[Drama Recap] Love Rain Episode 5

Here we recap and discuss episode 5 of Love Rain.  Caution, spoilers below.  Don’t read if you don’t want to know what happens.

Now in the present time, we see In Ha’s son Joon taking a train to a snowy region in Japan.  As he gets off, he’s bumped by a girl who’s running to meet her friends: Yoon Hee’s daughter, Ha Na.  Joon is apparently a professional photographer and we see him directing the photo-shoot for a model.  As he talks with his assistant, Joon says that he’s never had his heart flutter for a girl.  Instead, making girls go crazy for him is what he’s good at.  Which seems to be true as we see the model he’s working with, who’s apparently pretty famous, try to flirt with him, but he coldly ignores her.  She doesn’t take no for an answer though and chases after him in the snow.

Joon has retreated to his car to work and the model has followed him.  She tries to put the moves on him and asks him if he knows he has a reputation of making girls fall in love with him in three seconds.  He tells her that he knows and that he wants girls to think he’s a playboy so that they’ll keep their distance from him.  Joon says he’s uncomfortable with girls and starts spinning a story about how his first love hurt him too much.  Uh huh.  The model falls for his lie, which amuses him, and he continues spouting more cliché lines about how she’s different and that he’s never felt like this before.  He leans in for a kiss, but is interrupted by a strange ringtone on a phone he doesn’t recognize that’s in his pocket.  Seriously?  Fine, let’s ignore whatever laws of physics it would’ve taken for Ha Na’s phone to get transferred to him by their bump.

He answers the phone and the voice on the other end, Ha Na obviously, is surprised to find out he’s Korean.  She doesn’t know how his phone ended up in his pocket either and asks to meet so she can get it back.  Ha Na quickly gets her friends to come with her and they board a bus to go to where Joon is.  As they ride on the bus, her friends ask Ha Na who she has to see so urgently before going back to Korea, but she just smiles and says it’s a secret.

Now that that interruption is finished, Joon continues his little game with the model, who is completely head over heels for him.  However, they’re interrupted again as his assistant comes up to the car and tells him the advertiser wants to stop the shoot.  They setup a web chat and Joon demands to know why they’re stopping all of a sudden.  The advertiser says that the concept of the snow queen is overdone for the model, something that Joon himself said earlier, and holds up a magazine which shows a completely different image.  Joon can only shake his head in disgust and asks why they want him to plagiarize someone, but the advertiser says it’s just paying homage.  He can’t take it anymore and starts to walk away, but his assistant stops him.  The advertiser says that Joon might have been famous in New York because of his “dirty pictures” but now nobody wants to work with him.  As he rambles on, it’s the last straw for Joon and he slams the laptop shut, ending the call.

His assistant runs out after him and says that they have to do this photo-shoot or else they’re out of business.  Joon has complete confidence in himself, though, but his assistant shoots back that while Joon might have a family inheritance, he has family debt.  The advertiser calls his assistant and Joon tells him not to answer, but in the end the assistant ignores him and answers the call before running away.

Ha Na’s phone rings again and Joon angrily answers the phone.  Ha Na asks him where he is, but Joon says he left already and if she really wanted her phone back she should’ve come sooner.  She thinks he’s being rude, but when Joon threatens to throw the phone away, Ha Na calms down and asks him, while pouting, where he is now.  And looking especially pretty while doing it, I might add.

Joon then hangs up just as his assistant runs up to him and tells him to pack up because they’re leaving.  As Joon is driving back, he’s talking on the phone to someone saying that he’ll handle the situation.  His assistant is still a little annoyed about him just leaving the shoot like that and asks him if he has an idea for the concept if they’re not doing the snow thing anymore.  Joon just glares at him and says he’s thinking.

They’re not quite leaving yet and Joon arrives at the hotel where he’s staying.  As he settles in, Ha Na’s phone rings yet again.  Joon just watches the phone as it rings and this is how his assistant finds him when he walks in with Joon’s luggage.  Joon tosses the phone to him and tells him to deal with it.  Ha Na is apparently yelling at him over the phone as he has to move it away from his head a few times.  Joon then calls out for him to hang up so they can have a staff party.

Meanwhile, a very angry Ha Na mutters how she’s going to kill Joon, despite her friends trying to calm her down.  She’s definitely not letting this go and tells her friends go ahead first and she’ll go get her phone alone.  Her friends however say there’s no point in going without her as they’re going to say their farewells and so she instead she tasks them to find a place for them to stay since they didn’t make those plans yet.  This time they agree and as they go, and one of them says they should go see the “Diamond Snow” that she’s been talking about.  Ha Na smiles at them and agrees, but her other friend objects because it’s too cold and it’s up in the mountains.  The first friend then says that the two of them should just go together, at which point the other friend mentions how there’s a legend about how if two people see this “Diamond Snow” together they will fall in love.  Yeah I’m pretty sure that’s why the first guy wants to go buddy as long as you don’t cock block him.  At any rate, the bus comes at this point and Ha Na goes in search of her phone.

Back at Joon’s hotel room, he catches his assistant laughing hysterically at something in Ha Na’s phone.  Joon asks him if she’s pretty, but he says that he hasn’t found her picture yet.  His assistant then starts reading off some jokes that Ha Na’s saved in her phone, which Joon does not find funny.  Joon tells him to get ready for the party, but his assistant is more focused on their deadline for having the concept ready.

After his assistant leaves to get ready, Joon gets curious and unlocks Ha Na’s phone, only to get freaked out when the screen screams at him.  He picks up the phone again though and starts reading her jokes.  The first one might not have been funny, but he does start laughing at her other ones.  He then starts going through her pictures and finds a video that he likes for his photo-shoot.

Meanwhile, Ha Na has arrived at the lodge where Joon is staying.  She doesn’t have to look very far as Joon nearly runs her over with his car.  She yells at him in Japanese, but he doesn’t understand her.  Ironic considering Jang Geun Suk is probably more fluent in Japanese than Yoona is.  Joon just smiles at her and starts bad mouthing her clothes in Korean, thinking she doesn’t understand.  His assistant tries to stutter out some Japanese, but Ha Na switches to Korean and the two of them at least have the decency to look sorry.

Now that she’s at Joon’s hotel, she tries calling her phone again, but nobody picks up.  She asks the front desk if anyone’s left a phone for her, but nothing there.  Ha Na tries to get the room numbers then, but obviously she can’t for security reasons.  With no other choice but to wait, she decides to plop herself down in the lobby.

Joon, on the other hand, is out with his staff having drinks and partying it up.  He decides to flirt with the model some more and she asks his assistant to switch seats with her so she can sit next to him.  They two continue flirting throughout the night and the group eventually decides to go out for karaoke.  Eventually, Joon gets tired of the party and he motions to the model that they should leave.

While he’s out having fun, Ha Na has been continuously calling her phone.  She gets annoyed he’s not picking up and angrily mutters he better watch out when they meet.  She starts to fall asleep waiting for him, but quickly wakes herself up and glares at her watch.  She then comes up with a plan and goes room to room while calling her phone to see if she can hear her ringtone.  Ha Na angrily bangs on the door and discovers that it’s unlocked so in she goes.  She’s happy to find her phone finally and is about to leave, but thinks about what Joon made her go through to get it back and plots revenge.

Once she’s done, she smiles to herself and starts to leave but hears Joon and the model coming.  With nowhere to run, Ha Na runs back into the bathroom and overhears them talking about taking off their clothes.  As she’s trapped in there, Joon and the model find out her first prank: hiding objects underneath the blankets which they bump their heads on when they lays down.  The model at first thinks it’s her boyfriend, but says that if it was him he’d have put a knife.  This gets Joon’s attention and suddenly his little game just got a little too serious.

He excuses himself and runs into Ha Na, who was trying to sneak out while they talked.  She recognizes him as the person who almost hit her, but the model thinks she’s a thief.  Ha Na then starts yelling at him for all the stuff her made her do for her phone.  Joon grabs the phone back and asks her why she put her phone in his pocket in the first place.  The two start fighting over the phone and end up in bed with Ha Na on her back and Joon straddling her.  Oh how many legions of SONEs are jealous of you now Jang Geun Suk.  He then tells the model to leave now before someone recognizes her and another scandal happens.  After she leaves, Ha Na tells Joon to let her go, but instead he just smiles.

Joon’s assistant goes looking for him in his room, but he’s nowhere to be found.  He peaks inside the bathroom and screams when he sees that Ha Na’s made it look like there’s blood in the sink and that a ghost is haunting the room by writing “Do I look like a girl?” in lipstick on the mirror.  Only half an episode and I’m already liking this girl.

The two of them are apparently out for a drive and Joon asks Ha Na what she’s doing here.  She replies that she goes to school here but is about to graduate and return to Korea.  Joon then asks her what she can do for him in exchange for not turning her into the police.  Ha Na says she’ll do anything and Joon immediately pulls the car off to the side.  He starts leaning closer to her and Ha Na thinks the worst and stammers that this wasn’t what she meant.  Joon then pulls out the phone and shows her the video that piqued his curiosity and asks her what it is.  It’s apparently a video of “Diamond Snow”.  Of course it is.

In order to satisfy his need to see it, Joon immediately drives up to the mountains at night.  However, the road is blocked off at some point and Joon asks her if it’s close.  Ha Na says that they have to go further in, but that she when she saw it before it was during the morning.  Since he can’t do anything about it until then, Joon reclines his seat and settles in to get some sleep.  Ha Na asks him if he really wants them to wait here until morning.  He just looks at her and says of course.  She says they should just go back to his room and come back later, but he says they have no time and if he can’t find it then he’s screwed.  Ha Na is confused, but she can’t do anything about it and tries to get some sleep herself.

The next morning, Joon wakes up and opens the door, causing Ha Na to wake up and complain it’s cold.  At first she says she’s already explained to him how to get there and that she’s not going to see it with him, but changes her mind when Joon threatens to hurl her phone into the woods.  Ha Na then scoffs at his clothing and says he’s going to freeze, and Joon counters back that she has no sense of fashion as it looks like she just threw on as many layers as she could.  Fair statements on both their parts.  Ha Na counters that survival comes before fashion, but Joon then smugly says that clothes are expensive because they’re stylish and keep him warm.  He then asks her why she’s not going, which causes Ha Na to glare at him once more.

As they get further into the woods, Joon is visibly struggling and asks Ha Na how much longer it’s going to take.  She tells him they have to go a further in and smirks at him, asking if he’s cold.  He obviously can’t say yes and Ha Na says that his expensive brand name clothes must be protecting him.  He then stumbles in the snow and she laughs at him, but denies it when he glares at her.

They reach the place where Ha Na saw the “Diamond Snow” but she tells him that it only appears when the sun rises.  Joon gets mad and asks what they’re going to do until then, but Ha Na just happily says they just have to wait.  He then glares at her and tells her to “take it off”.  She’s surprised at the request, but then Joon finally admits he’s cold.  He says he’s an important person, but Ha Na responds that she doesn’t want to because she’s important to herself.  Joon once again resorts to pretending to throw her phone away and she reluctantly parts with one of her inner layers.

Since they have nothing to do, Ha Na tells Joon one of the riddles from her phone.  Joon proposes that if he gets her answers right, she needs to do something for him.  Ha Na at first objects to the idea, she eventually agrees as she’s confident that he won’t get the answers.  Of course, he already looked up all the answers earlier so I hope she’s not partial to that coat of hers that Joon’s out to take.  She starts telling her riddles, but Joon answers them almost before she can finish telling them. Ha Na realizes that he’s read them from her phone and complains that he’s cheating, but Joon says that she never said that wasn’t allowed.

Joon then holds up his hand and Ha Na complains about why she should have to hold it.  Joon scoffs at her and tells her that he doesn’t even see her as a girl and that his nickname is “3-second pickup”.  She scoffs back at him, but eventually agrees to do it and sticks both their hands in her pocket.  Ha Na then asks him what he does for a living and he tells her that he’s a photographer.  Joon then asks her why she didn’t want to see the “Diamond Snow” with him and she tells her about the legend of how couples who see the “Diamond Snow” will fall in love.  However, both of them are convinced it’s not going to happen.  Ha Na then takes his hand out of her pocket and says he must be warm enough already.

Since once again he has nothing else to do, Joon asks Ha Na who she wanted to see the “Diamond Snow” with since she labeled the folder it was in “with love”.  She’s indignant about him seeing the folder and tries to fight him for the phone.  As they do, though, Joon falls through the snow and ends up waist deep in it.  He angrily tells her if he gets hurt and can’t take pictures, she’s going to pay.  Ha Na hold out her hand to help him out, but then pulls it back and asks for her phone back.  Joon thinks she’s just going to run away when she gets it back, but she retorts if she looks like the type to do that.  Joon has no choice and gives her the phone and asks Ha Na to pull him out.  She just smiles at him and says that she’ll tell someone down below to save him and runs off.  LOL, I definitely like this girl.

Joon eventually digs himself out and goes looking for her.  When he does find her, he starts yelling but hears her exclaim “Diamond Snow”.  He follows her gaze and immediately pulls out his camera to take pictures.  As he does, just like his dad with Yoon Hee, he starts to take pictures of Ha Na.  When she catches him, he tells her that she was just part of the scenery.  Joon then says she should be honored to see the “Diamond Snow” with him and she just rolls her eyes at him.  Ha Na is happy to see the “Diamond Snow” again though and pulls out her phone to take another video.

As they go back to the car, Ha Na is in a good mood, but Joon looks a little worse for wear.  She says he must really be a photographer and compliments him, saying that he looked pretty good while taking pictures.  She then notices that Joon is shivering quite a bit and gets worried.  He’s in no condition to drive and even has a fever so she’s forced to drive.  On their way back though, they run out of gas.  Joon then demands her phone back so he can call for help, and Ha Na reluctantly agrees. As he’s calling though, she notices a sign for hot springs.

Back at Joon’s room, his assistant wakes up from sleeping on the couch and notices Joon’s phone ringing.  Joon’s assistant sees the name on the caller ID and immediately picks up.  The person on the other end of the phone just so happens to be the older In Ha calling for his son because he heard he was in Japan as well.  As his assistant wonders if a ghost really got Joon, the phone rings again and this time it’s Joon.

Meanwhile, Ha Na leads Joon to the hot spring and tells him he can just get undressed anywhere and get in because it’s free.  He tells her to go in too, prompting her to close up her jacket and call him crazy.  Joon scoffs and says she has nothing to hide before ambling towards a place to change.  He tells her to hold up the blanket to hide him and Ha Na shoot back that he has nothing to hide either.  Joon says he has plenty to hide and Ha Na jokingly peeks over the blanket to look, causing him to glare at her.

Now that Joon is in the hot spring, he asks Ha Na how she knew about this place.  Ha Na says she remembered seeing this place during her training, which prompts him to ask what her major was.  After she tells him it was gardening, Joon tells Ha Na to get his camera for him.  She doesn’t understand why he keeps bossing her around and glances at her phone near his hand and remembers why.

As Joon is busy taking pictures, Ha Na sneakily goes for her phone.  He sees her just before she can grab it and reaches for it at the same time, causing both her and the phone to fall into the water.  Ha Na quickly finds her phone, but the damage is done and it’s not working anymore.  Joon also checks his camera and is relieved that nothing happened to it.  As she cries about how someone was supposed to call her today, Joon does apologize but is clearly more concerned about his camera.

We then cut back to old In Ha who is conducting an interview.  After he’s done, his assistant tells him that a Korean exchange student wants to meet with him if he has time this afternoon.  Gee, wonder who that student could be.  In Ha thinks about it for a second and agrees.

Back at the hot spring, Ha Na is still crying about her phone when Joon asks her whose call she was expecting.  She just glares at him and says nothing though.  Joon then asks her if she’s scared of him because he can pick up girls in just three seconds.  Ha Na doesn’t believe him, but Joon insists it’s true.  He then starts into a modified version of how he doesn’t believe in love because of how his father never got over his first love.  After he finishes, he counts down three seconds and expects to see hearts shooting out of Ha Na’s eyes, but she just blankly stares at him and asks what he’s doing.  He then explains why this method usually works and asks her why she thinks the word “first” is so important to girls.

Now it’s Ha Na’s turn.  She inches closer to him and tells him how her mom never got over her first love either, but said that the memories made her happy.  She then says that she wants to be able to love like that too.  Ha Na then turns to Joon and counts down three seconds and asks if that’s how it’s done.  Joon, who looks like he actually has fallen for her, then suddenly hugs her and tells her to wait a moment, but she pushes him away.  He stutters again about how he’s never felt this way before, but covers himself saying that he just fell for the line and not her.  He then looks at her and slowly goes in for a kiss as the episode ends.

Final Thoughts

I’m so glad we’re finally in the present day and Jang Geun Suk and Yoona’s characters aren’t so incredibly dull.  He’s clearly channeling some of Hwang Tae Kyung character from You’re Beautiful, and Yoona seems to be using her own personal playfulness in her character.  At any rate, I really enjoyed watching them bicker with each other and saw much more of a spark between these two than I did with In Ha and Yoon Hee.

I also liked their placement of all the references to the past arc.  Joon’s 3 seconds to make a girl fall for him rep, his line about his dad never getting over his first love, Ha Na’s spin on the same story, all of it made me feel like I knew about an inside joke and had me connect to their characters like I would with a friend that I shared that joke with.

All in all, this episode is everything I could’ve hoped for to kick off the new arc and along with the last episode has renewed my interest in the series.

Special Bonus: As soon as I heard “Diamond Snow”, a song that I haven’t listened to in ages popped into my head: Changin’ My Life’s “Eternal Snow”, Diamond Dust remix from the anime Full Moon Wo Sagashitte.  Good anime and a good song.