Sunday 16 September 2012

The Princess' Man: The New Romeo & Juliet?



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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