The Village: Achiara’s Secret: Crime and Mystery K-Drama

“The Village: Achiara’s Secret” is a crime and mystery Korean drama series released in 2015. It has 16 episodes and each episode keeps you engaged until The End.

This K-drama series is categorized as Horror, Romantic Comedy, Thriller, and Suspense. It was likely placed in the Horror genre because there were ghost appearances. However, there was hardly any romance or comedy. Thriller and Suspense, along with Crime and Mystery, are more accurate genres.

PLOT SUMMARY:

In “The Village: Achiara’s Secret”, a serial rapist and murderer (SRM) has evaded capture by the police for 30 years. Han So-Yoon, a young English teacher receives an anonymous letter regarding a sister she thought was dead. She relocates from Canada to Achiara, a small village in Korea, to find her sister, Kim Hye-Jin. Shortly after arriving, she accidentally discovers her sister’s skeletal remains. It is clear her sister died a violent death.

• Law enforcement officials think she may have been a victim of the SRM they have been trying to capture.
• Political officials have an agenda and a “secret”. They want to promote Achiara as a quiet tourist-friendly crime-free village. One specific politician has a “secret” that could cause him to lose an election. So he pressures the police chief to quickly close Kim Hye-Jin’s case as an accidental death.
• Han So-Yoon does not believe her sister was an SRM victim, nor does she believe her death was accidental. She is determined to find out who brutally murdered her sister and why. But the more she tries to uncover the truth, the more people of the village try to hide Achiara’s Secret.

Why Move From Canada to Achiara?

Han So-Yoon’s parents died in a tragic car accident when she was five (5) years old. Her grandmother raised her in Canada. She has fond memories of living in Korea with her parents and her older sister. But she was told that her sister had also died in the accident. Imagine her shock when she received an anonymous letter from someone in Achiara mentioning the sister she thought had died. If that wasn’t enough she found a clipping of a newspaper article in her deceased grandmother’s documents that said her entire family died, including her. Clearly, she was alive. Why did the news report say that she was dead?

There was a job opening for an English teacher at a high school in Achiara, and Han So-Yoon was selected to fill the position. The two incidents – the letter and the job – seemed to be coincidental. That was just the beginning of “seeming coincidences”.

Does One Coincidence Lead to Another?

The apartment she rented was beautifully furnished. Her neighbor greeted her by saying that the previous occupant disappeared without a trace.  She hopes that doesn’t happen to her too.  Later on, Han So-Yoon found out that she was now living in the same apartment her sister had lived in. Another coincidence?

One day on a field trip with the students, she stumbled upon a woman’s skeletal remains in the woods. She was heartbroken when it was revealed that the bones were the remains of her sister. Another coincidence?

• First, the anonymous letter about a sister she thought had died;
• Second, she moved to take a teaching job in the same village where her sister had moved to work as a teacher;
• Third, the apartment she leases is the same apartment where her sister lived;
• Now … the sister she thought had died, but hoped might be alive, is in fact, dead!

These can’t all be coincidences.

Missing for Two Years and Nobody Asked?

The coroner said Kim Hye-Jin’s body had been buried for at least two (2) years. Two years? In such a small village where everybody knows everybody, her sister had been missing for two years and nobody asked about her? WHY?

Why nobody even looked for her sister was Han So-Yoon’s first question. As she began to investigate her sister’s death, there were more and more questions.

• Why did her sister even move from Seoul, a bustling capital city, to a small rural village like Achiara?
• If Han So-Yoon had memories of her sister, did her sister remember her too? Did her sister try to find her?
• Who sent her the letter about her sister? Did they know she had been murdered?
• If her sister did not die at the hands of a serial rapist and murderer, then who killed her and why?
• Once the villagers realized that she was the murdered woman’s sister, why did they try to make her leave the village, instead of trying to uncover the truth?

Covering Up a Crime Does Not Erase It

With each episode in “The Village: Achiara’s Secret”, more and more questions get asked. However, slowly but surely, Han So-Yoon begins to find answers and unravel the mystery of crimes that investigators had been trying to solve for 30 years, along with other crimes, including her sister’s murder. It was a very intricate web. Besides the fact that she was not a law enforcement professional, trying to solve the mystery surrounding her sister’s murder was complicated by two different groups of people.

(1) There were those who wanted to keep “secret” certain things they had done to protect their so-called good reputation. Their acts may not have been criminal, but they were certainly shameful and disgusting. In the process of exposing the criminal, Han So-Yoon might also expose them.

(2) There were those who were victims and they wanted to hide what happened to them. They did want to reveal the criminals because others would know that they were victims of the crime. It’s not right, but people often treat the victims like they’re the criminals. In the process of bringing the criminal to justice, the victims would have to remember or relive the terror. They did not do anything shameful, but they still feel ashamed. In a small village like Achiara, it was better to keep their “secret”.

But covering up a crime doesn’t make it go away. Han So-Yoon wanted to know the truth, even if it uncovered facts about her sister (or others) that were shameful and painful.

Main Characters:

• Han So-Yoon played by Moon Geun-Young (“Hellbound 2”)

• Park Woo-Jae played by Yook Sung-Jae
• Yoon Ji-Sook played by Shin Eun-Kyung
• Kim Hye-Jin played by Jang Hee-Jin
• Seo Gi-Hyun played by On Joo-Wan
• Seo Yoo-Na played by Ahn Seo-Hyun

Where to Watch

Viewership and Rating:

• IMDb Rating: 7.0 out of 10 stars
• My Drama List: 7.8 out of 10 stars
• Viki viewers rated this series 9.1 out of 10 stars

My personal rating is 8 out of 10 stars. One star was deducted because the OST (original soundtrack) was not memorable. Another star was deducted because the appearances of Kim Hye-Jin’s ghost were not all that believable and compelling. In other words, it did not add to the thrills or suspense.

For the most part, it was a very interesting crime and mystery TV show. However, there is one point that this series made perfectly clear. If the rating was based solely on that point, the series would get 10 out of 10 stars. The point “The Village: Achiara’s Secret” makes loud and clear is: A BABY IS NOT A MONSTER!! No matter how messed up and montrous a person becomes when they grow up, they did not start their life that way. A child should never be made to believe that they are monsters.

TRAILERS/TEASERS:

Dramaland. ““The Village: Achiara’s Secret” New Korean Drama 2015.” YouTube, 24 Sept. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbVuIziwrbM. Accessed 24 Oct. 2023.