What are the sageuk casting directors on this year, anyway?

Yesterday I watched the first episode of the 2008 series Iljimae and noticed that the child versions of the leads were played by Yeo Jin Goo and Kim Yoo Jung, who reunited 4 years later to play the child versions of the leads in The Moon Embracing the Sun. They were 10 and 8, I think, when making Iljimae and are so tiny and earnest and in danger of being devoured alive by their costumes that you could actually expire from the cuteness. I knew YJG was in The Royal Gambler since I watched some of it, but was curious about what KYJ was up to. And found out that KYH, who is currently 16, has an upcoming sageuk, Moonlight Drawn By Clouds, in which she's apparently being romantically paired with 22 year old Park Bo Gum.Who is playing a historical figure who actually died at 20.) Much worse is Mirror of the Witch, in which 15 year old Kim Sae Ron is paired with 29 year old Yoon Shi Yoon.

In The Royal Gambler, I was doing a lot of sideeyeing over that fact that I was expected to believe that YJG's character is only a year younger than the character played by 28 year old Jang Geun Suk, and was involved in a love triangle with 25 year old Lim Ji Yeon (who, like YJG, plays a character pretty close to her actual age), though I wasn't overly worried as JGS/LJY was clearly the Official Pairing. What's going on in MDBC and MotW is a whole other matter.

KYJ is a very talented actress and I'm told KSR is too, though I haven't seen her in anything, and while I fully support giving young actresses good roles, I know for a fact that there are plenty of good actresses who know their ways around a sageuk who are in the early to mid-20s range. If they had their hearts set on these particular actresses, then there are also perfectly decent actors in the 16-20 range. Granted, the legal age of consent in South Korea is 13, and large age differences in actors isn't too unusual in sageuks, but it's usually a case of an actress in her early or mid-20s being paired with an actor in his 30s (there seems to be less of this in recent years, though, with the Flower Boy craze hitting sageuks), not someone who's too young to legally drive almost anywhere outside of North America being paired with someone much older than her.

(As far as the dramas themselves go...I lost interest in TRG, and MDBC was like Hwarang, where my watching would largely depend on my schedule once it starts, and if there are more women than it currently looks like. MotW is one I REALLY look forward too, plotwise, but I was always leery of the casting, though I didn't realize how big the age difference was until after the first trailer came out, so it will depend on what wins out once it starts.)

(no subject)

I have largely enjoyed Indian Summers, the Channel 4 series about the last year's of the British Raj, but with enough reservations* that it isn't something I would widely recommend so much as give my input if someone asked about it. I've had problems with season 2 in general, largely in that there's a marked increase in violence towards women. Nowhere near the levels of certain other shows, but still.



The latest episode found my limit, though, and that limit is one of the main characters guilt trip his wife into letting a sleezeball rape her while pretending he's trying to protect her, all to get a recommendation for a job he only wants because his father said he should.



I'd say "sorry for spoiling any followers who watch," but some spoilers are a public service.



Apparently it was just announced that the series is officially cancelled, which would have left me disappointed a week ago, but not anymore.



*Mostly: it tries, and it seems aware of issues that plague most US and British fiction about the period, but it can't shake off the nostalgia enough, and with the exception of Aafrin and Sooni, it's clearly much much interested in the British characters as a whole than the Indian ones. There's also the huge issue of Aafrin's Indian love interests ultimately being proven treacherous and the very virtuous, blonde and white Alice being held up as the superior romantic option. (Please note that I say that having much fondness for Alice and generally liking Alice/Aafrin, but that doesn't make the treatment of Aafrin's other love interests any less problematic.)