Arang and the Magistrate episode 4 - the one that made me fall in love with the drama

[dangermousie]

This was the episode that finally brought me on board - somehow with this episode, the drama went from pretty and entertaining but uninvolving, to frelling gorgeous and emotionally resonant.

First, the scenes in the afterlife are amazing and inventive and quite like nothing else in a drama.


















But what really got me wasn't even that inventiveness but the fact that I finally felt connected to Eun Oh, Lee Jun Ki's character. His quiet grief really got me. But not as much as the scene where he goes to conduct her funeral, only to discover her not in hell or dead but in front of him, made human again.



EO grieving...








The scene in question:

























































I am not emotionally invested in Arang yet because she is a period kdrama take on a manic pixie dream girl (same thing she was in Gumiho, really) and it's not my sort of a trope (I am entertained by her, but not emotionally invested), but I don't need to be emotionally invested in both leads - one will do.

Oh, and my money about the murder mystery is that JW killed her, without knowing who she was, probably on the bidding of that mysterious figure in the preview. And I do think EO's mom was somehow involved.

Comments

[algelic.livejournal.com]

I wonder if they'll explain why [Jun Ki's character] can hear/see/touch ghosts... or if they'll leave us guessing.

Maybe his mother had the same power regarding ghosts... and she helped Arang or something (or died trying).

I'm pretty sure this drama will have a happy ending... even if there's angst along the way.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I am pretty sure after ep 4 that this will be a happy ending.

Plus, they are socially the same class so once she's permanently alive, nobody will mind.

[iviih.livejournal.com]

I thought that after episode 4 they might have a happy ending but.... not sure.

but who knows? Maybe if Arang finds out about her death and question and somehow fix the problem the gods want to be fixed, maybe they award her letting her live again and be together with EO.

:)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

That is what I think will happen, actually.

[sanaenam.livejournal.com]

Actually, Arang is much higher up socially than Eun Oh is. She's 100% yangban. He's only 50% on his dad's side, I believe. His mother, I got the impression, was not the first wife. I didn't catch (pay attention to) whether she was a cheob (non-primary wife/concubine who may or may not be of yangban class), a slave cheob, or a gisaeng cheob.

That said, if Arang gets to keep her current identity, she's effectively lower on the totem pole since she is a non-entity on the government registers.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah but I think his mom not being first wife is offset by the fact that his Dad is big powerful ministe and hers was only an obscure magistrate who is dead.

I think it all works out ;)

[(Anonymous)]

I absolutely loved this drama and the OTP from the very beginning. I understand how you can not feel emotionally attached to Arang. But I wonder if that impression of a manic insubstantial girl is a function of the fact that she is/was a ghost and one that because of her amnesia and wandering lifestyle the past three years has left her with no sense of history or attachment to anything. Hence the attitude of nothing to lose because at this point she really has nothing to lose. I love the concept that Arang the ghost and the past magistrate's daugther (forgot her name), may have shared body and soul at one point but are now two completely different people because Arang has experienced things outside of the daughter's identity. Already, she is on her way to being more attached to the magistrate even before she visited the underwold so the stakes are getting higher for her in terms of her quest to find out the truth as well as consequences of her taking on the gods.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

That is a very good point - she is the way she is because she doesn't remember anything of her past self - just the weird ghost world - by this logic, she is 3 years old emotionally in some ways, which explains a lot.

That's why she doesn't see why never existing is terrible for most people - to her, it's as if she never existed any way.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think the three first are just pretty; they are gorgeous like the 4; i am happy that the director choose to use the RedOne for this drama. He not make the same than the director of faith who choose to used the same bad numeric canera he use for the drama legend. It's a waste for all the beautiful costumes, sets, music and cinematography he use in the drama.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

See, I don't care how pretty a drama is (and arguably, Arang might be the prettiest kdrama I've seen), I it doesn't move me emotionally or grab me narratively - and in the first three episodes it did not. And I do think it got more creative with its visuals in the last ep.

Fwiw, I think Faith looks just fine and so does every other kdrama I've seen this year - some are prettier than the others, but all look OK to me.

[elanatothemax.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you're hooked, finally! I loved this episode, too. I can't get enough of the scenes between Hades & the Green Emperor, and I adore Arang as a character though I can see where you're coming from w/r/t her as a MPDG. Like anon mentioned above, I think it is because she has been existing in this liminal space for three years without any friends or family, and with no connection to her past (or present or future, really). She's gotten used to taking care of herself and doing whatever she wants, but beyond that she's been living (quite literally) a shell of a life. No drive, no hope, no reason to keep going except momentum, really. Kind of an extreme version of Eun Ho's detachment from other people, now that I think about it. I'm looking forward to seeing her fill out emotionally as a character once she starts to connect to her past, and I'm hoping that memories will start coming to her as she pieces together the mystery of her death. Once that happens, I think she'll feel more like a real, three-dimensional person. I think her character is set up to have a lot more depth and personal growth than in Gumiho, actually, since the premise of this is explicitly to have her rediscover her past and reclaim what it means to be alive (literally and figuratively).

[elanatothemax.livejournal.com]

Also? That glowing-eyed floating bone man of the underworld was freaking CREEPY in the best possible way. I just love how imaginative and complete this world is. And that rather than just luxuriating in the fantasy elements, the director grounds them in very real dynamics and relationships (the bickering b/t the Jade Emperor & Hades, the gang wars between the ghosts as they fight for limited food, etc.).

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I do love how imaginative they are in their worldbuilding.

And I do hope they develop Arang more as a relatable real person - you are right, there is a good deal of potential there. Your parallel between her and EH is very interesting - because you are right, despite their different surface demeanor they share the lack of investment and connection with the world - except EH is on the road to it as ep 4 shows, with his caring for Arang.