"Born Again" drama: The primer post for the six recaps....

 Air Dates: April 20th to June 9, 2020.... Monday and Tuesday nights at 10:00 pm on KBS2

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 graphic designer

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

 Final Ratings for this series

 Episode's one through ten..... 8.0/10

Episode's eleven through sixteen.... 5.5/10 and was rapidly dropping.

 Hard to put everything in head into a short post but will do my best to keep this brief. Few times this past month had mentioned I would be recapping this drama but was going to do something that had never been done here before. That was to have all sixteen recaps for the 32 half hour shows in a row which would make it so much easier to follow the entire story from A to Z. However reading all of those posts definitely would not have been an easy task but an even harder project would have been to complete and write all sixteen recaps.

 So what I'm really trying to say is that I aborted that project as it was just too time consuming but had this series been better would have finished recapping the entire drama. It wasn't a bad thought to have so many recaps in a row and that's something that will be done at some time in the future but just for a very good show.
 This series started off so well, least up until the end of the tenth or perhaps eleventh episode. But it faded rather quickly and didn't want the recaps to end off being a bit too depressing or negative. Was reading a few other viewer's comments on the show and seems many have shared my opinion on how the story faded so quickly. That's because the show brought in seven(!) new writers and the sole original one was canned, that obviously was a mistake and is when the drama went downhill.

 So the story after the change in writer(s) became so much less interesting and quite predictable, so much am debating on whether to continue with the show. The first ten episodes were rather good but besides becoming a bit drab it also became a tad complicated. That's because so many new characters and potential storylines were introduced, it then became such a chore viewing this show. Have a feeling I will finish this show but not the recaps but at least Korean dramas aren't too popular here where viewers may have missed anything.
 One other negative were the characters though not all. Mainly was watching this drama because of Se-Yeon who did a solid job and will have a post about her characters in this show over the weekend. Few other characters besides her two(?) were decent but for the most part the cast wasn't all that likable, even the other two main leads. Don't want to go on too long with this as this post is mainly to make you aware of the many posts below this one, the six completed recaps or 40% of the series and tomorrow's for Se-Yeon. Will discuss this show more in that post for her, what was going right but what mainly went wrong.
 Did finish viewing up until the 16th episode but only wrote recaps up until the 12th show. Didn't make any sense not posting them after all that work and perhaps what I wrote will interest a few viewers out there. Didn't change one word on what had been written as you'll notice that the intention was to have sixteen posts instead of six. Not writing the other posts up will save quite a bit of time so will be looking for a new series to view, "Item" perhaps? But still think the idea to have sixteen posts in a row was a good one but just picked the wrong drama to try it out with.

**** It's been so long since I've done any movie reviews so that sounds like an excellent change of pace. Must have at least ten films from the past few years and have only viewed one so think film reviews will be coming up and kind of looking forward to the. Can also have a few other posts for the reviews such as pics from the premiere, mag spreads and the like.

"Born Again" drama: Episode's one and two 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 3.7 and 4.1%, KBS2 isn't too major of a channel

Main Cast: This will be changing entirely soon but don't know at what point, thinking about the seventh or eighth episode. The series began in 1987 but the top three characters were all killed in early 1989 but three decades later were reincarnated. However they all returned looking slightly different with new names, new professions and none knew each other from the past. It's not a confusing drama but one that can be a tad complicated if you don't follow it from the beginning.

Jin Se-Yeon as Jung Ha-Eun....25 year old woman who owns a used bookstore. She's the girlfriend of  Cha but keeps putting off getting married to him mainly because of a serious heart condition and is she possibly in line to become the next victim of a serial killer?

 Lee Seo-Yuk as Cha Hyeong-Bin.... Ha-Eun's boyfriend and is a very astute detective who has been assigned the Yellow Umbrella Serial Killer case.

 Jang Ki-Yong as Gong Ji-Cheol.... after these first two shows he's a mystery. At first we thought he was the serial killer but that's not the case but he is a very unstable young man. He has such a crush on Ha-Eun and is her unknown 'protector'.

 Jung In-Gyeom as Gong In-Woo.... Ji-Cheol's father who is/was the true serial killer. He had taken a break from killing after murdering eight woman but had returned with a vengeance.

 Jang Won-Young as Joo In-Do.... Cha's partner in the 80's and will be in present day too.

 The cast was a large one for these first eight or so episodes that took place in the 1980's. However very few except for the above did we see in more than two shows and even then it was only briefly. Will talk about them in the recaps but to save space didn't include them above.


 Usually start off with a mini introduction for a series and will stay true to form. Rarely do I go back to edit what was written even if there were minor mistakes as at the time they may not have been errors(?). So am hoping that will be the case with this introduction as my plan is to do something completely different. That's to have sixteen recap posts in a row which has never been done and just wanted to see if it'll work out better or to be more honest to see if it's possible.

 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.

 Realize reading so many posts in a row is a daunting task and know I couldn't do it in one sitting. But you don't have to as all of the posts are in a row so if you just read 2-3 a day in a week you'll be finished so think of it as reading a few short stories at a time. Most first recaps are the the longest, this one wouldn't have been until I went on this long intro but think the recap itself won't be too long and should be an easy read. Have skimmed though many episodes but have watched only the first two in their entirety, what I do these days is watch an episode(s) and then recap it before viewing any more or I at least try to.

 Whew, now we'll finally move on to the recap and for this first one will have a segment for each of the three main characters and then a brief one to tie things up. Above are two screenshots from present day and in that bottom pic it shows the three main characters who don't know each other yet. But they will eventually when the action moves to 2019(?) but for the first 3-4 recaps the events will be taking place in 1986. The three characters knew each other then though the man called Gong certainly wasn't a friend of the other two. But the trio had been killed and over thirty years later were reincarnated with different names along with slightly different looks and professions. Will start off with the main reason I decided to view this drama and put myself through the torture of writing all of these recaps up, that reason is Se-Yeon 😍 who plays the character of Jung Ha-Eun.

 No ages were given but presuming Ha-Eun is around 26 and so far only a few details about her past have been revealed but they're very major ones. Ha-Eun is the owner of a small used bookstore named 'Old Future' which she's had for close to four years. She is such a fanatic about books with her fave one being "Wuthering Heights" which she's read too many times to count. In two of the screenshots above is Ha-Eun's boyfriend who is a detective named Cha. He's been assigned to a serial killer case and the odd detail about that is the killer follows around woman with yellow umbrellas which is why he said to dispose of it. Ha-Eun is also an orphan though we haven't learned yet how her parents died but it was a very traumatic experience for her.

 You can also see that Ha-Eun has once again turned down Cha who has wanted her to be his wife for many years. Ha-Eun would gladly accept but she has one major health condition preventing her from saying yes. That condition is with her heart, she's had problems since she was a child but over the years it's gotten much more severe. So severe that she may not have much longer to live unless she gets a transplant which is very rare in Korea. But there is a visiting surgeon from America who says he can perform the transplant but the problem is finding a suitable donor.

 All that was learned at St. Peter's Hospital where Ha-Eun ended up a few days after that above scene with her boyfriend Cha. She had been rushed to that hospital not by him but a young man named Gong who I'll be talking about soon but has been a secret admirer of her for years. He had met her when Ha-Eun ran a literature class in a small town and he was working at a construction site, she had no idea it was Gong who rushed her to the hospital nor did anyone else. That's about it for now with Ha-Eun who of course I'll describe much more in future recaps but will also have some major happenings in the final segment.

 That's Cha above and his looks really change when he's 'reincarnated' thirty years later. He's a hard nosed detective who is a few years older than Ha-Eun and how they first met hasn't been revealed yet. She means the world to Cha who would do anything for her and is obviously so stressed about her condition and needing a heart transplant. In the bottom screenshot above on the left is his partner Joo who I think will also be a detective thirty years from now. The pair have been assigned the 'Yellow Umbrella Killer' case, he's a person who had killed eight woman and left an umbrella as his calling card. But he had disappeared for two years but has now resurfaced with two more murders to his name and for now there's no suspects.

 In a case like that one a few lucky breaks are needed, there were zero for the first eight killings but for the latest two there be a few possible clues. One was that Joon's aunt had possibly seen the killer but the problem was the fifty year old woman had such mental problems as her IQ was just seven and couldn't speak a complete sentence. But she was able to draw a rough sketch of the person who is a youngish man with long hair and a scar near his left eye. Sometime after that a woman witnessed that same man burning a huge pile of yellow umbrellas, she lived in her neighborhood and showed Cha where he did the burning along with where he resided.

 Now things are looking up and Cha staked that residence out. During the evening a young man with the same characteristics left the rundown building and Cha was in pursuit. That man ended up donning an eye patch to hide his scar but Cha noticed that. Just when it appeared Cha had the man trapped he jumped over a wall to a waiting car which zoomed him to safety, that was the last Cha saw of him but just for this show and the more I write the more interesting this show really was. Almost forgot this key detail which was of what Cha found when he entered the man's apartment. That was of some books he found that had 'Be My Wife Ha-Eun' written at the bottom of many pages. She had thought it was Cha who had written those messages in her bookstore novels but it wasn't. That man's name is Gong who is the third major character who I'll now discuss.

 He's kind of a complicated person to describe and though all signs pointed to him being the serial killer that wasn't the case. Gong's first name is Ji-Cheol and will be using that as not to confuse you with the above older man. That's Ji-Cheol's father who has been the actual killer of all ten woman. He lives in an abandoned school where he spends his days painting, don't know how but the elder Gong is a wealthy man who has been supporting his son. Ji-Cheol is quite an oddball but compared to his father he's almost a saint, for now. The elder Gong is one psycho and over the years his verbal abuse has really done a number on his son and he cruelly told him he also has the killing gene.

 Ji-Cheol has never believed that for a second but as we'll soon see his father was correct. When
Jo-Cheol escaped from Cha the waiting car he leapt into contained his father who announced to his son that the heat was getting a bit too hot and was leaving the country. This is when we learned how wealthy Gong was as he had a pair of 'assistants' with him and ordered them to support his son after his departure and protect him from Cha plus thanks to Cha he'll need a new residence. In Ha-Eun's segment mentioned that she had been rushed to the hospital after having more problems with her heart, that person just dropped her off and fled the scene quickly.

 Of course that man was Ji-Cheol who had met Ha-Eun some years before when she taught a classical literature class. So far the details about where it was and such haven't been revealed yet but this is only the first show. Ji-Cheol had attended a few of those classes and became so enamored with her, twice she even talked to Ha-Eun after class. Soon after is when she moved to Seoul and wonder if
Ji-Cheol followed her there on purpose? For years he's been Ha-Eun's 'protector' as he makes sure she makes it home safely after leaving the bookstore, he even checks on her throughout the day. On the latest occasion on that checking is when he noticed Ha-Eun passed out on the store's floor, he scooped her up and carried her a few miles to the hospital.

 After writing up Cha's segment took a break which I shouldn't have. The words were flowing out but since that short break it's been a struggle writing as I'm practically brain dead. And brain dead is a term you may hear often in the next few shows as that's what a heart donor needs to be. Ji-Cheol learned that from the American surgeon as he disguised himself as a relative of a patient to learn more details about a transplant operation. Ji-Cheol is so infatuated with Ha-Eun and there's no way he'll allow her to die, if a brain dead person is needed then that's what he'll get!

 When Ji-Cheol had been living in that small town where he first met Ha-Eun he had befriended a young boy named Sung-Ho. He felt a kinship to the lad as he too was being abused by his parents. His father had gotten remarried and we all presumed it was the new mother doing the abuse but it came out at the end it was the father hurting his son. But the mother did have a hand in the young boy's death as she claimed intruders killed Sung-Ho but was it actually her? Ji-Cheol believed so and had tracked her to Seoul where she had opened a hair salon. When the news of Ha-Eun needing a heart transplant reached Ji-Cheol he came up with a plan, a cruel but slightly ingenious one as he would do anything to save the life of the woman he cherished.

 Ji-Cheol entered the shop asking for a hair cut, it was closed but the woman would make an exception. Shortly after she started is when Ji-Cheol revealed who he was and demanded to know the truth about Sung-Ho's death, that's when we learned of the father's abuse. But that info was only secondary as the main reason for Ji-Cheol seeing the woman was to... murder her! Yes, he has his father's killing gene but Ji-Cheol wouldn't kill for pleasure but to save a live. Of course it's Ha-Eun's life as Ji-Cheol thought with a woman with the same blood type was brain dead she'd be a perfect candidate to give a beating heart to Ha-Eun.

 As the episode ended the woman was lying battered on the floor but still alive. Ji-Cheol quickly called the police and told them to rush over as there was enough time to save the heart. While he was on the phone of all people who should walk into the hair salon? If you guessed Ha-Eun you're correct, she had been on her way home from the hospital but the bus was just too confining. After she departed the bus she looked for a phone to call Cha but had heard a scream from the salon. When she entered to Ha-Eun's horror she saw the dead woman and of course Ji-Cheol, with that intense scene unfolding this lengthy recap finally it's conclusion.

 Whew, thanks if you read the entire thing and as mentioned shouldn't have taken a break. This was probably the longest drama recap I've ever written and could have made it longer. Just so much took place in these two shows which totaled 65 minutes and the next pair are close to seventy minutes. Will try to make future ones a bit briefer but not having watched them can't make a promise that it'll happen. But on the bright side when a recap is very long it means it was an interesting show with so many events and with that ending can't wait to view the next pair of episodes. Though this post was certainly long may have left a few details out which you can view in these many screenshots.