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Hajimemashite minna san....welcome to my site on my fave Japanese Pop Culture likes such as dramas, movies, magazine scans, promo events etc. Mainly concentrate on my faves...Risa Watanabe... Kyoko Saito... Yui Kobayashi....Miyuki Watanabe.... Nene Shida.... if you're a fan at all of any of them then you've come to the right place(!) but many others are featured here besides them. Do mainly quick reviews on things I've watched, try to make the reviews brief, quick to read through with not too many spoilers, just whether they're good or bad and why I thought so plus whether you may find them enjoyable. Many, many screenshots are included from everything I've watched plus any video trailers if they're available. Hope you find something that interests you, don't hesitate to comment, arigato gozaimasu!

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Friday, July 3, 2020

"Born Again" drama: Episode's nine and ten recap





 Air Dates: April 20th to June 9, 2020.... Monday and Tuesday nights at 10:00 pm on KBS2
 Ratings for the two episodes were 3.0 and 3.0%, KBS2 isn't too major of a channel

Main Cast: The characters changed much sooner than I expected, they original three main ones were only in the first four episodes. That action took place in the late 1980's, now it's early March 2020 and the top three have been reincarnated, show what their previous names were. Much bigger cast for this period of time, will be adding to it as characters are introduced or at least the more important ones.

Jin Se-Yeon as Jung Sa-Bin(was Ha-Eun)....~31 year old woman who is a professor of Archaeology at the University of Seoyeon, also an NFS medical examiner. Like her original character had a heart condition but unlike Ha-Eun Sa-Bin has had a heart transplant.

 Lee Seo-Yuk as Kim Soo-Hyeok(was Cha).... In his previous life Kim was a detective and has remained fighting criminals but is now a prosecutor and a very ruthless one. He has a phtotographic memory and remembers everything about a criminal

 Jang Ki-Yong as Chun Jong-Bun(was Ji-Cheol).... He looks so much different than his original character, in present time Chun is a foresenics student and is at the top of his class. He comes from a wealthy family and his stepfather is the head prosecutor for Seoul

The Rest of the cast....

 Choi Kwong-Ii as Chun Seok-Tae.... Jong-Bun's father though not his real one
Kim Jung-Young as Heo Jin-Kyung.... Jong-Bun's mother and quite a snob
Park Sang-Hoon as Chun Jong-Woo.... Jong-Bun's half brother

Han Hae-Rim as Yoo Seo-Young.... Sa-Bin's partner at NFS
Lee Seo-El as Baek Sang-A.... Kim's girlfriend
 Jang Won-Young as Joo In-Do.... Cha's partner in the 80's, is still a detective
Cha Min-Jee as Jay.... Sa-Bin's roommate and a NFS graphic designer

NFS- you'll be seeing these letters quite often which stand for 'National Forensics Service'

Many others in the cast but the majority of them are just in a few episodes but do have a feeling the above will be updated a few times.

Every post will have two episodes and was thinking it may make it much easier to follow a drama if you're interested in it. Most of the time I would do 2-4 recaps a week which means it'd take about five or more weeks to do them all. It's easy to forget what happened in a show if you have to wait a week for a post and perhaps a viewer would lose interest in reading them. So this way you can read what took place from the very first minute until the final one, for now that's the plan. There's also going to be a new video at the top of each post, could be a promo, scene from a show, etc.


 Have suggested just reading a pair of posts at a time so as not to lose interest. If you've been reading two at a time you may need to take a break after this recap even if it's your first one of the day. Cannot believe how much took place in these two episodes and hope the subplots that keep getting added slow down. No one else has recapped this entire series but have read a few overall thoughts from viewers. Most thought this drama became way too complicated, not in a confusing way but there were too many ongoing things to keep track of. That wasn't the case for the first four recaps but the complicated storyline began in earnest during these two shows. No need to explain every single event so will cover all of the key points but then again there were a lot of them.






 As you know the previous episode ended off with Kim's car being involved in an accident with a tractor trailer. With him in the vehicle was Sa-Bin, she wasn't badly injured though Kim was and needed to be transported to a hospital. Luckily his injuries weren't all that severe either as he was up and about in a few hours. Kim hadn't hid his feelings about Sa-Bin as he really can't stand her and had told her that, then again Kim doesn't like most people. But they had a talk while he lying in bed, she was confused why he veered his car the way he did. What that action did was to prevent Sa-Bin's side of the car from hitting the truck which meant Kim's side took the full brunt of the accident. He's a bit of a mysterious person, though Kim really doesn't like all that many people he'll go out of his way to help someone and it's the second time he's saved Sa-Bin.

 But that was no ordinary accident as it was planned, in that bottom screenshot above was a watcher for his boss and he had to report back the planned accident was a failure. The name of the boss is Seo who we met briefly in the last recap. He's currently in Seobu Prison courtesy of Kim, Seo is a major gang leader but not a street gang. His group works mores towards hi-tech companies and their presidents though not much has been discussed about the man's past and crimes. You'd think Seo planned the accident to kill Kim but that wasn't the case, the target was Sa-Bin! Think the action was a twofold plan, one to warn Kim what Seo can do to him even though he's in jail but also I think he wanted to stop Sa-Bin's investigation of the thirty year old skeleton recently found.

 Seems since the end of the seventh episode the main person in the storyline has become Jong-Bum. Could have devoted this entire recap to him but will just go over the key points, there were many but none seemed to mesh together. Jong-Bum just rented out a studio loft which could be converted into an apartment, He wanted that loft to concentrate on his painting but to me he needed his privacy for his future crimes? Jong-Bum wasn't planning on living there but now he may have no choice. His stepfather Chun is the main prosecutor for Seoul, he had assigned Kim the Kwa case who was a recently murdered woman. Kim's investigation turned up just one suspect and to Kim there was no doubt who the killer was.... the prosecutor's stepson Jong-Bum! Good thing he rented that apartment out as soon his father gave him no alternative but to move out, that'll be a shock to his mother who was away in America. After Kim had left their mini meeting Chun smiled to himself, once again I took it as that he planned this whole thing out to get rid of his stepson. That also raises the question which is did the elder Chun have a hand in Kwa's murder?





 That above woman is Jang who we met briefly two recaps ago. She's an author who wrote a popular book on the serial killer Gong and Kim was livid at what she did. Jang made two appearances in this show, one was to lend Kim her car as his was totaled in the crash. In that scene we also learned that Kang is the mother of Sang-A who is Kim's girlfriend and are planning on getting married. But the pair don't seem too compatible and to me there probably won't be a wedding. Sang-A had been at the hospital to see the injured Kim but never did as she overheard the conversation between Sa-Bin and Kim, could she also have become insanely jealous? The other scene we saw Jang in was with
Jong-Bum as it was her studio apartment he rented out or should I say though she owned it she had never lived there. The previous occupant was also a painter and was there a connection between that person and Jong-Bum? Like I mentioned so many new mysteries have been popping up.

 Back from a day long break which I really needed. Not a true break from this series as episodes eleven and twelve were just viewed. Thought I'd try having a line between the paragraphs to see if it makes reading easier, to me think it does. But this is the style you've seen all along, went back and changed the other posts but this was the recap where I came up with the plan.

 Will concentrate on Jong-Bum and Ji-Cheol these next two paragraphs, kind of putting together a major enigma which popped up new in these two episodes. The main question is did Jin-Cheol die on the mountaintop with Ha-Eun and Cha thirty years ago? Certainly seemed that way to us viewers but that wasn't the case, somehow he survived and was on the lam for a while until he was arrested for the murder of Cha. His lawyer tried an insanity plea which could have worked as Ji-Cheol was such an odd character, actually besides killing Cha he was also charged with the murder of Yoon who was discussed a few times in previous recaps. That plea fell on deaf ears and Ji-Cheol was sentenced to death by hanging which happened shortly after the trial.
 And who should have been one of the guards who pulled the lever but Sa-Bin's father!!!! He's still living but is not doing well in his head. The execution didn't go as well as planned as Ji-Cheol was still writhing after the hanging, the main guard told Sa-Bin's father not to worry about it as the prisoner will eventually die.... but did he???? There's been a few hints that Ji-Cheol may still be alive one of two ways. One is that he's still alive physically and hiding out somewhere. The other is that he's been reincarnated as Jong-Bum as he's seeing things from thirty years ago, won't take a guess at what's really happening as the details will come out but my money is on the second scenario.

**** In the first four shows the screenshot showed Ji-Cheol as the name, for some reason it's now
Ji-Chul and will keep using the former.





 That's Kim above at the Seobu Prison where's he's talking to the prisoner Seo who was mentioned in the beginning. Not sure how long this man's sentence is but it's a long one and he still has charges pending against him. Seo led a gang that concentrated on high tech companies and other things along those lines, it was nowhere close to being a street gang. Though in prison Seo's power is still quite strong and he seems to have unlimited control of the prison. Kim knew that but don't think he was aware that Seo had set up that 'accident' that almost killed him. Kim may despise Seo more than any other criminal he's sent away but he also knows that with Seo's influence he can help Kim out and offered the man a deal.

 Byun has been the serial killer Kim had been chasing, he's now locked up at the same prison but the evidence against Byun is quite weak. That man keeps trying to fit in with Seo and his mates, Kim was aware of that and offered to get Seo out early if he could get info from Byun on where the bodies were buried. Seo also despises Kim but if a deal can buy his freedom then he was willing to help. Seo and his comrades cornered Byun in the shower where they really tortured him badly, the pain was too much for him to bear so Byun revealed where he buried the seven bodies. His locations were on the money as Kim and his crew quickly found six of them but were having a problem with the final one which confused me.

 That's because the final body had been buried when Byun was in prison yet he came close to the exact location. That was near a church and a few days prior Jong-Bum had been there to bury a dead dog or at least that's what he told the priest. Kim's team was near the church, he noticed a cross on the church which was a few hundred yards away. Don't know exactly why but Kim associates the cross with the killing Jong-Bum did when he was fifteen. Kim and his crew rushed over and discovered a newly dug mini grave which they quickly bored into. In the ground was a very small coffin, when it was opened in it was a very small baby that was about a year old and by the looks of it had been killed many years ago. So possibly Byun could have been the killer but even if that was the case why had Jong-Bum buried the body? Just another puzzler to add to the growing list and with that these two episodes came to their conclusion.





 Thanks again if you've been reading these recaps, know they're not so exciting but it's hard to make them that way as my style is similar to a play by play broadcaster. Seems like this is taking a long time but it really isn't as were's 40% of the way there. In six days have viewed twelve episodes plus have written up five of these longish posts which has to be a record for me. Still a bit early to give my impressions of this drama, will be doing so at the halfway mark.

























































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