Time to let the tension and angst reign again, as we head
into a drama which promotional tag line likens it to Shakespeare’s “The
Tragedy of Romeo & Juliet”.
Sigh. Well, we all know how this
drama is gonna turn out, right? This
brings us to KBS’s 2011 drama- The Princess’ Man.
So as the tale of Romeo and Juliet goes there are two
households both alike in dignity, but rather than fair Verona, we lay our scene
in Joseon era Korea. So, welcome to
sageuk land again my friends. This drama
was unique for me, because even though the supporting characters were based on
real historical figures, the main characters are completely fictional. It is an imagined love story between
fictional characters, placed in a real historical setting. Cool,
don’t you think? I have to admit I enjoy how they arranged that. While it’s true that all of the sageuks based
on real historical figures are fictional, they are usually based on real events
with the characters. Creating an entire
plot around fictional characters in real historical events really appealed to
me.
Once again, this is a longer review. I think I am starting to get all caught up in
reviewing these things, so forgive the rambling. Here we go.
Oh and as always:
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS
SPOILERS, AVOID IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BE, WELL SPOLIED.
Our opening scene starts with our protagonist Kim Seung Yoo
(Park Shi Hoo) galloping hurriedly
to his father’s residence in pursuit of some attackers. A fight ensues which ends with his father
dead, and Seung Yoo on the verge of death, then through some exquisitely
beautiful cinematography, we are zapped back a year in the past to our female
lead Lee Se Ryung (Moon Chae Won). It is before the two leads have even
met.
Personally, I enjoy dramas that give you a taste of the
impending doom in the future and then zapping you back to before it has
occurred so that you can see how you got there.
It reminds me of a novel, and I love the feeling of following a trail of
clues to reach a conclusion that you already know. Pretty much like a mystery.
Se Ryung is the eldest child of Prince Suyang (Kim Young Chul). For those of you who don’t know any Korean
history, Suyang later becomes King Sejo. He is a tricky character in Korean
history, because he is seen as being a good king, but known as a bad prince. He was younger brother to King Munjong (played
by Jung Dong Hwan), but upon his
brother’s death he set a series of horrific events in place in order to claim
the throne for himself and disinherit his nephew King Danjong (played by No Tae Yub), who was only twelve years
old at the time. These are the series of
events that will be taking place throughout this drama, since as I’ve mentioned
it’s based on real historical events. Anyway, back to this current drama.
Se Ryung is a loving and obedient daughter; for the most part;
however, she enjoys doing unladylike things, such as horse riding, which isn’t
going very well, earning her mother’s disapproval and her father’s smiles at
her braveness. She is the centre of her
father’s world and in turn she adores him.
Meanwhile, awakening in a Giaseng house we find, Seung Yoo. He has just graduated the national academy
and is entering the palace as a royal scholar.
He has an air of confidence and grace that seems to mark him as a
typical Joseon era playboy, but as we will later see from his interactions with
his friends, he is actually just a good friend who accompanies them on their
crazy jaunts.
Seung Yoo is assigned to be Princess’ Kyung Hye’s (Hong Soo Hyun) tutor, since none of the
other senior tutors want to teach her. The
Princess is known for being troublesome and torturing her tutors. Seung Yoo is confident that he can handle a
mere princess and heads off ready to excel at his job. Unknown to him, Se Ryung and Kyung Hye have
decided to switch places for the day. Se
Ryung has overheard that Seung Yoo might possibly become her husband and wants
to meet him. What she fails to note is
that her supposed impending marriage is a ploy on the part of her father, to
turn the king against Seung Yoo’s father, Kim
Jon Seo (Lee Son Jae). Therefore,
the likelihood of a marriage actually occurring between the two is highly
improbably.
Anyway, the princess has agreed to the switch places because
she wants to see the real world outside of the palace walls. Therefore, when Seung Yoo begins his teaching,
the princess before him, is none other than Se Ryung. Luckily, since in this time period no man is
allowed to look upon the princess’ face, there is a screen dividing the room and
Seung Yoo is unable to see her face. Thankfully,
due to K-drama misunderstandings, Seung Yoo thinks that the princess is playing
one of her meddlesome tricks when he sees Se Ryung rubbing her ankle. (We can see that her ankle is bruised from
her fall from the horse, but to him it looks like she is trying to seduce
him). In order to teach her that he is
not afraid of her, Seung Yoo lifts the screen and stares directly at Se Ryung. Of course, she is initially taking aback but
then she decides to confront him and the two have a most delightful
exchange.
Sometime later, after Se Ryung has returned to her life
outside of the palace, she once again attempts to ride a horse; however, she is
unable to control it. She therefore,
finds herself speeding towards a cliff without any ability to stop, but since
it is K-dramaland, thankfully her knight in shining silk, has seen her
precarious position and rescues her in the nick of time. She has to continue to pretend to be the
princess, since it would be a crime for a member of the royal family to
impersonate a princess. Seung Yoo
continues to be impressed with her and the two grow closer.
While these two become closer, their fathers continue their
feud. King Munjong has decided it is
time for his daughter to marry, and declares that Seung Yoo is the best
candidate, since he is after all the son of his most loyal supporter. Seung Yoo is, of course, thrilled at this
idea because he thinks the princess is Se Ryung. To combat Seung Yoo’s impeding rise to Prince
consort, Prince Suyang attempts to have Seung Yoo killed, but ironically his
daughter saves him (although he doesn’t know it’s his daughter). A rumour spreads that Seung Yoo is courting
the princess outside of official channels, which is inappropriate
behaviour. He cannot deny the charge
because he thinks he is dating the princess.
He is obviously surprised when he meets the real princess.
Kyung Hye lies that Se Ryung was simply a palacemaid and
that Seung Yoo no longer be concerned with her.
Then to cover up the entire issue of switching places, she pretends that
she was the one who met Seung Yoo. This
results in him being eliminated from the Prince Consort selection. Now in the back of my mind I am going, well
if they were seeing each other before might as well let them marry, but of
course, Joseon era means that manners, behaviour and propriety are more
important than logic. With Seung Yoo out
of the running, it has greater implications for the royal family, as the
princess, crown prince and king have lost the strong support of the Kim family. Prince Suyang has therefore gained the upper
hand. Alas, Prince Suyang is in for the
shock of his life, when he learns that it is his daughter who has been secretly
meeting with Seung Yoo. He forbids Se
Ryung from meeting Seung Yoo and sets the wheels in motion to assert his
power.
A series of important
events then happen in quick succession. King
Munjong dies, and his young son Danjong ascends the throne. He is temporarily protected by Kim Jong Seo,
but then Prince Suyang accuses him the latter of treason, which leads to him
being banished from parliament. A coup d’etat
is then organised and King Jong Seo’s faction is blamed, which leads us to the
situation where our drama began with a desperate Seung Yoo riding to his father’s
house.
Seung Yoo doesn’t die in the fight, but instead recovers and
goes after Prince Suyang. To his shock
and dismay, he finds out that Se Ryung is Suyang’s daughter and ends up carted
off to prison and sentenced to die.
However, Prince Suyang, at his daughter’s behest promises to banish
Seung Yoo to a deserted island for criminals, rather than kill him. Of course, he has other plans in place to
kill Seung Yoo in transit. Se Ryung reveals herself officially to Seung
Yoo as Prince Suyang’s daughter and begs him to live and return to kill
her. She will wait for him to return to
take her life. Well, that makes no
sense. It’s a beautiful sentiment, but
that doesn’t stop it from being non-sensical.
Anyway, if the story is following that defeatalist vein Seung Yoo will leave, almost die, then come back
for revenge, and he and Se Ryung will kill each other, right? Not quite.
There are a series of complex and deep situations that go on from that
point onward, including Se Ryung’s change from being daddy’s little girl to a
more independent woman. She loves her
father, but she no longer respects him.
She knows what is right and what is wrong, and her father’s quest to
gain the throne is wrong. It is
wonderful to watch the dynamic between the two change as her father sees the
things he does as not only benefiting him, but his family as well. However, in Se Ryung’s eyes, his thirst for
power is atrocious. Having to deal with
the one person he loves so much, look at him with such hate is a nice twist to
the story.
The other supporting characters have great story arcs as
well. Seung Yoo’s friend Jun Jong (Lee Min Woo), who became Prince Consort
since Suyang’s camp believed he was no threat, due to lack of family support or
finances, proved to be of great support to Princess Kyung Hye. It was nice to watch their romance develop
and grow.
I have to admit that I was disappointed with the way they
developed the other friend in the trio Shin Myung (Song Jong Ho). His move to
the dark side, for familial obligations was understandable and I could accept
that. However, when he became obsessed
with Se Ryung and was then turning against Seung Yoo because she was his and not Seung Yoo’s made absolutely zero
sense to me. He knew from the very
beginning that her feelings were with Seung Yoo, and vice versa. It seemed illogical for him to keep thinking
that by destroying Seung Yoo he would gain Se Ryung’s love. I suppose logic doesn’t always factor into
K-drama plots.
Perhaps my favourite supporting character in this drama was
Seung Yoo’s young niece Kim Ah Kang (Kim
Yoo Bin). She did a great job for
one so young. Her expressions and
reactions were absolutely adorable, and her character helped us to see that
Seung Yoo remained human even when he went to that dark place in the latter
half of the drama.
As for the two leads, Park
Shi Yoo was phenomenal. His role
required drastic changes in personality and he did both sides of the spectrum
very well. He started out as the
lighthearted, carefree nobleman, and then found himself in the dark depths of
despair driven solely by one purpose- REVENGE.
It was a dynamic performance from him. Moon Chae Won wasn’t
bad either. She had different layers as
well, but primarily her holding steadfast
to her principles and not caving to her father’s will, made her a
different kind of Joseon heroine, which I liked a lot.
So what does The Princess’ Man get on the Bel
Scale- I give it four stars. I enjoyed
watching it, not only a great story but beautifully shot as well, with an excellent OST. I've also watched is again since my initial viewing, so there must be something that
keeps pulling me back in.
According to Bel: Star-Crossed lovers are always the most
memorable.
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