Kdrama Review: Damo (2003)

Damo
조선 여형사 다모
6/10

You know when you start watching some epic drama, and it's taking too long to get to all the good parts, and you just want something vaguely similar, with more action and romance? That's me while watching Shin Don, and that's why I decided to Damo. The first is all political and totally without ornamentation (aka, no fluff). The second is all fluff and more love. And action sequences: the, scaling-rooftops, flying-through-trees, blades-all-a-blur-and-quite-bloody type of action scenes. Yeah, it was just what I was craving. I refuse to say it was a great drama, but at 14 episodes it was more than right for a spur of the moment marathon, and quite enjoyable.

The Plot

Our story is quite modern, despite it's sageuk feel - In fact, Damo is hailed as one of the first fusion sageuks out there. Ha Ji Won is Chae Ok, a slave girl attached to a Joseon era police department. Her social position is as a damo, literally "tea servant," but whose job is more indicative of a female detective. Thanks to a cruel past - born to a noble family until her father was accused of treason - she's since followed around a brother/lover type figure from the family she was sold to. Commander Yoon (Lee Seo Jin) is her employer, friend, family, and reason for living now. Until the police uncover a crippling conspiracy, and moral ethics demand they investigate. But what lies underneath the relatively innocuous counterfeiting ring comes a whole new dragon, in the form of rebel leader Jang Sung Baek (Kim Min Joon). And then some...

No bromance, unfortunately -- Just a lot of testosterone. 

Uhm, what else should I say? It's a sageuk detective drama. It's also very much a Kdrama, and the story is built with almost exactly similar tropes: love triangle, secrets, suspense, a love triangle, conspiracies, evil old sageuk dudes, noble heroes fighting for some very vague cause.. did I mention there's something weird about that love triangle...? *ahem*

Read on for my short non-spoilery account of  the Highs and Lows of Damo. 

Kdrama Review: Jang Ok Jung: Live in Love (2013)

Jang Ok Jang, Live in Love
장옥정, 사랑에 살다
7/10 ♥

I’m not a huge sageuk fan, nor have I been entranced by or enticed to watch too many fusion sageuks of late, which is a tiny bit surprising considering I was a history major and 70% of the books on my shelf are historical non-fiction. It’s not that I don’t like watching history unfold on the small screen, but in my youth I spent a great amount of time reading historical fiction. Unfortunately, I was a huge fan of medieval European history at the time, and the majority of fiction about that era is written by women for women, which means that your heroines were almost always the same. 

You can get:

1. Royal women who are badgered and pestered by men whether or not they make good marriages, 
2. Minor noblewomen who by chance get to interact with (male) greatness, or
3. Mistresses, the latter of which is usually the most depressing and utterly exhaustive subject of storytelling. 

I got so burned out by the genre that I haven’t touched historical fiction in nearly a decade.

Bring it on Jang Ok Jung, concubine of an age! I wasn’t going to watch this one, I swear. But something about its pitch got a hold of me. I love a good ‘what if?’ historical retelling. What if, Jang Ok Jung (posthumously known as Jang Hui-bin) wasn’t the evil, conniving woman that history paints her as? What if she wasn’t totally about greed and power. What if it really was all about love between Lee Soon and herself, to hell with all else…?

Pshh.. This is well documented Korean history.

But that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be more to the story than history has to say. Or that the inner motivations of these highly visible personages were ever truly known by more than themselves or a few other people.

In other words, history always gives us this much leeway to make a romance out of nothing. If you want to approach Jang Ok Jung, Live in Love as infallible history, don’t. But if you’re in the mood for a sweeping epic love story set in historical period based more or less on real people– this might be a good drama for you.

We’re certainly not working with highbrow historical revisionism here, so I’m going to just go ahead and review it as historical fiction. The 2013 drama Jang Ok Jung, Live in Love is based off a 2008 novel of the same name by Choi Jung Mi. It’s basically chick lit, so don’t say you weren’t warned. In our drama version, Kim Tae Hee plays the titular role, and her lover is none other than Yoo Ah In who is finally back in hanbok (Thank you Drama Overlords! Thank you!) as the Crown Prince Lee Soon and later King Sukjong.

More mostly-non-Spoilery thoughts on Joseon History, the fictional world of Jang Ok Jung, and why it almost works.

Kdrama Review: Seoul's Sad Song (2007)



Seoul’s Sad Song/Conspiracy in the Court

한성별곡
5/10

I must say, I was really looking forward to this drama.  Hearing it win great acclaim amongst a cultish following (despite the low ratings when it was on air), and I was rearing to go.  Plus, it was short! Only 8 episodes long.  Seemed like a quick boost for my dwindling drama-watching habits.  For a quick recap, I’ve only managed to complete some extremely light K-drama entertainment of late (Flower Boy Ramyun Shop and Full House Take 2), and the endlessly long Flames of Desire is fantastic, but highly un-marathonable.  

This is where fusion-sageuk-thriller Seoul’s Sad Song was supposed to come in and save the day.  Only, it didn’t.  What on earth happened!?

First I was lost in the history of the era.  I’m a history graduate though, so that’s never really stopped me before.  Quick Wikipedia checklist of the drama’s main overarching political period? Check.  Okay, then they lost me with the economics of era.  Mercantile affairs, and the political ramifications of possibly re-locating the capital?  I guess I can sort of see how that could affect things.  The problem with the drama’s plot-line however, is that all these threads (politics, and history and economics  are interwoven with great, gaping thread lines around the show’s main “conspiracy” plot, and haphazardly intermingled with the love triangle/square.  I mean, I know Seoul in historical times was small, and everyone who’s anyone probably knows everyone worth knowing, but me, the viewer, had no idea who anybody was, or which side they were on.  For an 8 episode drama, there was so much going on that I basically couldn’t keep up with my list of who’s who. 

At least I figured out who these guys were... by the end of episode 1.

I think Seoul’s Sad Song was hinting at some loftier aspirations:  namely, that not every sageuk drama out there is just about the king and his ministers.  The welfare of the Joseon people, the advancement of well-deserving baseborn officials, and the dreams of these types of people also matter and can make a difference.  Unfortunately, all this was lost on me.  For a conspiracy driven thriller, this whodunit story was chock full of inspirational back stories (that should have warmed me to the characters), chilling twists (that moved me to boredom), and enough metaphorical court language that literally drove me to tears. The following example comes right as a BIG revelation surrounding the king’s secret will has just been unveiled: 

A : “When the wintry gales swelter us, he said that brushes would be swayed by the wind.”

B: “So… did you find any unyielding brushes?”

A: “In the palace, there was not a single one left.”

C: “You insolent slattern! How dare you mutter such insidious drivel!?”

You insolent writers, how dare you not write more clearly!?!

Maybe I’m lazy, or just plain incompetent, but everything in this drama seemed wasted on me. Though, if there’s anything I’ve learned from watching this sageuk (and others for that matter), it’s that women in the palace are more to be feared than the men.  Also, by the state of the practically non-existent but completely soundproof-less walls on traditional Korean homes (of rich and poor alike), it’s amazing that any secrets are ever kept. 

Did I say I hated everything about this drama? Well, it wasn’t all bad. The scenery was nice, I sincerely liked parts of the OST, and this dude below was fun to watch as well.  Oh, he’s no big character; just a henchman who followed around after his master, brandishing his sword at each enemy to cross his path.  Maybe I liked him, because unlike everyone else, he rarely spoke more than two words, so he never had anything to confuse me about.  

Glare at me all you want, just please, don't speak and ruin all of my fantasies.