kdrama: Dae Jang Geum eps 1-6

[meganbmoore]

Set in the Joseon era, Dae Jang Geum is about Jang Geum, mentioned in Annals of the Joseon Dynasty as the first (only?) female royal doctor in Korean history. Since there are only a few mentions of her, and nothing is known of her personal life, much of the drama is fictionalized.

Jang Geum is the daughter of a guard who was part of the group sent to assassinate the exiled Queen Yun, and who later goes into hiding when her son becomes king and declares everyone involved in his mother’s death to be a criminal, and a court lady who is framed after discovering a plot against the queen. The two live as peasants and raise their daughter as such for almost 10 years, but when Jang Geum reveals her father’s history, not knowing the danger, he’s dragged off for execution, and her mother dies as a result soon after, but only after telling her daughter to become the highest kitchen lady and record her story in the secret text that’s passed down. Later, Jang Geum has the opportunity to enter the palace after being adopted by a family who sells wine to the palace, and being asked to pass on a message that’s helps put the new king in power. Eventually, she comes under the care of Lady Han, the woman who helped her mother escape, though neither knows of the connection yet.

Hmm…that was a lot of kings. Ok, the first king is the father of the other two kings. No idea what kind of king he was. He exiled his wife and later ordered her to be assassinated, but I have no idea what led to that. I understand, though, that he’s the titular king in The King and I, which I’m sure I’ll watch eventually. The second king was his oldest son. Since he was kind of nuts and ordered oodles of people killed and their families enslaved due to a personal (but understandable) vendetta, there was a conspiracy to off him and put his bother in power. It worked, and said brother seems perfectly nice, and here for the duration. This is all pretty much background information.

A lot of the plot in the first episode could have been cut out, though I suppose it helped set up the politics of the series. The first two episodes largely serve to set up the political background of the series, and episodes 3-5 establish the kitchen politics, which are surprisingly interesting. Those episodes are also devoted to attempting to kill the audience with the cuteness of little girls in hanboks running around and holding each others hands. It’s almost at the level of Damo’s Childhood Piggyback Rides of True Love in terms of cuteness. Almost. But these little girls are probably not going to grow up and have Epic Angsty Doomed Forbidden True Love visualized by swordfights in the rain and snow. Well, I’m pretty sure they won’t anyway. Maybe. Anyway, the main story doesn’t kick off until episode 6, when Jang Geum is grown.

It isn’t as immediately engrossing for me as Damo, Emperor of the Sea, and Hwang Jin Yi were, but I like the politics and how they’re shown through kitchen life, and how seemingly mundane, everyday things are an important focus, and even convincingly dramatic. For example, the focus of episode 6 is that the golden pheasant intended for the king’s birthday feast goes missing, so Jang Geum helps her friend, Keum Young sneak out of the palace to try to find a new one. It’s illegal for court ladies to leave the palace without permission, and the two separate in their search. This is the main focus of the episode. Well, that and Jang Geum meeting the man who I assume will be her eventual love interest. He saves her from harassment and she later risks missing her chance to get back into the palace to save him from an assassin’s poison, and he gets the “Lookit my martial arts skillz!” scene. Plus, there are all the beautiful visuals (landscape, architecture, clothing…) and all the food pr0n.

So far, I like Jang Geum, but am not as interested in her as I’d like to be. I think I have the same problem as I did with Dam-Duk in Legend (who I do like, lest anyone misunderstand), which is that the character was pretty much perfect, with the flaws there largely to make them look better in the long run, as opposed to being real character flaws. Like Ho Gae in Legend, I’m more interested in Keum Young, the friend who will obviously eventually become Jang Geum’s rival due to the politics of the court, and ambitions of Keum Young’s family.

Also, I really hope that that food is as good as it looks. There are some characters, like the king’s taste testers, who only show up in scenes where they eat, and I think the king also eats in most of his scenes.

I anticipate more shounen-style cooking battles and setting aside of differences to work together and save the world prevent any kitchen disasters that risk upsetting the king, and so threatening all of Korea.

Comments

[marspeach.livejournal.com]

I'm interested in watching this drama but I'm apprehensive about the length.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Emperor of the Sea managed to pull off the 50+ episode length, so we'll see.

[troisroyaumes]

I think Janggeum gets more interesting when she starts training to be a physician. But Geumyoung is definitely a wonderful character in her own right.

Re: the historical background: there are only two kings in the Joseon dynasty that are not called posthumously by the title "king" (wang) because they were considered so terrible, and one of them is the elder son that you mention in this post, who's responsible for Janggeum's father's death. It's this same elder son, who goes mad, who is the protagonist of the movie, The King and the Clown; I don't know if you've seen that or not. He's called Yeonsan-gun, with the -gun being an ending for a royal prince. It's said that the main trigger for his insanity was due to the fact that his mother, the queen, was poisoned for intriguing against the king's concubines and for having too much political power. (This happens over and over again in Korean history.) She was initially exiled for striking the king's face. It's such a big, big event in Korean history--the only other historical scandal that tops it, in my opinion, would be Prince Sado's execution. I guess this part of the story probably does seem a little boring if you don't have any context for it, but it sort of establishes from the start that Janggeum has always been tied to major political events, and it makes the whole series interesting because when it came out, it was one of the few historical dramas that started focusing not on the nobles that participated in major historical events, but the servants who got entangled in them and are not remembered by history.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Actually, I loved the scene with the queen. It was after that where Jang Geum's father was wandering around angsting that bored me. I think I actually do have The King and the Clown around somewhere.

[troisroyaumes]

Oh, that's true, I found that boring too, though I guess I blocked it out of my memory as uninteresting. ^_^

[anime-babble.livejournal.com]

I couldn't attempt this drama due to the long length. Maybe later on...I'd like to see it if only because this was the drama that really seemed to kick off the korean wave.

My parents loved it and my sister thought Jang Geum was a big Mary Sue. It'll be interesting to hear your opinion on it.