Korean horror drama "Possessed": Episode one recap

 Air Dates: August 5th to September 3, 2009  Wednesday and Thursday nights at 10:00 pm on MBC

Also goes by the titles 'Hon' and 'Soul'.... Ten one hour episodes, subs done by HaruHaru
Ratings- 11.5% nationwide, 12.6% Seoul

Main Cast:

Lim Ju-Eun as Yun Ha-Na.... High school student who is 'possessed' by spirits

Lee Seo-Jin as Shin Ryu.... Expert criminal psychologist and profiler

Keon Ii as Jeong Si-Woo.... High student who is bullied and befriended by Ha-Na

Yoo Yeon-Seok as Baek Jong-Chan.... Ruthless high school bully

Lee Jin as Lee Hye-Won.... Psychologist and part time girl friend of Ryu

Park Ji-Yeon as Yun Doo-Na..... Ha-Na's twin sister who died early on, member of T-ara

Kim Sung-Ryoung as Mrs. Yun.... Mother of Ha-Na and Doo-Na

Kim Kap-Soo as?????.... Detective whose name hasn't been revealed through two shows

 Here's an older series which I wasn't aware of until recently and think I made a rare wise decision as I made it my next drama to view. It's a horror show and through two episodes have to say it's one of the better ones as it's almost as graphic and gruesome as a movie. That's why it got tagged with a rating of '19' which is the suggested age to view it which seems a bit too high. There's a total of ten episodes and will be doing two recaps at a time, let's get on with this first one.
 The above screenshots were from the first seven or so minutes of the episode one, there was no dialogue until the 6:30 mark. Not sure what to make of the scene as us viewers have no clue what it was about, could it have taken place at the very end of the series? Or could it have been a dream of the high school student Ha-Na who has many eerie nightmares. Seems most of the series will revolve around Ha-Na who is played by Ju-Eun, 21 in real life but playing a sixteen year old student.
 Ha-Na lives at home with her mother and twin sister Doo-Na, hasn't been mentioned yet but think the father died many years ago. Both girls go to the same high school, Doo-Na appeared to be someone with many friends while the opposite is true of Ha-Na. She is simply one odd girl to put it bluntly though a very interesting one, she constantly has nightmares and also sees 'ghosts' all the time though no one else can.
 We saw much of Ha-Na wearing that bloody nightgown in the first scene but didn't learn much about her or anyone else until at least ten minutes had elapsed. That was at her high school where we met two male students who are going to figure prominently in the storyline. First we met Baek who could be classified as the school bully, he doesn't look like one as he is the school president and one of the smartest students. But he's constantly got a sneer on his face and when a student named Si-Woo happened to graze him he ordered his two henchmen to jump into action.

 Si-Woo is definitely one wimpy boy which gets proven over and over. In front of many students Baek forced him to 'eat' the book he was carrying, all because Si-Woo causally grazed him as he was walking by. Before he could take a large bite(!) his heroine showed up and as you can see above it was Ha-Na. She told Si-Woo to shove off and began to berate the evil Baek for his dastardly ways of treating the students. Figured he would have backed away but don't think Baek does that to anyone, he proceeded to push Ha-Na violently to the floor and walked away laughing with his two henchmen.
 Ha-Na didn't seem to upset but that incident will play a part in what tragedy takes place in the second episode. We did learn a bit about Si-Woo later on, he told Ha-Na that his parents were both dead as his mother died during childbirth and his father when he was nine years old. However we saw a brief scene later in this show where he was talking with his 'father' who asked him if was going to finish his 'job', that scene to date has never been explained.
 At first it made me wonder if Si-Woo may have been the serial killer we had been hearing about. There's been three recent killings of long haired young woman and the police have zero clues to date. There were just a few mentions of the killer during this show but the hunt for the person does take up much of the next episode. The investigation is led by a respected criminal psychologist named Ryu who we only saw briefly in this first show but he does have the second largest part in the drama. But as far as Si-Woo goes you can take his name off the list of possible suspects. The next screenshot is when Ryu and Ha-Na first met as he almost ran her over while she was delivering flowers, at the time neither knew they would meet again and that was at a hospital in the next show.

 Those screenshots above were from one very dramatic scene that took place at school, the girl was never named so let's call her Park. She was the school's vice-president and recently had taken over the top spot in her class ranking for grades. She had a slight run in with Baek before that scene which
Ha-Na witnessed but what was said remains a mystery but have a feeling it will be revealed. During Ha-Na's gym class Park had been on the ledge of a building playing an eerie song on her violin as the students below bellowed to her not to jump.
 Park smiled at them and proceeded to throw her violin at them from the ledge. With the students still staring up at her Park did a mini twirl on the ledge before she jumped to her death, her fall was in slo-mo which made it even more intense. When she hit the pavement it was only two feet away from
Ha-Na and you can see the blood that spurted on her above. Ha-Na passed out after that but for the most part didn't seem to be too affected by the suicide, seemed most of the other students weren't either. Baek also witnessed the jump and he seemed relieved that Park was now dead.
 A tragedy such as a suicide didn't give Ha-Na any nightmares or other problems as she already had enough of them. All day long Ha-Na constantly sees ghosts or spirits while no person around her can, those figures seem to disappear rather quickly but those problems are getting much worse. So much worse that Ha-Na caused two disturbances one day in class as she thought a student sitting next to her was a ghost. Her teacher was finally so fed up with Ha-Na and told her to go to the nurse's room, what a journey Ha-Na proceeded to have.

 This is the fourth 'segment' and will make it the final one. For all of these recaps will try just having just four which should make it an easier read and will be able to cram all of the major details and events into these posts. As you can see above Si-Woo is once again getting bullied by Baek, he had been caught on the roof taking pictures of where Park jumped from. Baek was curious about why he would do such an activity but Si-Woo wouldn't explain his reasons, also seemed Baek was looking for something that Park may have left on the roof which does get found shortly.
 Ha-Na's trip to the nurse's office was one nightmare as she saw two ghosts in the hallway and one of them was the dead girl Park who seemed to be calling to her. Ha-Na quickly ran to the roof and to the spot where Park had jumped from. Once again Park jumped from the roof but it was only Ha-Na who saw her as one of Baek's cronies was approaching Ha-Na yet didn't see Park. By sheer luck there was a teacher nearby who called out to the boy and told him to get off the roof, he never noticed Ha-Na. She then went over to the location where Park jumped from and searched around for any clue.
 What Ha-Na found was more than just a small clue as it was Park's cellphone. She scrolled around it a bit and found a video that may have had Baek in it, looked like he wasn't doing something not too nice to Park which is why he needed that phone back. Ha-Na couldn't stick around for too long so she too started to leave the roof when she heard a thumping sound from a nearby locker. When she went to investigate who should be in the locker but Si-Woo! He had been beat up badly by Baek and his two cronies, once again Ha-Na berated him for allowing himself to be pushed around. That ending of that scene will start off the next show as this first episode came to it's conclusion.

 That's Ha-Na in the last forty seconds telling Si-Woo of her birth date. To her it's the main reason she's 'cursed' as on that date so many bad events have happened from many famous people dying to a slew of train crashes and the like. Solid first episode and this show was definitely more graphic or creepy than any other horror drama I've viewed. Just watched the second episode and the excitement level didn't slow down at all, the recap for that is the next post.