Review on Korean Drama: Jewel in the Palace (2003)

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.

Review on Korean Movie: Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005)

Title: Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (2005)

Genre: Drama, Action

Duration: 1 hr 58mins

Directed by: Chan Wook Park

Cast:

Lee Young-ae as Lee Geum Ja

Choi Min-sik as Mr Baek

Kwon Yea-young as Jenny

Kim Shi-hu as Geun-shik

Synopsis:

The nation was shook with the news of a young boy of 5 who was kidnapped and killed senselessly.  It was disturbing though that the alleged kidnapper is a young, beautiful woman, who looked like an angel but showed no signs of remorse for the crime she committed.  When she confessed to the crime, even the detective investigating the crime did not believe her but felt that she had a strong reason to confess to the crime she did not commit.  13 years later, she is released from prison and she immediately goes into action for the culmination of the revenge she planned for 13 years.  While inside prison, she was consumed by her plan for revenge and did everything necessary to achieve her goal even donating kidney to her inmate and killing the bull-dyke which has made a sex slave of her inmate.  She was later on dubbed as the witch which was kind hearted and everyone was more than happy to oblige to her requests including one woman who marries Mr Baek as part of Geum Ja's plan.

It would later on be revealed that her daughter was kidnapped by Mr Baek, a private school teacher, to force her to confess to the crime.  She later on discovers that her daughter, Jenny, was adopted by foreigners and was brought to Australia.  She visits her daughter in Australia and although wanting to be with her, Geum ja knows that she has to leave her behind since she still has some unfinished business to do in Seoul.  Unfortunately, Jenny wanted to go to Korea with her and convinces her adoptive parents to allow her to go with Geum Ja. 

While the mother-daughter bond becomes deeper, her plan for revenge is set to full gear.  It became evident though that Mr Baek was aware of her plans and sent two thugs to kidnap Geum Ja and attack his wife, who was a former inmate of Geum Ja.  Thereafter, Geum Ja kills both thugs and binds Mr Baek who was knocked unconscious by the drug given to him by his wife. 

The next scene shows Geum Ja eager to take her revenge yet hesitant to kill Mr Baek but then discovers the his cell phone is decorated by several children's toys including the favourite marble of the boy Geum Ja supposedly kidnapped and killed.  She was devastated by the discovery so she calls on the previous detective who handled her case$, feeling more burdened by the fact that she inadvertently aided Mr Baek because she confessed to the crime and allowed him to be free to kidnap those other kids and kill them.  The police was then led to discover the bodies of the kidnapped children who were all killed by Mr Baek.  Rummaging through his things, Geum Ja discovers that Mr Baek filmed the killing of each child he kidnaps and kept them for his record.  She then decides to involve the family of each kidnapped child and shows them the painful film of how their children pleaded and were killed. 

It brought me to tears when she showed how each child pleaded and was killed without remorse.  It showed the pain of each family as they watched their child killed before their eyes making them filled with renewed hatred.  Geum Ja then gives them the option of either turning him over to the authorities or to take the matter with their own hands.  As they were discussing each course of action, the film showed that Geum Ja has setup a speaker in the room so that Mr Baek could hear everything they were discussing in the other room.  The film also showed that although each family were filled with deep hatred initially, they also hesitated a bit when they were really confronted with the issue of exacting their vengeance but they each were able to overcome the hesitation and goes for the kill. After which a picture of everyone was taken and they buried his body together with the weapons they used to kill him.

Even after she has exacted her revenge, the movie showed that she was still filled with remorse and confusion until she meets with her daughter on the road.  She tells Jenny to live white and Jenny in turn tells her to live whiter. 

This film was unbelievably, showed genuine human emotions and forced me to meditate on the issues at hand including the morality of revenge, of forgiveness, atonement and remorse.  As each of us would like to lead a life that is white and pure, how would you be able to forgive a man who killed children without remorse and let him live another day?

I give this 9 out of 10 stars.