Title: Jewel in the Palace
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Period Drama, Action
Duration: 70 episodes
Cast:
Lee Young Ae as Seo Jang-geum
Ji Jin Hee as Min Jung Ho
Hong Ri Na as Choi Keum Young
Yang Mi Kyung as Lady Han
Im Ho as King Jung Jong
Park Jeong Su as Queen Munjeong
Choi Ja Hye as Chang Ee
Yeo Woo Gye as Lady Jeong
Synopsis:
A palace may be a place of wonderful promises and the show started by showing the power play in the palace and how dirty politics can be. It showed how the King was manipulated to give the order of poisoning the queen. Before the queen drank the poison, she swore that everyone involved in her death will be paid in full. The soldier who gave her the poison was so disturbed by the queen’s death that he fell on a cliff and was rescued by a wise, elderly man who told him that his fate is determined by three women. One of them, he already met, the second one he would save but she would later die because of him and the third would kill him but she would save many lives.
On the other hand, one of the palace girls (Lady Jeong) reported to the authorities how she saw one of the maids put poison on the food she was making. Unfortunately, she didn’t realize that she unintentionally got involved in the dirty scheme of politics and as a result, the maid was framed and was secretly forced to drink poison. Due to circumstances, the girl does not die and was saved by the palace guard who was planning to escape so as not to meet the women that the old man told him.
After rescuing the young girl, the soldier fell in love with her and he accepted his fate. Both of them chose to settle on a faraway place and live inconspicuous lives as ordinary pheasants. Their union brought Jaeng-gum who is an intelligent, morally upright, courageous, and has an insatiable thirst for knowledge.
Jaeng-gum starts as a palace girl after her father was sentenced to die and her mom was killed by the men pursuing them. It quickly became apparent that Jaeng-gum has the gift for cooking and can “draw out the flavour” when she cooks. Because she is excellent, she draws a lot of attention which brings her a lot of trouble, one of which was when she was ordered to go to the royal herb garden which is synonymous to being abandoned. She decides to deal with her situation with perseverance and was able to achieve growing of a rare Chinese herb. Because of her achievement, she was allowed to go back to the palace just in time to take the qualifying exam for palace girls. Because of her resourcefulness, the queen overrides the verdict of kicking her out of the palace for not following the rules of the exam (her flour was stolen so she had to resort to other means).
Jaeng-gum’s stay in the palace is a never ending struggle and overcoming seemingly impossible odds. People who are threatened by her mere existence tried everything possible. They came up with some tramp-up charge which eventually kills Lady Han and got her to be deported to a remote island where she meets a female doctor who takes her in as a disciple.
Amidst all the struggles, Jaeng-gum always thinks about the wishes of her mother and this fuels her desire to stay in the palace and excel. On several occasions, she has gambled even with her life which sparks interest from the royal family until she is recognized to be someone with excellent skills, intelligence, unfathomable courage, perseverance and dignity.
From the royal kitchen to the royal hospital, Jaeng-gum blazes a path that eventually lifts the image of women in a patriarchal society. It’s a story of lies, webs of deceit, ambition and also of never ending struggle, courage, honor, love and truth.
Review:
It definitely is one of the well-rounded, well-written, and well-thought of show with a great cast and wonderful costume design. What I hate about some of the periodical dramas is that the costumes can sometimes be too distracting (like in Jumong where every one of the cast has a color assigned to them). There was a smooth transition from one episode to another and even though the show was very long, it didn’t feel like it was prolonged just for the sake of making it long. Everything seems to be in the right place and the acting was just great.
I love it that Jaeng-gum gives the never say die attitude and perseveres even at the cost of her life. She seems to give the air of someone concocting magic when she is cooking and one would feel that the dish would definitely turn out to be something unexpected.
She has one of the loveliest faces and her character shows a balance of strength, courage, perseverance...virtues a heroine should always possess. She always goes the extra mile whenever she does anything and gives all her heart and passion into her work.
Jung Ho is probably the kind of man every girl dreams of. Intelligent, kind, sincere, brave and is always putting Jaeng-gum first in everything he does. For his love, he could abandon everything. For his love, he could leave her behind. I love that he never hesitated to consider how it would affect him but would only be concerned about Jaeng-gum’s safety and happiness. He knows that Jaeng-gum plays a vital role in history(as being the first female physician of the king) and for her to fulfil her role, he quietly supported her and accepted when the king ordered him to go away.
This is probably one of the best shows ever done and I would definitely give this a 10 out of 10 stars. This is definitely a classic.
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