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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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Monday, July 1, 2019

Korean drama "The Secret Life of My Secretary": Recaps for episode's three and four





 Air Dates: May 6th to June 25, 2019 on SBS, two episodes Monday and Tuesdays at 10:00 pm
Ratings, episode three 3.4%, episode four 3.2%

Main Cast:

Jin Ki-Joo as Jung Gal-Hee.... 27 year old secretary to Min-Ik, she's the only person he can see
Kim Young-Kwang as Do Min-Ik.... President of TnT Media, has mysterious vision problem
Koo Ja-Sung as Ki Dae-Joo.... Min-Ik's best friend and a director at TnT
Kim Jae-Kyung as Veronica Park.... major character but hasn't been seen in four episodes
Jang So-Yeon as Yi Yul-Wang.... executive secretary to Dae-Joo
Kim Min-Sang as Sim Hae-Yung.... Min-Ik's uncle who wants the role of president back
Jung Ae-Ri as Sim Hae-Ra.... Min-Ik's mother though not his biological one
Seo Dong-Won as Jung Joong-Hee.... Gal-Hee's younger blind brother
Kim Ji-Min as Jung Nam-Hee.... Gal-Hee's younger sister who wants to attend college 
Kim Byung-Choon as Dr. Gu.... Min-Ik's long time doctor
Han Ji-Sun as Mo Ha-Ni.... part of the 'temp secretary group'
Son San as Koo Myung-Jung.... part of the 'temp secretary group'
Choi Yoon-Ra as Boo Se-Young.... part of the 'temp secretary group'
Kwon So-Hyun as Ha Ri-Ra.... part of the 'temp secretary group'

 Whew, big cast and there are more characters whose names will be added if their roles get bigger. As is my norm with 32 episode dramas will be recapping four shows at a time with two in each recap. Keep saying that rom-com's aren't my cup of tea yet seems I've been watching more in that genre lately than any other Korean drama. It's been a hit or miss with them but so far my hit rate is much higher than the failures. To date will count this one as a big hit as I really enjoyed the first four episodes but it is hard to keep things interesting for 32 shows, wish they would decrease the number to twenty for some series. There's quite a few videos on YT for this series such as ones with interviews, behind the scenes and trailers, will have a different one for every post.





 You have to remember we're only up to the third and fourth episodes so of course there's so many things that will remain in the dark. Know they'll all be cleared up but you will read me saying this or that remains a mystery or hasn't been explained yet, now you know why. Where we left off was with Min-Ik lying in a hospital bed after being attacked by an unknown man. Min-Ik had been stabbed but it wasn't serious, the main reason he's still in the hospital is because of his vision. The attack and being pummeled in the head by Gal-Hee opening a door his made vision become quite odd.
 Odd because faces seem to be changing when he looks at them, at first the face may seem normal but it quickly becomes distorted and unrecognizable. For now it's quite bad but by the end of the third episode it's past the point of being bad as soon the only person Min-Ik can see normally is his former secretary Gal-Hee. Say former because he never renewed her contract as you can see above, also in a screenshot is Min-Ik asking Gal-Hee why is she the only person whose face doesn't change? You'd think with that being the case Min-Ik wouldn't have hesitated renewing her contract with a huge raise but for now he was too blind to do that.
 But Gal-Hee is remaining by his side or at least for now as she forced Min-Ik to report the attack to the police. Reluctantly he did and during the questioning she was the one with all of the answers which really confused the detectives. But they were able to get some footage from a CCTV in the area which showed Min-Ik being chased by his assailant. Seems Min-Ik has seen the man in the past but doesn't recall his name. But the footage revealed something much more disturbing which was of his best friend Dae-Joo who is also an exec at TnT Media. The pair were supposed to meet up at a boat but Dae-Joo was a no show at the meeting. But the video showed him arriving at the scene after the attack, we had our doubts about his integrity in the first recap and now so doesn't Min-Ik.






 Our suspicions about Dae-Joo grow even more near the end of the recap but for now we learn more about Min-Ik's past. After he left the police station, still without rehiring Gal-Hee, he headed home to his mansion where he lives with his uncle and mother. Surprised his uncle is living in the house as he truly despises Min-Ik as he won the last presidential election for the company, that was a position the uncle Hae-Yung had until the election and now he's just a regular board member. But he's working behind the scenes to win the next election, it may not be quite true but at least for now it appears he has the vote of Min-Ik's best friend Dae-Joo.
 We also learned something extremely important in this scene though not every detail of it was explained. Over twenty years ago Min-Ik had been adopted, his mother's name is Sim Hae-Ra and wonder why his family name wasn't changed to her's? But Min-Ik is on shaky ground as his mother says to obey all of her commands or else being a family member will be a thing of the past. She seems like a very stern and uncaring person, why she adopted Min-Ik isn't known though at this time. My thought is that she had no sons and needed a person to carry on running the family company, what also wasn't revealed is what happened to her husband and Min-Ik's parents.
 With 28 shows to go positive those details will be learned, good to keep us viewers wondering. Back to the unemployed Gal-Hee, she has gone in for one interview which she bombed. Actually she didn't exactly bomb but the interviewer was looking for someone much younger and sexier, obviously his eyesight was also awry. One afternoon Gal-Hee was sitting on some steep steps near her home by herself when someone threw a paper bag over the ledge which landed at her feet. In absolute confusion Gal-Hee peeked in the bag and what should she find but.... a bag filled with many Won bills! Looking around she saw her nearly blind brother trying to run away, it was him who threw the bag over the ledge and where did he get the cash?





 Her brother's name is Joong-Hee and he's not completely blind but very close to it. What he had done was work part time as a masseuse and saved up every single cent. What he had planned originally doing with the money was to give to their younger sister Nam-Hee who was planning on going to college in America. So far she hasn't heard if she was accepted but to Joong-Hee for the present time the money was needed more for paying the household bills. But he had also inserted some messages into the bag, one said to take some of the cash and for Gal-Hee to enjoy herself for a while.
 At first she was naturally reluctant to that but how often does someone like her have so much money and free time? So one day Gal-Hee decided to enjoy herself and began a day on the town, not sure where she lives but the TnT office is in downtown Seoul. One little pleasure Gal-Hee had never done was to see a play so she stopped at a playhouse for an afternoon matinee. She was quite confused as why was she the only person in the theater? Soon she was joined by another person who was of course Min-Ik, he had been following her and bought up all of the seat so they could be together.
 His life is rapidly going downhill, you can see that in some of the above screenshots. In one we see what Min-Ik sees which is the distorted faces of humans. In another he mistook a woman at an art gallery for his mother, he went up and hugged the stranger which almost caused a riot. Right after that incident is when Min-Ik realized there's no way he continue living somewhat normally without Gal-Hee and he has such a hard time explaining that to her. As a matter of fact instead of saying how important Gal-Hee was to him Min-Ik called her convenient which really upset her. That took place after Min-Ik had offered Gal-Hee a new contract which she refused and that totally baffled him. She didn't reveal why though but we viewers know, now that she has a bit of money thanks to her brother Gal-Hee can take a bit of time to find the perfect job.






 But that vacation for Gal-Hee may be coming to a rapid conclusion. That above screenshot is of her eighteen year old sister Nam-Hee, she's played by Kim Ji-Min who is 19 and quite a cutie, she's already been in so many dramas and films to date. Nam-Hee has finally heard back from the school she applied to which was the University of Pennsylvania in America. The bills are going to be quite high so Gal-Hee needs to say goodbye to her vacation and return to work but where? Though she's quite adept at being a secretary Gal-Hee doesn't have much confidence she can find a job right away, she thought 'why didn't I accept Min-Ik's offer?'.
 Luckily for her someone above is looking out for her as shortly after her sister's announcement there was a knock at the door. Naturally it was Min-Ik who had to try once more to convince Gal-Hee to return to her position. Of course she couldn't let on that she was now desperate for a job so she did play a bit hard to get unless she received certain conditions, with really no options Min-Ik said yes to every request and seems Gal-Hee is back being his personal secretary.
 During that scene Min-Ik also confessed to Gal-Hee for the first time what his problem was which of course has been able to see faces without them being distorted. For now Gal-Hee is the only person he can see normally and for some reason he hasn't questioned why that is? Skipped over it but he had visited his doctor Gu who said the condition was something that could be permanent and that no operation could cure his problem.
 What Min-Ik has is a disease called Prosopagnasia which I had never heard of, it's means someone is unable to recognize faces but them being distorted is quite abnormal. When Min-Ik was fourteen he had an aneurysm operation but the attack and being hit on the head by a door seems to have brought that condition back along with this new one. We're at the very end and as Min-Ik hoped would happen did as when he arrived at his office Gal-Hee had returned to position but there was one very serious situation which arose in the final twenty seconds. The two detectives assigned to Min-Ik's assault case are working hard on it and have discovered new CCTV footage. In the video it showed meeting up with the unknown assailant was Min-Ik's best friend.... Dae-Joo and while he gives off the impression of being a nice person now we're so unsure about that.




 Wish I could write all recaps like that, it was kind of shorter than usual but don't think anything important was left out. Perhaps after writing up so many hundreds of these I'm kind of getting the hang of things, as I've said before for the most part these aren't personal reviews but more of a play by play of what took place. An really enjoying this series, so much that i took a break halfway through this and viewed the next two episodes though many not post the next pair of recaps until the weekend and as usual will end off with a slew of screenshots.













































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