Arang and the Magistrate
Episode 1-4
So I watched the first four episodes of Arang and the Magistrate and I find that I am very impressed with it’s cinematographic beauty not to mention it’s quirky attitude and charming story (so-far). The vividness of the color, the sharpness in detail, the interesting angles, added to the crazy story that has actually managed to get me fully behind Arang, it’s really obvious that the director and the writer have a method to their madness because it all comes together to make it a visual delicacy. Nom Nom, I’m eating it up with Joon Ki as the main dish! (I luff him )
Episode 1
So we’re introduced to our lazy hero Eun Oh who’s supposed to have guarded his servant’s back while he had a potty break, but had instead fallen asleep.
Cut to a very mad Arang who has just found out that the ghosts she worked with had cut her out of the plan to attack a caravan, and she’s out to kick their butts.
However her ghostly butt-kicking is interrupted by the ghost catchers / reapers. One particular reaper who we’ll learn is called Mu Young specifically targets her and she’s soon running for her life.
Our lazy hero who DOESN’T BELIEVE IN GHOSTS (or so he says)… is meanwhile tricking his man-servant and pretends that he’s seen a virgin ghost. His man-servant Dol Soe cowers frightened until he realizes that his jerk boss was teasing him and when he complains to Eun Oh about being tricked like that, Eun Oh tells him that it’s funny to see such a big guy like Dol Soe cower like that and perhaps he should not have such big eyes because that might be what causes him to be so fearful.
Just as he’s talking Arang comes running right past with Muyoung close at her heels. In fact, Muyoung sends his stick?/ cane thing-a-ma-bob at her and causes her to stumble and fall. Eun Oh sees it all and becomes frozen until Dol Soe who can’t see anything stands up and starts walking away muttering about how he’d TOLD the young lord they should have come during the day because these woods were so very creepy.
Right when you think Arang is going to be captured by Muyoung and tied by the red rope, she winces as she pulls something from underneath her jaegori (little bolero style jacket-thingy) and throws it at Muyoung. It’s peach blossoms which is actually something that is harmful to spirits. She uses the distraction and disappears all Muyoung can do is scream out her name… uh oh girl has just messed with the wrong guy…
It starts to rain so Eun Oh and Dol Soe hurry to a little hut in the woods. But they’re not the only ones who need shelter from the rain, Arang is also getting soaked despite having grabbed a leaf to cover herself (it’s not nearly big enough to shelter her from the pelting rain). She sees the hut also and hurries towards it.
We’re taken up to the heavens where we meet the Jade Emperor and his twin the King of the Underworld. The Jade Emperor seems very cheeky but despite his godliness he can’t flirt very well and is let down very kindly by the serving maiden who says that she’s worn the same exact hairstyle for a thousand years.
The godly brothers are having a badook match… (I don’t understand the game, but I’m guessing it’s some extremely hard version of checkers…. ) which the King of the Underworld, despite all his planning has lost the game to the oh so very sorry Jade Emperor.
As his brother throws his tantrum the Jade Emperor hastily retreats to his heavenly home and assures a lamb with a garden growing on it’s back that he didn’t MEAN to win, but things can happen like that and the problem with his brother is that he tries to calculate everything instead of letting things happen.
Down on earth inside the hut, Eun Oh was remembering an argument that he had with his mother in which he essentially is told to stay with his father so he can be a rich lord’s son and not go with his mom even though that would be what makes him happier. He gives her a hair pin, which she ignores and ends up slapping him to antagonize him and he marches off pissed and tells her that if she was going to leave him then it would have been better not to have had a mother to start with. Of course you should be careful of what you wish for because next thing he knows she’s gone without a trace… So that’s basically why he’s on this strange trip.
Just as we finish the 2min background expository reel, Arang walks through the wall to claim the warmth of the fire. She talks to herself about how being dead isn’t all that great since she can still get wet even if she doesn’t feel the cold. She starts taking off her jaegori but that gets a small reaction from Eun Oh who’d been trying to pretend he can’t see anything.
She looks at him surprised and gets really close and asks him if he can see her, but Eun Oh keeps looking off into space while his mind replies to her that he can’t see her so go away now. However she doesn’t leave though he is saved from more thorough inspection by the snoring Dol Soe. To stop Dol Soe’s snoring Arang sits on him… lol.
Looking at Eun Oh she sighs that of course he can’t see her because he doesn’t even look like a shaman. So she starts prattling on about her story, pretending that he can hear her, while he’s telling her to shut up, shut up, shut up because she’s causing his ears to bleed with all her chatter, but he can’t say that out loud since he’s not supposed to be able to see her.
She tells him that she doesn’t actually remember how she died since she first woke up on the way to the underworld, being led by Muyoung to the equivalent of the River Styx. However somehow the rope became undone and she took the opportunity to bolt.
At the first chance he gets he fakes sleepiness and stretches out to sleep. Arang complains that she wants him to listen not fall asleep, and Eun Oh can’t help but think that she probably died because she couldn’t talk as much as she’d wanted. Arang pouts at his “sleeping” face and then shrugs and goes to sleep next to him.
The next morning Eun Oh wakes up and becomes really chipper as he realizes that Arang was gone.
They arrive at the village of Miryang just in time to see a display of the local rich guy’s ruthlessness. He has a guy given a beating instead of listening to his plea. Dol Soe bemoans the injustice and Eun Oh asks him if he knows what he does in the face of injustice… Dol Soe deflates and says ” You do nothing, I know, I know that very well” and turns back to see what happens.The man pleads to the ruthless old guy’s son and the son tells him to go… but his face looked so evil… it’s like he did it because the guy was a bug he was too bothered to crush, not because he wanted to help.
Dol Soe informs Eun Oh about what’s going on in the village, mainly that they’re building a palace on top of the river and basically carting off with all the healthy males to work on it, and this is causing a huge greivance to the people since then they can’t work on their crops n’ stuff. Eun Oh wonders at how much Dol Soe knows and is interested in, and Dol Soe tells him that despite his interest a person like him can’t do anything about the injustices so can’t Eun Oh care just a bit? Eun Oh reminds him that it’s not like a person like him can do anything about these things either.
Something catches Eun Oh’s attention so he sends off Dol Soe as he darts through alleys and turns through random corner until he reaches an empty area and swings around to look at the ghosts that have joined him in the empty courtyard, barking out a question as to why they’re following him. The ghosts have come to him since they were told that he can see them, they’d like to request a boon from him in the form of his interfering in a wedding. The ghost’s daughter is marrying who she thinks is a hero but is really the guy who killed her father. Eun Oh tells them to go because he’s not going to do anything so they better leave him alone.
He stalks away from the ghosts, and the camera pans out to the rooftops. Arang is sitting on top of one of the rooftops and smirks at having confirmed her suspicion that he really could see her.
She follows him to a house where he questions the owner about his mother but she can give him no important information. As he’s about to leave, Arang drops down and Eun Oh instantly grabs her wrist.
She’s surprised that not only can he see her but he can actually touch her. He recognizes her as the chatty ghost of the night before and tells her that she better leave him alone.
As he’s leaving she asks if he’s looking for someone… perhaps his mother? And when he’s startled at her guess, she comments that his face is totally the face of someone who misses his mother. He glowers at her and asks her if she wants to die, and though her first reaction is to fall back in fear she gathers her courage up and tells him that he can’t do anything, she’s already dead.
She asks him for help but he refuses her and he pulls out red beans from a bag in his sleeve, he tells her that he keeps them close for the times when he’s bugged by particularly persistant ghosts. Arang cowers frightened as he throws it, but he actually threw it away from her so she wasn’t hit.
She pouts at his mean streak and he just smirks and warns her from bugging him again. She asks him how hard it could be to help her find out her name. He tells her that that was a job for a magistrate but since he isn’t one, he isn’t inclined to listen to her. She asks him if he were a magistrate would he listen to her plea and help her? he smiles and says sure he would and continues on his way. However her smile bodes ill for him.
The young lord we saw show “mercy” on the beaten man early in the day is called Joowal and he’s been summoned to the evil lair his father operates from. He’s scolded for interfering in the situation but he coolly tells his father that what he did was merely to avoid wasting more time on the problem since it was his father’s issue not his. They argue with cryptic words about finding girls before the full moon… hmmm… interesting….
Arang goes to visit a shaman woman Bangwool who was actually getting schooled by a customer. Arang tsks at her asking her how she could possibly still live as a shaman with only a sliver of shamanic power. After all she can’t even see Arang though she can hear her. Bangwool wails that Arang had promised not to appear again. Arang tells her that if she does something for her she’ll leave her alone.
In another part of the village we’re introduced to the Bang Trio: Hyung Bang, Ye Bang, Lee Bang. They are having a panic attack at their inability to produce a magistrate before a certain date. A noise in the hallway outside their room has them all scurrying to hide beneath their table, but it turns out to be only BangWool. They regain their dignity by looking down at her coolly with their feet on the table. She tells them that she’s here to inform them of a way to fill the magistrate post.
Next thing we know the Bang Trio are skulking around the village until they find the place Eun Oh is sleeping at. They approach him from behind as he’s about to open the door to his room and hit him on the head and place him inside a burlap sack. That’s when they start wondering if what they’re doing is legal, but then they figure that no one will know since this one will be sure to die like all the other magistrates before him. Arang laughs at the comedy going on and basically snarks that that’ll teach him to make promises lightly.
Eun Oh wakes up to find himself tied up quiet neatly in a strange room. He calls out to the Bang Trio outside but they pretend they haven’t heard him and instead wish their Magistrate good night.
Eun Oh looks around the room where two candles are glowing unsteadily and wonders if he’s supposed to be some type of sacrifice. He calls out to the ghost that she better show herself. That’s when some creepy hair comes floating down from the ceiling.
He frowns as he realizes that it’s Arang and tells her that she better come down or he’ll seriously jam her hair on the door. She imagines the situation and immediately decides that it’s too painful and flips herself over.
She is then ordered to untie him. she doesn’t want to since she’s afraid he’ll throw beans at her but he promises that he won’t.
She puts on a full out aegyo-tastic voice which Eun Oh says give him the chills so she better just talk normally.She tells him that she was adviced to try her feminine wiles to get him to help her out.
Eun oh asks if she killed the other magistrates because they didn’t help her.She pouts for real this time and gripes that it isn’t her fault that they were all weak hearted and had heart attacks when they saw her.
Turns out she’d bought two bits of an herb that lets her become visible to normal humans but when she presented herself she looked very disheveled and scary so the old man died, then she took only half of the herb the next time and only her top half became visible again causing the new magistrate a heart attack, and the next time she took the herb only her bottom half appeared and the warrior magistrate fell down like a log.
She pleads her case now, calling up his promise to help her if he were a magistrate. He refuses saying he only makes deals with humans so if she wants help she should come back as a human.
She sighs saying that if she could wouldn’t that be great. She tries to appeal to his sensibilities by crying out that she wants to find out because right now she feels like she lost her parents and she doesn’t want them to worry. He turns around and tells her to stop crying because he won’t believe that an amnesiac ghost who doesn’t even know her own name would remember about parents. She wipes them away and leaves while muttering that he’s really mean.
Joowal is meanwhile looking at the almost full moon and fingering his dark ring as girls pass by gossiping about the next full moon which is the full moon in which god doesn’t interfere and during which many girls disappear. oooh…. virgin sacrifice?
The next morning the Bang Trio come up carrying a coffin, quite sure that Eun Oh has been killed by the ghost. They get the bejeezus scared out of them by a very much alive Eun Oh who proceeds to shout and reprimand them for the stunt they pulled.
Meanwhile Dol Soe is careening down the market and towards the magistrate building at full speed. He starts to yell at the Bang Trio for messing with Eun Oh and when they bluster about why Eun Oh is important Dol Soe informs them of Eun Oh’s rich and powerful father. They immediately kneel in front of Eun Oh asking for forgiveness.
Arang is back at Bangwool’s home, this time she’s eating with her and griping about Eun Oh’s meanness. Bangwool’s opinion: if she’s tried aegyo and it didn’t worked then that must mean she’s very ugly, and the way to get over that stumbling block? Pretty clothes, jewelry and make-up.
Arang lights up and informs Bangwool that she’ll give her all of that, right? Bangwool laughs since she doesn’t have any money, Arang tells her that money is not an excuse.
Next thing we see is Bangwool being coached through theft. They almost get away with it but Bangwool’s too nervous and she ends up knocking into a guard and dropping her loot. Bangwool starts running away and is almost caught but Arang starts messing with the guards.
The guards appear to be choking or struggling with something invisible and they’ve gathered quite an audience, among them Dol Soe and Eun Oh. Dol Soe excitedly looks on telling Eun Oh that a ghost must be there. Eun Oh rolls his eyes at seeing Arang embroiled in that mess and starts walking away. The other ghosts who were spectators begin to worry that Arang’s messing with humans will bring down the reapers.
Which in fact does happen, soon Arang is running again for her life and Eun Oh pretends that he can’t see her.
That is, until he notices the hairpin Arang has on… it’s the pin he’d given his mother right before her disappearance.
Suddenly he’s all motion. He hurries to secure a horse and off he goes right behind Arang and Muyoung who’s the one who’s gone after her yet again.
Just as Muyoung is about to capture Arang, Eun Oh has pulled her up to the horse almost as if she weighed as much as feather.
Episode two
We start with Eun Oh swinging Arang up on the horse. Arang takes the moment to reach into her hidden stash of peach blossoms and hurls it at Muyoung. This stalls Muyoung and makes their escape possible.
Eun Oh takes them to a clearing where he gets down from the horse and takes Arang’s pin from her hair.
He asks her where she got it and she tells him that she’s had it ever since she woke up on her way to the Underworld. She thanks him for helping her and walks off.
Eun Oh struggles with his lazy self but calls out to her to stop, he’ll help her out. She eagerly comes back and gushes that she knew he only appeared cold hearted but he was really a softy underneath all that bluster… or something to that effect.
As they ride off together Eun Oh asks her why she tries so hard to stick around and find out about herself instead of taking the easy way of leaving for the Underworld, she tells him that her identity is something that she wants desperately just like he’s desperately searching for his mother. Eun Oh hmphs and tells her that he’ll definitely not call her Arang, she’s Amnesia from now on. She tells him it doeesn’t matter what he calls her since they won’t be around each other for too long… honey that’s just tempting fate.
Muyoung has arrived at Heaven and as he walks through the gardens he looks on at the heavenly maidens with what can only be interpreted as a wistful face. The Jade Emperor clocks Muyoung’s mood and asks if he’s missing his sister. He reminds him that once they’re working for the heavens they were told to cut off all earthly ties they may have had in their past lives.
The King of the Underworld comes in asking very pointedly how the rope around Arang got untied. He’s obviously suspicious of his dear twin brother, but the Jade Emperor just says that he’s already sown the seeds of fate and so as things come (he touches the flowers and turns them all white) things must come back(the color comes back) and so Arang will return all by herself.
In Miryang Eun Oh returns to Dol Soe and tells him that he will take a turn at being a Magistrate after all. This is something that Dol Soe can’t wrap his mind around and so he goes to exact punishment on the Bang Trio for messing his young master up.
Meanwhile the Bang Trio are writing up a document reporting to the king that the magistrate has walked off on them and decided he didn’t want to do his duty. Just as they were rejoicing Dol Soe arrives for some head knocking, but is interrupted by Eun Oh.
They are disappointed at having to submit to government rule, but they begin to hatch plans to ascertain if Eun Oh can be used as a puppet magistrate, one that can be easily influenced… oh boy, Eun Oh may be a lazy cynical pain in the ass at times but he’s not anybody’s puppet, he seems to be accustomed to being pretty much his own master with his own opinions, never mind that he’s never overtaxed himself in favor of justice.
One of the Bangs goes off to report to Lord Choi (remember him, the evil head honcho in the village?) that they have a new magistrate. This greatly pisses Lord Choi off and it makes it even worse that Eun Oh is the son of the very minister that had him demoted and sent to the countryside. He asks the Bang minion what Eun Oh is up to and is told that he’s in his room, drawing a girl.
And that is exactly what he’s doing… He has Arang posing for him as he tries to draw her likeness for a lost poster but unfortunately he’s very unskilled at drawing and none of the pictures look like her. So next he tries to describe her to an artist but that’ss also dead-end and he has to give up on that idea too.
After the unfruitful day he complains to her how it’s possible that she doesn’t even know where she died. She reminds him that she has amnesia and that she woke up already in route to the underworld. She does however know two things: 1) she’s been wandering for three years, and 2) she has an ache on her side that makes her think she was stabbed there. That last fact exasperated since she hadn’t told him that before.
The next morning the first thing he does is call the Bang Trio forward and tell them to bring him all the records of murders occuring in the past three years. The Bang Trio are bamboozled s to why he’d call for that but they do bring forward the information, telling him that it’s not as complete since there hadn’t been a magistrate for three years.
He reads all the cases but complains on how everyone of those cases are due to crimes of passion. However none of them appear to be Arang. She wonders if maybe she died somewhere alone and they haven’t found her corpse yet. He is an oblivious ass and laughs at her “rotting all alone somewhere” which pisses off Arang.
Eun Oh goes for a nighttime walk and finds that a path leads to a locked house. With a swift jump he’s over the wall and approaches a candle lit room. He’s got skills, I bet he received martial arts training while growing up. It’s an empty woman’s room. He walks around and looks at an opened book, hair accessories and at a half finished embroidery piece, which causes his eyes to flare.
Meanwhile Arang has come across a group of hungry ghosts who are competing with each other for memorial service appeasement rice. This thrusts her into a flashback where an older ghost taught her that she would need the appeasement rice to survive. He was actually quite surprised that she didn’t have any memories about herself so he gave her some of the rice he had since he was sorry for her. He was also the one who gave her the name Arang.
Eun Oh continues his perusal of the creepy room when a servant lady calls out asking who would dare walk into someone elses room. Eun Oh quickly releases a box he’d been holding and oh so casually exits the room. She asks him who he is and is surprised to hear he’s the new magistrate. He asks her whose room it is and she tells him that it used to be Lady Lee Seo Rim’s room, she was the daughter of the village’s magistrate that went missing three years ago. He grins and says to himself “I’ve found you Amnesia”
Meanwhile Arang is fighting for the appeasement rice and is surprised that the ghosts have formed teams to beat each other to it. She puts up an awesome fight but she’s outnumbered.
Eun Oh goes around the village looking for her and finds her standing alone, depressed and extremely disheveled, but he doesn’t try to find out what’s wrong, he just drags her to the room he’d found. He tells her that he’s found out that she was the magistrates daughter.
Arang looks around but nothing triggers her memory. She compares the butterfly embroidery on her dress with the one on the desk and finds that it’s the same one. And yet there’s nothing that brings her memories back. This is a disappointment to Eun Oh since he’d been counting on her memory coming back so that he could figure out her connection with his mother and where she might be.
Since she doesn’t remember he goes to ask the biggest gossips in town: the Bang Trio. They tell him that Lee Seo Rim was a very well behaved young lady (he snorts at that description of past Arang) who never showed her face or body to anybody, in fact few people ever saw her throughout her life in the village. So it surprised everybody that such a sheltered lady ended up running away with a servant she fell in love with instead of staying with her fiancée. This caused her father a lot of grief that ended in his death, they’d been a close father-daughter pair who had nobody but each other
After the gossip fest Eun Oh nags Arang about choosing a lowly person over a good catch like the one she had. He expected some sort of reaction from Arang, but she’s all sorts of bummed and scratches lines on the dirt floor, feeling very sorry for the father.
She decides that she wants to speak to her fiancee, that she wants know what she was like. Eun Oh doesn’t want to do it since that would perhaps imply revealing his ghost seeing ability which he’s extremely against exposing, however as soon as Arang releases him from having to do anything he takes it back and tells her that he’ll help her after all. She asks him how he’s going to avoid revealing his secret and he just answers breezily that he’ll figure it out since he’s the magistrate, don’tcha’ know?
The next day finds them at a huge house, and he shakes his head at how she’d even thought of deserting such a fine house for a servant. He peeks over the wall and they both see on a raised dais Choi Joo Wal- so it turns out that Arang’s fiancee was not only rich but was THE richest and most prominent member of the village.
Arang takes one look at guy and instantly holds her heart. Her heart beat, and it hurt! Suddenly she doesn’t want to meet him quite yet.
Eun Oh tries to argue with her about how impossible it is for a ghost who is dead to even have a heartbeat, but she swears that it did and drags him away from the house.
They end up doing what all heartbroken sad depressed drama people do. They go drink but here they’re drinking makgulli not soju.
It’s a hilarious situation because the ahjumma who serves them thinks that Eun Oh is such a weirdo for fighting with air over the makgulli bottle, but he himself is oblivious to the fact that he’s forgotten that other people can’t see her.
He doesn’t understand why she’s so bothered about the state of her clothes when Joowal can’t even see her, but she tells him that a woman’s heart is complicated. He also doesn’t understand how she can say that she probably had a lot of feeling for Joowal when she supposedly left him for a servant.
She starts to cry and wonders about who would give her clothes, and she recalls Bangwool, perhaps she could? Or maybe it’s time that she moves on to the hereafter.
Next thing we see is Eun Oh piggy-backing her to the shaman’s house. He drops her once when he’s surprised by her cold cheek on his, and the second time he dumps her because of a villager walking past him looking at him strangely. He encourages himself by saying that he has to take it slowly to protect his back.
Joowal meanwhile has gone to a Gisaeng house, totally shocking everybody that knows him, since he’s usually such a icecube and would never have been interested in going to such an establishment. However it becomes apparent as soon as he sits that he’s searching for something or someone and when he doesn’t find it, he leaves.
There’s persistant Gisaeng that flirts with him and won’t leave him alone despite his continuous rebuffs. This snaps something inside of him and he turns the CRAZY up about by 1000% and threatens her with his dagger/knife. Then the Crazy passes and he’s more “normal” he warns her that she better not make a peep about what just happened or she will find herself dead.
Just as Eun Oh is arriving at the Shaman’s house, Arang asks him if she isn’t too heavy for him. He drops her like a hot potato and asks her when she’d woken up and she cheekily says that she’d been awake since way before since ghosts don’t get drunk. Yep Eun Oh is about to burst an artery. lol
When Bangwool sees Eun Oh approach she thinks that he’s their to consult with her, but is surprised when he tells her exactly where Arang’s voice is coming from.
To say that Bangwool is not happy to hear Arang again is an understatement. She gripes about how Arang already made her a thief, what more could she want from her. She balks at making the clothes but changes her tune when Eun Oh generously lays down two gold nuggets.
Next thing you know Bangwool has Eun Oh taking Arang’s measurements for the clothing. Arang balks at having him measure her chest and asks Bangwool why she couldn’t do it for her, and Bangwool retorts that to do so she’d have to be able to see her. So Arang does it herself and whispers the result which Bangwool loudly announces, causing Eun Oh to snort.
And I guess this whole measuring session was done so that there can be a lot of touching going on- because I think it does the job of making them aware of each other… that they are more than just the magistrate and ghost, they are man and woman… Arang hurries away after the measurements are done and leaves him standing staring at her sudden exit.
Before he leaves Bangwool asks him what he does to be able to see ghosts. He tells her that she better keep his ability quiet unless she wants to become a ghost. Somehow the death-threat from Eun Oh is much less intimidating than from the batshit crazy Joowal.
Outside the Shaman’s home, Eun Oh pats his heart and wonders if he’s gone crazy. Arang meanwhile looks on from the rooftop smiling at the generosity he’s shown her smiling at the fact that she is a good judge of character.
As Eun Oh walks on the bridge back to town he crosses paths with Joowal. They don’t say a word or even give a flicker of acknowledgement towards each other. Eun Oh shakes his head and gripes that Arang has no taste in guys. lol is that jealousy I see rearing it’s little green horned head?
Meanwhile Lord Choi’s lackey is informing him of Joowal’s strange unprecedented visit to the gisaeng house. Lord Choi sneers that he must be getting desperate and just randomly asks the lackey how much more till the full moon. Joowal meanwhile, is looking up at the almost full moon.
Eun Oh is sleeping and then he slowly opens his eyes to find Arang looking deeply into his eyes. She tells him that there is always something people regret when they die, and for her… it’s to have died a virgin ghost without so much as having kissed someone… She pulls closer –
Episode 3
Just as their lips are about to touch he wakes up with a jolt. He calls himself crazy for having those types of dreams! hey, she’s pretty you’re pretty, why don’t you make with the pretty babies, yes? ok so she’s a ghost… but… nope yep you’re crazy it’s an impossible relationship!
As soon as he’s up and about he calls for Dol Soe and sends him off to deliver a letter requesting a meeting for later that day. Dol Soe goes along with this, but he does ask Eun Oh how long he’ll play at being magistrate, and Eun Oh tells him that it won’t be for long. heh I love Dol Soe his loving puppy and sometimes indulgent mommy attitude is the best.
Meanwhile King of the Underworld and the Jade Emperor are having a lovely relaxing time fishing.
The Jade emperor wonders at the many wrinkles that have been added to the King of the Underworld’s face which elicits a growl about whose fault it is? After all it was the Jade Emperor’s fault that ghosts are running amok, and there were the ghosts that were lost 400 hundred years before but were never retrieved, the Jade Emperor had promised he’d fix it but he hasn’t done anything about it since.
The Jade Emperor says that he’s sorry but that really his brother’s hastiness and impatience is what’s messing with his energy and making him age, he should learn patience. King of the Underworld growls that if the Jade Emperor doesn’t do anything soon he’ll fix it his way. The Jade Emperor says okay okay, and skips away lightly… lol
Meanwhile on earth, Arang excitedly receives the fancy new threads Bangwool has sewn for her. She puts them on right away and then goes to the mirror and primps admiringly only to pout because she can’t see herself in it. Darn.
She goes out to show off her new clothes and asks how she looks in them. Bangwool complains that she’d have to be able to see her to comment, while Eun Oh’s eyes flare and his jaw almost touches the ground from the pretty.
However he rapidly changes his expression telling her that she’s now merely a ghost with new clothes instead of a dirty clothes. He leaves quickly and asks that Arang stay put until he comes to pick her up.
Bangwool turns towards her ancestor’s shrine and starts to beg for them to send her a warrior. Arang walks in just as Bangwool’s asking that Arang be sent far away from her. Arang speaks to her in the middle of her pleading and Bangwool begs her to leave her alone, after all she’s caused her so much trouble in the past, and right now she really needs to concentrate. Arang feels guilty and dejected and walks away from there.
Eun Oh paces around the village wondering at his reaction to the transformed Arang. He mutters that he much preferred the old Arang who tried to scare him than this cleaned up version of her. He decides that the clothes must be what has given her wings… so he, of course, MUST stay by her side because who knows what kind of trouble she’d get into by herself. This sends him retracing his steps to go back to Arang.
Arang ends up wandering around town until she reaches the barn where she’d once been sold the “voigra” that had allowed her to be seen by humans. She figures that she might as well use it and not involve the magistrate in this. However she’s been followed by the hungry ghosts who lost out on the appeasement rice the night before.
When she enters the hidden barn she’s ambushed by the ghosts. They complain about her interference the night before and tell her that they’re going to teach her a lesson. However Arang doesn’t let them throw the first punch, instead she unbalances them by being the first to throw and land a hit.
Then it’s a melee where more and more ghosts start appearing to gang up on her (while she punches she screams at them not to ruin her new clothes) and though she puts up a brilliant fight she’s getting knocked around quite a bit.Just when she’s going to be on the receiving end of a punch to the face when a flying kick knocks him off balance.
It’s Eun Oh to the rescue! and he’s managed to pull Arang away from the baddies and right into the crook of his arm… ::swoon:: He realizes how close they are and pushes her away from him and asks her how she can live her life always being in one sort of scrape or another. He gripes at her at having ruined the fine expensive clothes he bought her in less than a day.
The ghosts are surprised to have a human interfere in their affairs and tell him to get lost, but Eun Oh says that it is his business and oh wouldn’t they like a taste of red beans? This causes everyone to recoil as he pulls out his handy dandy bean bag… which contains… 1 bean? they all laugh at him and tell him to get lost.
But he doesn’t, instead he drops the bag and goes into a spin kick that knocks the ghosts surrounding him down. Arang is duly amazed at his ninja-ness… and she falls back into the fray… they fight off the baddies together but they just keep getting up for more.
However since they’ve messed with a human the reapers are going to come down on them soon. And sure enough the reapers appear, Eun Oh uses the mad scramble to pull Arang away and make their exit. Arang is depressed at having ruined her clothes for her meeting with her ex-fiancee
All that fighting has made them late for the meeting and Joowal walks away from the meeting place huffily.
Arang and Eun Oh run to the meeting place just as it begins to pour, but Joowal had already left. Arang wonders why nothing in her life ever goes her way. And Eun Oh almost eagerly points out everything’s that’s gone wrong or is unfair, she can’t possibly be okay with it and be ready to leave for the underworld yet, right?
Arang screams at the Jade Emperor calling him “You mean old man.” Her screams reach the Heavens causing the King of the Underworld to chortle at someone calling the Jade Emperor an old man… The Jade Emperor says that they can’t be referring to him since he’s not old. He resumes the badook game, but smiles as he hears her asking what she’s done so wrong.
The rain pours down harder and then there’s a cry, and a man runs up to the magistrate building yelling that they’ve found a corpse. Eun Oh isn’t there yet, but the Bang Trio and Dol Soe are and the run to the see the body. Dol Soe runs accross a returning Eun Oh and informs him that they’ve found a body. Eun Oh runs with him to the body.
As soon as he approaches he sees the servant he’d talked to about Seo Rim and notices the embroidery on the hanbok… he peeks under the hay they’ve put on top of her, and confirms that it’s Arang’s body. Surprisingly something has prevented her body from rotting and everybody feels that it’s a bad omen.
Arang comes up to see what the big deal is, and he tries to stop her, but it’s too late she catches a glimpse of her own body. She bolts.
She runs and runs, remembering how she first woke up walking towards the river to the underworld, and how she had to adapt to her new environment to survive, going from shocked and starving, to learning how to fight, steal and run away.
She always knew that she was dead… that’s why she was a ghost… but not having any memories made her detached… it was almost like she’d been born a ghost, but seeing her dead human body made her situation real. She’d really been alive and she’d been murdered. She cries as she runs, wondering why she had to die like that, and why did she have to be lying there. She collapses when she reaches the riverbank.
Joowal stands beside the body of his dead fiancée saying and doing nothing. His servant starts to organize the relocation of the body, however Eun Oh puts the kibosh on that. He informs them that he won’t let anybody take the body. They question his authority and he states that he has the right since he’s the magistrate. Joowal looks at him with wariness.
Joowal asks Eun Oh about the meeting he’d requested and had subsequently missed. Eun Oh tells him that he’d had something to ask him but that it didn’t matter anymore. Joowal says that he won’t question him more about it, but he does inform him that his father won’t like his nosing around calling the girl’s death a murder, since it’ll start more rumours and negatively affect the family.
Eun Oh asks him if he wouldn’t like to clear his fiancée’s reputation. After all she’d been accused of running away from their engagement with a servant. Joowal tells him that frankly he doesn’t give a damn… or something to that effect. He never cared for the girl and he’d only seen her face once. He just wants to make sure that it won’t become a part of the rumour mill again. Eun Oh eyes him thoughtfully.
Later at night Eun Oh stands by as the servant burns Seo Rim’s clothes, crying at having to send her off so poorly like this. Eun Oh sighs at the fact that Arang didn’t listen to him when he told her not to look at the corpse, he wonders where she could have run off to.
Dol Soe comes out of Seo Rim’s room and tells Eun Oh that he’s placed her inside, he asks Eun Oh what his next move is. Eun Oh sighs saying that it’s something that he’ll have to ask. He’ll do as she says whether to let it go and bury her peacefully, recover her honour, or find her murderer. The nosy Bang Trio give their opinion that it’s the bury her option, thinking that Eun Oh is talking about asking the Choi family.
Arang comes to visit Seo Rim’s body… and she talks to it as if she were not that person… she wonders at her prettiness, and beseechingly calls out to her dead body, asking why she was lying out there in the cold, all alone, like a victim. But no matter how she pleads, no memory comes back and her tears cannot stop from falling.
She goes out to the roof and calls out to the “old man” asking for forgiveness for all of her wrong-doing and asks him, begs him to tell her what he saw the day she died.
But there’s no answer from him and she throws up her hands in exasperation. She screams at him again calling him a mean old man.
That last epithet makes the Jade Emperor jump in surprise and the King of the Underworld warns him that he better not interfere. He has a particular punishment and hell prepared for that ghost.
The Jade Emperor pouts and says that she’s prayed and begged so earnestly and assured him that she’d turn herself in quietly, and he’s promised to answer earnest prayers.
The King of the Underworld tells him that it’s more like threatened, and that every time he does things like answer prayers he messes with the balance, and then he has to go and make things right. Then because he cleans up after the Jade Emperor he gets labeled the bad god, and how is that fair?… The Jade Emperor’s mind is boggled at his brother actually thinking like that and chuckles as the King of the Underworld tries to cover his true feelings up.
Eun Oh sits by Arang’s body the whole night, wondering where she was and what she was doing at that moment.
And don’t you know it, Arang has gone to visit Bangwool who is very disappointed in having Arang back once more asking for a favour. But Arang promises her that this is the very last favour (how much do you wanna bet it’s not going to be the last by a long shot?).
Cut to Bangwool skulking through a very ghostly scary part of town, scared out of her wits. They approach a door with a prayer tag sealing it. Arang can’t get close to it without getting repelled. She asks what’s inside this place. Bangwool tells her that it’s the equivalent to a portal to the underworld, and it’s the only place where they can do what Arang wishes to accomplish.
It’s all very creepy inside, and it’s very structurally unsound, wooden beams fall off and scare the bejeezus out of Bangwool. She tells Arang that what they’re about to do is very dangerous, so dangerous that it could end up killing Bangwool and turning her into a ghost and making Arang disappear, as if she’d never existed, even other’s memories would be erased. Arang feels that that’s not as bad as it sounds since she’s already dead and can’t remember anything anyways.
Eun Oh gets tired of waiting around for Arang to appear so he heads out to ferret her out. He tells Dol Soe to take care of Seo Rim’s body and protect it. He tells him to think himself as the magistrate for the night.
Bangwool uncovers a seal on the wall, it’s the seal that Arang has on her neck, and the one that the reapers have on their hands… and then she stretches out another seal on a wooden sliding door. After she finishes the preparation she asks Arang what she has set out to catch but Arang tells her that she’s better off not knowing.
Arang blows on Bangwool’s face causing her face to break out in boils. This has Bangwool screaming in pain as Arang asks for forgiveness and hopes that doing that will be enough to call him to her.
She tells Bangwool that she’s decided to move on to the afterlife, Bangwool seems happy at not having to deal with her again, but at the same time she asks “I’ll never get to see you again?” as if a little sad and disappointed.
Muyoung appears behind Arang and asks her if she’s finally ready to go, she tells him that she is. However, she wants an audience with the Jade Emperor. He tells her that it’s impossible, he doesn’t negotiate with ghosts. Arang says that she has something important to ask the old man, and then she repeats “old man” loudly several times.
Bangwool recognizes it as the secret code and pushes the seal she’d hung up to line up in front of the seal on the wall.
The wall becomes a vortex of doom to who knows where and it starts to suck Muyoung in. However he manages to get a grip on the edges and doesn’t go in completely. Soon Arang is also sucked towards the vortex and she tells him again that she must meet the Jade Emperor. Muyoung asks her why she’s doing this, she will end up disappearing as well. Arang says that she knows and that it doesn’t matter because right now she has nothing to lose, but he on the other hand, as a high ranking reaper, has a lot to lose.
In Heaven it seems like the game of badook is going badly for the Jade Emperor and he sighs that there’s trouble brewing, The King of the Underworld just chuckles at finally being about to win.
Back on earth Muyoung has managed to loosen one of the ties of the vortex creating seal, but he can’t reach the other one. He asks Arang again why would she go through so much trouble, why is it so important to her. She tells him that even if she told him he’d never understand.
The Jade King has meanwhile managed to find the flaw in his brother’s badook strategy and places his piece and wins the game… this sends the King of the Underworld reeling and begging for him to let him undo one move. The Jade Emperor smiles and asks him what he’d give for that undo.
Next thing we know Muyoung’s name is called by the King of the Underworld and he agrees to honour her request. Arang calls out to Bangwool that she can stop it now. Bangwool unties the last string and the vortex is closed. Arang and Muyoung land in a heap.
Muyoung growls that she better never pull such a stunt again (he almost sounds like a super strict disgruntled father). She tells him that they’ll probably never have to interact so closely again after this.
The Jade Emperor undos his last move and the game resumes. But King of the Underworld looks like he swallowed a billion sour grapes.
Eun Oh has spent all this time searching for Arang. Yelling out in the forest, asking “amnesia” where she is.
And we cut to her following Muyoung through the forest towards the river that leads to the underworld.
Episode 4
Eun Oh goes searching for Arang in the vicinity of Bangwool’s home and turns the corner just in time to see her crash her way through her yard and throw herself in front of her alter begging for forgiveness and crying that she didn’t do anything wrong.
He hurries in after her and scares her, making the last bit of wits she had about her fly away from her.
She blubbers that Arang has moved on to the Afterlife after saying goodbye to her. As she starts to calm down, Bangwool wonders if Arang will even be safe there, especially after she dared to threaten a reaper AND wrangle a meeting with the Jade Emperor.
Muyoung is the quintessential grim reaper, and his demeanor doesn’t invite anyone to talk to him, but Arang is unshakeable now that she’s gotten what she wanted and she sidles up to him to make small talk. Asking him if he’s immortal or if he can actually die. He dourly tells her that nothing is infinite, he’ll disappear when he dies. She asks him if he was ever human and he ignores her.
Then they arrive to the riverbank and the reaper lantern falls to the ground turning the night into day and calling forth the death canoe.
Muyoung asks her if she has any regrets before she gets on the canoe and she says that she didn’t say goodby as she thinks about Eun Oh but she doesn’t linger on that and tells Muyoung that he better remember what he promised her.
She gets on the boat and soon they’re floating down the pretty and calm river. However soon the river turns choppy and the colours fade to grey. They’re boat goes down one massive looking waterfall and we get the wide shot of this crater in the middle of the river. It’s pretty awesome.
Arang falls in the water and colour slowly returns to the world as the water becomes air. She opens her eyes just as someone’s disembodied voice calls out “Amnesia look here!” it sounded like Eun Oh but it wasn’t…
Arang finds herself in a eerily lit cave facing a mummified spindly limbed ninja thingy who suddenly launches itself at her. She looks back at Muyoung asking him if he’s gone back on his promise, he says nothing.
Meanwhile the mummified spindly limbed ninja thingy (wow such a long name I’ve given it…) talks to her in a voice that sounds like a cross between Gollum’s “my preciousssss” and Harry speaking Parseltongue.
And we go back to Eun Oh back in the world of the living receiving a lesson on the different types of hells that Arang may end up in, each worse than the one before. Bangwool thinks that Arang will have no way to get out of hell because of her audacious behaviour against the reaper. Eun Oh argues that since she’s such a hokey shaman she can’t know all that, but she tells him that it’s in THE BOOK.
Eun Oh is really visibly upset at the dire news and he can’t help but ask if there’s anything he could do for Arang. Bangwool cries out that he can’t possibly want to go in Arang’s stead? Besides it’s not possible because ” no one can go to the toilet and the underworld in another’s stead.” Oh gosh Korea, you’ve even managed to talk about the toilet in a rather bleak conversation… hehe… but it did make me laugh.
Meanwhile Dol Soe has taken his role of protector very seriously, and even has a chat with Seo Rim’s body. He tells her that he’s sorry that she’s alone like this with nobody to send her off, and he sympathizes with how scared she must have felt all alone, so he’ll protect her until she rests.
Suddenly there’s a big commotion in front of Seo Rim’s room… a gang of people sent by Lord Choi have come to retrieve the lady’s body. Dol Soe swears that he won’t let them go anywhere near the lady’s body.
Things get ugly and punches are being thrown, but Dol Soe is doing very well until Choi’s main lackey pulls a knife and says that he’ll kill Dol Soe and that he won’t go to jail for it since Lord Choi is backing him. He makes a stab towards Dol Soe who blocks it with a rolled up straw mat, and is about to stab again when a flying shoe hits him on the back of his head.
Eun Oh has arrived and he orders the cowardly Bang Trio who’d been cowering and asking Dol Soe to comply with the gangster-like mob, to retrieve his flying footwear for him. They do so immediately.
Eun Oh approaches the Choi lackey who blusters that he will kill Eun Oh if he has to, and Eun Oh cuts him down to size. First of all, how dare he speak so familiarly to him when he’s not a member of the same social class, and second of all did they think that after killing him his father would stay still? and did they think that he’d go against Lord Choi? no, he wouldn’t he would go directly for them and Lord Choi would do nothing to save them.
The speech gets the mob to quiet down and leave with glares.
Dol Soe runs up to Eun Oh and thanks him for coming back in time, he cries and hugs Eun Oh as if he were hugging his blanky. Eun Oh just laughs, receiving the hug good naturedly and patting Dol Soe’s back assuring him that he’d done a good job protecting the lady’s body.
Eun Oh sits again besides Seo Rim’s corpse and sighs wondering at what he could do to help “Amnesia” now.
In the morning he’s come to the decision that he’ll prepare a funeral for her and has an announcement written proclaiming that the villagers must go and pay their respects to Seo Rim and apologize profusely for having maligned her with idle gossip.
When the villagers see the announcement they’re surprised by the new magistrates strange request of their presence to apologize to a corpse. the villagers don’t want to go since they’re afraid that going to it will somehow offend Lord Choi and be translated into more taxes or unexplained disappearances.
Eun Oh waits besides Seo Rim’s alter and asks her how she could have lived her life in a village like this one, where no one shows up to her funeral service. He sighs and shares with her, that he thought it was a blessing that she didn’t meet Joowal after all since he was not interested in her, and had hardly cared about her death.
The next day Eun Oh’s dressed in the ceremonial white and he receives the mourning bows from the servant lady as if he were her next of kin. This boy is such a sweetie despite his bad boy devil may care attitude he projects…
After the burial, Eun Oh plans to leave Miryang-
Just as he steps out of Seo Rim’s room, who should he see but Arang! He’s in shock and she teases him for freezing up like that. Dol Soe comes out of the room and looks straight at Arang and asks her if she’s come to pay her condolences towards the lady. This is a greater shock for Eun Oh who immediately sends Dol Soe ahead.
Dol Soe leaves bewildered at Eun Oh’s behaviour and wondering where he could have met a young lady… he thinks about that once again, and he screams “WOMAN!! How did he get a girlfriend without telling me!” he’s completely indignant and jealous that Eun Oh didn’t share that info with him. I luff him to pieces…
Arang is so super duper happy that he searched for her and thanks him for caring. He’s still shell shocked though as Arang tells him that she’s come back as a human! He can’t stop looking at her and at one point even grabs her neck- and seeing as he didn’t recoil at her coldness (she always felt cold to him in her ghost form) he’s satisfied that she’s not teasing him, but now he wants to know how this was possible. He drags her to her old room so that they can have some privacy as she recounts her story.
She tells him that after the mummified spindly ninja thingy launched itself at her and spoke to her in gollum-parseltongue speech he flew backwards creating a path bathed in a bright light. She followed Muyoung through it.
Then she found herself flying across the skies with Muyoung’s help. And then he she landed on a floating disk in front of the entrance to Heaven.
Suddenly the Jade Emperor’s voice asks her what she wanted to ask him. She looks up to find both the King of the Underworld and the Jade Emperor looking down at her. She looks up defiantly at the both of them.
The King of the Underworld suddenly feels a smell emanating from his brother and he sniffs him, asking him what he’s wearing. And the Jade Emperor says calmly that of course he’s wearing a Heavenly Scent to welcome pretty women…. lol
Arang is not impressed and she calls out to the “we finally meet, Jade emperor old man” except she’s directed it towards the King of the Underworld. The Jade Emperor is like uh it’s me! here, right here! Arang is surprised but she recovers quickly because she figures that even if the Jade Emperor looks young he’s still a really old man.
She doesn’t waste time and immediately asks the question about her death, and the Jade Emperor feigns ignorance claiming to be to busy to notice how any one person dies, but if she’s really interested in finding out he’ll talk it over with the King of the Underworld. But his brother is not in the mood to play the Jade Emperor’s games and tells him to just tell her what they’d decided beforehand.
The King of the Underworld tells her that even though she should be sent directly to a hell of his choosing, thanks to the fact that the Jade Emperor begged him earnestly (the Jade emperor objects to the terminology- he didn’t beg) yes, begged earnestly he has consented to allow her to return to earth as a human so that she can find out the reason for her death on her own. However there is a catch… if she should fail she’ll go to the worst hell.
Arang thinks on that for all of two microseconds and agrees to it easily. She’s got nothing to lose at this point.
so pretty!!!!!
So both gods fly to her level and send their powers at her, while telling her a creation story. The light and dark swirl around her until she’s shrunk into a shiny blue sphere which carries a yin and yang design and on the other side has a similar seal as the vortex creating one Bangwool used.
The Jade Emperor picks up the Arang sphere and remarks surprised, it actually worked, the King of the Underworld harrumphs that of course it worked. The Jade Emperor then sends her spirit globe into the giant floating yin and yang globe in the sky.
The Arang spirit sphere lands on water and it slowly becomes her. The shot is so beautiful- it’s definitely an anime style shot- reminiscent of the 90’s mahou shojuo comics like sailor moon where they had transformation sequences…
Arang steps out from the River soaking wet and completely naked… she rails at the pervy old men who should have sent her along with clothes on! She ends up having to steal clothes from a house along the river… and she discovers that she can still see ghosts because she sees the house’s lady ghost.
She walks into the village greeting everybody and relishing in the fact that she could feel people bumping into her. And just to make sure that she was human she asks a little boy what she looks like, he tells her that she’s very pretty. That’s pretty much when she spied the village notice for her funeral and had hurried to see Eun Oh, completely touched that he’d done this for her.
Eun Oh isn’t completely convinced after all why was she so important that the gods have decided to bend the rules for her. She tells him that it’s probably because they felt that she was too pitiful.
She starts to outline a plan on how to learn more about her murder when Dol Soe calls out for Eun Oh to get a move on. Dol Soe is aggravated that Eun Oh is probably doing ecchi stuff with the girl who came to see him and threatens coming into the room. And Eun Oh’s nervous “I’ll be right out, don’t come in” answers adds fuel to the fire of Dol Soe’s imagination.
Eun Oh orders Arang to stay inside and not let anyone see her. And to her credit she tries to… for like a second… and then she’s off exploring her old room and informing it that she’s back.
She picks up the mirror that used to be hers and makes faces into it, completely delighted that she can see her reflection now.
But she hadn’t told Eun Oh the whole truth, because the gods never do things without conditions :1) she has three moons to find out about her murderer; 2)When she finds the murderer she’ll alert them through a bell.; 3) if she should fail she’ll go to the hell the King of the Underworld decides on. But she counters that if she should figure it out they’ll let her live in Heaven. They hem and haw at that and say that they’ll think on it.
Back on earth she snorts that she’ll show that pair of old men that she’ll find out who killed her before her three moons are up. Because she’s not weak Seo Rim, she’s not going to stand around doing nothing but scream in fear.
In Heaven the King of the Underworld just about tastes his victory… and when the Jade Emperor loses to him he better keep his promise. The Jade Emperor agrees and asks what it is he wants. The King of the Underworld points to the Jade Emperor’s body, “I want your body”. The Jade Emperor is taken aback by that wish and actually stutters… but agrees that if he should lose then he’ll switch bodies with him. He doesn’t specify his own wish but tells the King of the Underworld that he better keep his promise.
They continue playing Badook, and this time the Jade Emperor loses. The King of the Underworld laughs that this turn of events looks promising for him but bad for the Jade Emperor. The Jade Emperor asks him what will happen now on earth, will it be war, or a plague? The King of the Underworld reminds him that things must die for others to live.
As the funeral procession heads over to the burial site, we get a view of a fancy head piece wearing lady sits behind a red veil. Let it be known that I think it’s Eun Oh’s mom…
Meanwhile Lord Choi’s lackey has opened Lord Choi’s storage house to let the villagers come in and partake of rotten provisions… it’s a ploy to make them indebted to Lord Choi for his beneficence… but really just shows how much avarice and cruelty can be found in Lord Choi.
Lord Choi spies Joowal entering through the gate and pointedly asks his lackey when the full moon will be. He later meets up with Joowal and starts making snide remarks about his inability to find a girl and how “someone” won’t leave him just for that.. etc..
Joowal just cold shoulders him and tells him not to worry about him, instead Lord Choi should give out drinks for the people bearing the coffin of his almost daughter in law, and perhaps that would serve him better than the fake and insincere charity he forced on people.
Arang looks around her room and gets an urge to see her funeral, and so she puts on an officer’s clothes and leaves the magistrate house dressed as a man.
At the funeral Eun Oh can’t concentrate and instead his mind wanders towards Arang. Dol Soe snarks in his own head that the young master must be thinking about the girlfriend…
As Arang’s hurrying to find out where the burial site is she knocks into a person coming from the other direction. It’s none other than Joowal. As Joowal grabs ahold of her arms his normally black ring starts glowing red.
This sends him reeling in surprise and he barely registers what Arang was asking him. Arang doesn’t notice anything and just takes it to mean that he doesn’t know, so she excuses herself and starts running in search of the funeral procesion. When he’s back in his right mind Joowal takes off running after her. He watches how she approaches the funeral party.
Eun Oh’s eyes wander over to the newcomer to the funeral group and watches in horror as she picks a fight with the Bang Trio over whether she should shovel the dirt onto the coffin and sees it change to the Bang Trio being unable to recognize her from the regulars.
Seeing as she can’t find a good excuse for her presence she starts running away, this makes the Bang Trio give chase and order the other officers to chase her. Eun Oh chases after her as well, complaining about how he should have known that she couldn’t have stopped causing trouble. Joowal also starts chasing her.
She gives them a chase of a lifetime and is about to escape but is cornered at a wall she can’t jump over. Joowal had caught up to her, and she panics as she sees Eun Oh catching up to her. She begs Joowal to give her a lift over the wall promising to repay it with a favour.
Joowal lifts her up to the wall and Arang smiles at him. Joowal doesn’t realize that this Officer is a woman but he does suspect that something’s off about her, asking her if she’s really an officer, she replies that she really is.
She looks up and sees Eun Oh catching up to them and with a small shriek she drops down on the other side of the wall and goes on running.
Eun Oh calls out to her to stop, not even stopping to realize that it’s Joowal who let her escape. They both eye each other in the long held tradition of the macho staredown.
Notes
It’s been speculated that Joowal’s a werewolf… but wouldn’t that be too obvious? And he’s also looking for someone… maybe to be a sacrifice for something? At the very least I think he’s very involved in Arang’s death… maybe she was one of the sacrifices?
I also think that the shrouded lady with the Gisaeng hairstyle that appeared for all of two seconds is Eun Oh’s mom.
I love the character of the King of the Underworld… he’s so petty and childish, I mean who else calls for an “undo” heh reminds me of when I play monopoly with my little sister she’d always call for a redo or a restart if she was losing at it. heh. little kid god ftw and the best part is that he’s the one that physically looks like the oldest.
The Jade Emperor is a hoot and I think that between both brothers the most calculating of them all is the one that appears to be the most relaxed and “nice.” He’s also somehow very endearing…
Arang is so gutsy and usually so full of verve mixed with a lot of optimism so the moment that she saw her body was really the moment that showed her true inner dilemma. She showed everybody the light side of her because she’d probably been afraid to really absorb the fact that she probably was a murder victim, which in her eyes is probably too sad and pathetic to admit that she allowed herself to be victimized. When she saw her body, I felt like it was the first time that she allowed herself to cry for her human self.
The relationship besides the OTP that most gets me in the heart is Dol Soe and Eun Oh. Dol Soe is very likely the only friend that the caustic, cynical Eun Oh has. To me their relationship feels like they’re the friends that grew up together like brothers, except that social class got in the way.
Noises From the Closet 