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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....Nana Owada.... 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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Wednesday, July 24, 2019

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





 Air Dates: May 6th to June 25, 2019 on SBS, two episodes Monday and Tuesdays at 10:00 pm
Ratings, episode nineteen 3.2%, episode twenty 4.0%

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'
Choi Tae-Hwan as Eun Jung-Soo.... Min-Ik's new driver

 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.





 Seeing as how you probably read the above recap let's dive right into the action. At the wake for director Park's mother Min-Ik's vision had returned meaning he can see faces clearly. This had happened once before but it had soon gone back to him seeing them distorted again, if Min-Ik's blood pressure can reach 140 his doctor said he should be able to see clearly but the problem has been getting it that high. At the wake Min-Ik had seen a man who resembled his attacker in the second episode but he wasn't close enough to be 100% sure and gave chase to the man who was outside.
 But before he could get much closer to the man Min-Ik had been stopped by none other than Veronica Park, the real one! She had slowed Min-Ik down enough which enabled the attacker to escape, that person had no idea Min-Ik was close on his tail. That man was his new driver Jung-Soo who had changed his appearance and it seems he was the person who was Min-Ik's assailant. For now that was the last time Min-Ik saw his driver as he didn't show up the next day to drive him to work. Jung-Soo has had a feeling he's going to be charged with breaking into Gal-Hee's house so he's staying far away from Min-Ik.
 Back to the real Veronica and it was the first time Min-Ik had officially met her, of course the previous four times had been Gal-Hee impersonating her. Min-Ik told the real Veronica to get lost as he knows what she looks like and she's just an impersonator. After Veronica left in a mild huff
Min-Ik called Gal-Hee to say that someone was acting as her double but of course Min-Ik thought he was talking to Veronica. Gal-Hee can manage to impersonate Veronica's whiny voice fairly closely and was doing that during their phone call.
 But that call happened to be taking place in the ladies room, who else should be there but the real Veronica! She moved next to Gal-Hee who didn't notice her at first and continued talking to Min-Ik while still pretending to be Veronica. Naturally when Gal-Hee saw who was standing next to her she came close to having a major heart attack and the pair moved outside to keep their conversation private. Gal-Hee explained everything to Veronica about why she was impersonating her, everything we viewers knew and what the readers of these recaps know too. She was acting as Veronica because the two had set up a pact to keep Min-Ik away from the real Veronica and things got out of hand. Surprisingly Veronica wasn't too irate as it's a ruse she herself would have thought of.






 We didn't meet Veronica until the fifth episode and slowly her character's importance has been rising. Also rising has been her screen time and in these two episodes we may have seen more of her than anyone else. Veronica set up a 'punishment meeting the next day with Gal-Hee, for now she has more important things to do such as meeting Dae-Joo and will their relationship ever get off the ground? He ignored her at the wake but was eventually confronted by Veronica, like us viewers she's getting far too impatient with Dae-Joo rebuffing her advances and came up with an offer. Veronica said the two should date for a month, if he doesn't like her by then it's okay if the pair go on their separate ways and more on that coming up.
 Also a bit impatient with Veronica is her mother who thinks she's been dating Min-Ik. He had been telling his mother and Veronica's that things had been going smoothly with the two and perhaps the pair were starting to fall for each other. Of course it was Gal-Hee who Min-Ik was referring to and Veronica's mother laid down an ultimatum to her daughter, get married to Min-Ik by the 20th of the following month or face the consequences. With that threat hanging over her head Veronica has had a change in strategy and luckily has Gal-Hee to help her out with her plans or should I say Gal-Hee has no say in the matter after impersonating her.
 That day Veronica brought Gal-Hee to many ritzy shops and stylists, when Gal-Hee changes her appearance drastically she can somewhat pass for Veronica. And Veronica being so adept at fashion knew that and did a transformation on Gal-Hee which you can see in some of the below screenshots. That appearance is close to how Gal-Hee looked when she played Veronica meeting Min-Ik but of course Veronica had never seen that look before.
 Veronica also gave Gal-Hee an ultimatum, she has to date Min-Ik for one month while Veronica is dating Dae-Joo. Hopefully by the end of that month Veronica will have convinced Dae-Joo to be her steady and not have to fool her mother anymore. Also perhaps Gal-Hee can either make Min-Ik forget all about her or even maybe have Min-Ik fall in love with Gal-Hee. Bit of a long shot but with those two scenarios you can see where this show will going.





 That second to bottom screenshot is how faces appear with Min-Ik's condition which is known as Prosopagnasia. He was at the mall too and had seen the pair, very surprised he couldn't make out who Gal-Hee was as her appearance was close to how she looked when she dressed as Veronica during their dates. With no options Gal-Hee agreed to date Min-Ik for a month impersonating Veronica but that didn't begin yet by the end of the 20th episode.
 Finally things are looking up for Veronica and Dae-Joo who seems so much more friendly to her. He had put an offer out to her from TnT Mobile which is where he and Min-Ik are directors. It was to run the day to day activities for the huge Cinepark corporation in which Veronica is the president. She often comes off as so flaky and overbearing but is a master at producing major hits. Veronica finally agreed to the offer from Dae-Joo but it wasn't because he agreed to date her for a month, she had signed it days beforehand but had kept it a secret from everyone.
 As mentioned Dae-Joo's attitude towards Veronica has been changing and what took him so long as she is such an attractive and successful woman. During that occasion right above he even agreed to meet her that evening at her villa, at last her conquest of Dae-Joo could be successful and Veronica is in seventh heaven. Veronica has had so many men chase after her in the past but she did reveal a few shows ago that the men actually just use her to get ahead and have left her very hurt.
 But Veronica's time in seventh heaven is short lived as while she was waiting at her villa that evening for Dae-Joo he called to cancel and sounded very angry during the call. Veronica couldn't understand why Dae-Joo should have been so furious with her and none of his fury was her fault. That afternoon Dae-Joo had been lounging around with his best friend of 27 years Min-Ik. During their conversation Min-Ik had let his friend know he was finally getting serious with a woman, when he was pressed he admitted it was Veronica. This threw Dae-Joo for such a loop as she had wanted to date him for a month, had Min-Ik been secretly dating her? Of course the answer was no as Min-Ik hadn't been but instead had been seeing Gal-Hee who he thought was Veronica, it's just a deception which neither was aware of which may end Dae-Joo's budding relationship with Veronica.






 On to the finale of this recap and as you can see above Gal-Hee is with Min-Ik but this time as her true self. She had noticed that Min-Ik's favorite fish had died, it was in a huge aquarium behind his desk and had been there when his father was the TnT Mobile's president. Min-Ik was quite distraught at losing the fish as it was his last link to his father who had adopted Min-Ik when he was seven years old. That bit of past has never been disclosed yet, why was Min-Ik adopted, where are his parents and how did his adopted father die?
 Min-Ik wanted to get rid of the aquarium but was convinced by Gal-Hee to keep it. She had bought some 'love moss' which supposedly have feelings, when the moss are happy or sense happiness around them they float to the top of water. While Min-Ik and Gal-Hee were having a warm conversation the moss floated to the top of the water as they must have sensed the emotions of the pair. They came so close to having a kiss but Min-Ik backed off at the last moment. Seemed Min-Ik had sensed he had kissed those lips before which he did but it was when Gal-Hee was impersonating as Veronica.
 Two short scenes will bring us to the end and one has to deal with Gal-Hee's laptop. It had been damaged when Jung-Soo attempted to steal it from her house, towards the end of this last episode she finally got it repaired. But Jung-Soo was aware of that and after she had left the office that night he broke in to take it. But he had been a bit leery about taking it from the office so Jung-Soo turned it on and deleted the file which was the cause of his two break ins at her house and perhaps why he became Min-Ik's driver.
 What the major file was is unknown but it was a company one which was important to Min-Ik. As Jung-Soo was leaving the office he was spotted at the elevators by Min-Ik's uncle Hae-Yung. Up until now we've assumed that he was the one who had hired Jung-Soo to be the Min-Ik's driver to spy on him, he also may have ordered the attack. But when Hae-Yung saw Jung-Soo he didn't recognize him at all, was it because his appearance had changed or perhaps more likely someone else had hired Jung-Soo to keep tabs on Min-Ik? With that semi cliffhanger this recap comes to it's close and for once it didn't end with Gal-Hee impersonating Veronica.





 Another fine pair of episodes and this series really hasn't gone into that lull which so many others do around the halfway mark. Twelve shows to go and will try to speed up these recaps a bit. Have been doing two a week but am planning on having another pair this weekend so hopefully can have this entire series finished within two weeks.






































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