to good, to wonderful, to amazing to be true.  A few questions slowly being asked and answered. DY holding back his words but in his mind remembering the flashback of MH and him knowing for sure that she didn't want him to comeback and neither did her family.  Almost as if HJ could see and feel that something wasn't quite right with him.  Something in his eyes a look of a man she hadn't seen before it wasn't his change in appearance but inside of him worried and concern maybe even a little lost in believing people whom he considered family once had no value for his life.  He could believe that MH was bad but I don't think he ever thought she was capable of wanting him dead or her family.  It might even cause some fear in the realization that no matter how strong and capable you believe you are there are some things that are out of your control and his almost dying is still fresh on his mind as well...  Still HJ places her hand gently over his and reminds him she is there " I was worried...  I've been waiting... Thank you for coming back..."

HJ alone in her dark room laying in her bed and she is tossing still restless for how does one sleep when your heart is still beating so fast and her thoughts must be reliving every second from the moment he came into view to the moment she left his side. Missing DY already!!!  Isn't that how love really is you just can't get enough... Thrilled and excited yet still she needed conformation that indeed he was awake,walking, talking and remembered everything including them and their son... She does what every woman would do calls him no matter how late it was just to hear his voice one more time.  Just to know he was there...  Just to hear his breathing on the other end.  " I wasn't dreaming you really are back... Do you know?  I got everything I wanted from you... Picking up when I call you... Answering me when I call out your name... Thank you! " DY answering " This is nice"  HJ responds "What is?"  DY " Someone happy about my being back " 

Please forgive my skipping important parts when I have already written so much.  But I was so touched when DY was watching the interview of HJ on TV.  No words were even needed his face and expressions allowed us to see what his heart was feeling and through his eyes alone.  The wonder of this beautiful woman crying tears of love in front of him sharing & humbling her whole self before their son.  Giving thanks even to his captor in hopes of reaching and convincing him to just bring him home.  Taking on the blame herself it  must have filled his heart with love to see her like that...

After hearing the tape Big Nam gave HJ she quickly realized just how serious this whole matter was. A mixture of unbelief  maybe even a bit of fear that MH and her family and their goons could reach even those closest to them including Big Nam. Trying to kill DY pushed them to a whole new level and she knew it now that nothing was out of reach for them or that they were not willing to do including murder no matter who it is...

I thought about her listening to that tape while watching MH and her evil mob walking with her it must have sent chills to every part of HJ right down to her soul.  For MH had taught her one thing in the past what it felt like to be powerless...

Right away with that upsetting and partly fearful look she quickly calls DY.  WHY??  She says it best herself  "Lets meet right now... DY Ha Jin What's wrong? Desperation is in her voice almost pleading with him Lets meet, just for a few minutes... A few minutes is all I need... You could see and feel it was as if she couldn't take another breath without seeing him so filled with yearning just for the sight of him.  Just to feel his warmth, to have him close so very close.  DY What is it? Did something happen?  So like her responding with a lie because her love for him wouldn't allow anything else it was and is who she is... No I just miss you!!! Her eyes at that moment broke my heart for you could see right to her soul what she was feeling...  I feel like I need to see you right now...

Once again we see her running so impatient most likely out of breath from that feeling that she just couldn't get to him fast enough. To their special place that is white and covered with a blanket of snow.  That gives off a reflection of light In the dark and you know its cold as you can see the smoke from her breath.  She can see him standing there alive and in front of her knowing and so very thankful that he is.  He really is!!! It must have been the most beautiful sight she had ever seen because she knew it could have been so very different.  She could have had him taken from her in a blink of an eye because of others.  But fate gave them mercy instead and she was desperately grateful...She stops for just a moment most likely taking the view of him all in. Her eyes soaking up every inch, all of him.  This man that she had always loved, the father of her son, the only man she wanted or would ever need... She runs to him and thrusts herself and her arms passionately around his waist leans her whole self into his body clinging on as if for dear life. Lays her head on his shoulder getting as close as she can because no matter how close  she tries it's just not close enough... 

DY realizes and can feel her need and desperation in just the strength of her holding him alone and he responds gently by wrapping his arms tightly around her as well.  Her words are raspy and filled with emotion.  Just one minute...  Let's stay like this for just one minute repeating herself... DY What's wrong? She again says Just one minute... DY Is something Wrong? He is confused, worried and wants to understand... His eyes moving trying to seek her out you can feel his tension and concern.  With slight tears in her eyes and the sound of her breathing in and out you wonder how long can she hold back the flood of tears within her as she replies with another lie... Nothings wrong... 

It was then I wondered what more must she face and she must have been wondering how can I protect this man that I so love and can't live without and keep him safe within my arms.  When I couldn't even protect my son or keep him safe..  She has proven over and over that she is a strong woman picked herself up to many times to count and never gave up.  But even a strong woman needs the comfort of a safe place where she can feel the warmth of love even for just a minute...

I have no doubt when you are pushed to your limit and forced to face all fears  even when it may seem the odds are against you.  One will dig deep within oneself to protect those you love, you somehow find the courage risking everything for those who are your everything...

 Forgive me, I worked late and am a bit tired... This was one of the hardest posts I have ever written to much emotion on my part.  Much to long for my liking, and I hope it was worth your time  Love to all of you

 

 

[sava2sava]

2 hours ago, USAFarmgirl said:

 Forgive me, I worked late and am a bit tired... This was one of the hardest posts I have ever written to much emotion on my part.  Much to long for my liking, and I hope it was worth your time  Love to all of you

@USAFarmgirl We all know running a fram can be tiring, So we all love you and paitently waited to read your emotional thoughts on the scenes between HJ and DY and you did not disappoint. Kudos Chingu love you and get some rest..

[euraka]

@USAFarmgirl Thank you so much that was beautiful I almost cry while reading it you touched me you are amazing thanks a lot  

[Rubysing]

8 hours ago, baduy said:

 

Actually, given the judicial practices of Korea, Japan and several other - mainly Asian - countries, it's perfectly possible he'll get no sentence at all, which is the message HJ was trying to put across to him in the broadcast to encourage him to come forward. In the main traditions of Western Law, criminal acts are offenses against the "commonwealth", not just the immediately affected victims, meaning that whether or not the victims "forgive" the offender or not has no bearing whatever on whether they must face indictment by prosecutors and trial by judges acting in the name of society as a whole.  If they are convicted, a request for leniency from the victims may indeed lessen the severity of the sentence, though that's purely at  the court's discretion. In Korea, however, the concept of offenses against society as a whole is largely confined to matters of national security or large scale fraud committed against companies rather than individuals, or to crimes eligible for the death sentence. In other cases, if the victims agree to a "settlement", almost always financial in nature, then the matter need not proceed to trial at all. This is a cause of flagrant injustices, since it means that the rich can buy effective immunity from punishment if their victims are in such dire circumstances that they need cash more than justice. Korean TV stations are loath to let such matters surface in mainstream dramas, but they are quite commonly aired in Korean movies, especially from independent producers, though they have little effect on a cultural climate where many offenses are viewed as a matter of clan conflicts which the clans concerned have every right to settle among themselves without "abstract legality" (or what's called the Rule of Law in the West) sticking its oar in.@USAFarmgirl

 

 

 

When caught, Jang should thank his lucky stars he doesn't live in Singapore.  Kidnapping carries the death sentence if he's found guilty.

[maribella]

@USAFarmgirl   Stil you are the best romantic, even though you are tired. Stay healthy, don't overwork.

[maribella]

I did not know there are countries esp with such old history, consider  kidnapping to not be a felony or even a misdemeanour. 

No wonder In that bread show  Kim Tak Gu, the mistress child just dropped from his father's sight. When found the wife was not punished at all.

Jang can still be charged  with other crimes, they just need a good prosecutor I am sure.

[baduy]

1 hour ago, maribella said:

I did not know there are countries esp with such old history, consider  kidnapping to not be a felony or even a misdemeanour

 

The point is, though, that kidnapping  (like rape and sexual offenses against minors, two other crime categories where the divergence between Korean and Western judicial norms are often a long way apart) is indeed a serious criminal offense in Korea, but the custom of reaching "settlements" (which the police tend to encourage, before sending the case on to prosecutors) means that it does not always lead to criminal proceedings, especially if the victim is believed to be physically unharmed.  If the victim (which, again following ingrained cultural traditions, tends in practice to mean the family of the victim, or that family's elders) is prepared to "settle" with the perpetrator, it is not regarded as the state's business to prosecute or punish where private retribution has already been made.

[maribella]

15 minutes ago, baduy said:

 

The point is, though, that kidnapping  (like rape and sexual offenses against minors, two other crime categories where the divergence between Korean and Western judicial norms are often a long way apart) is indeed a serious criminal offense in Korea, but the custom of reaching "settlements" (which the police tend to encourage, before sending the case on to prosecutors) means that it does not always lead to criminal proceedings, especially if the victim is believed to be physically unharmed.  If the victim (which, again following ingrained cultural traditions, tends in practice to mean the family of the victim, or that family's elders) is prepared to "settle" with the perpetrator, it is not regarded as the state's business to prosecute or punish where private retribution has already been made.

.

I can understand sexual offences being buried under some negotiations given that Asians in general ( not all) are still very conservative about sex. Even for less conservative Westerners, many of those who are rape victims just want to forget the horrifying moments. To be kidnapped is not shameful.

With due respect to your familiarity with Korea and its culture @baduy did you get some crime statistics on this?

I can't imagine that the police and prosecutor trivialise such a crime and the kidnapper walks??? I don't expect a death sentence but even if the victim was returned unharmed, it seems to be less serious than stealing which I am sure will not involve any negotiations.

This is probably not very relevant to this thread but I think it would help non Koreans , me at least, to understand any kumbawa ending with the Jang character. He has had 8 years to repent, plus kidnapping twice, plus GO was in an abusive home. He may not be the brains of the kidnapping but he sure as heck directly committed the crime.