Gye Baek Review

Title: Gye Baek

Genre: Period, Historical, Romance, Revenge, Melodrama

Episodes: 36

Broadcast period: 2011-Jul to 2011-Nov

Cast: Lee Seo Jin, Cho Jae Hyun, Oh Yeon Soo, Song Ji Hyo, Cha In Pyo, Hyo Min, Lee Hyun Woo and No Young Hak.

Due to the Queen being of Silla blood, an elite group of assassins try to kill her and the Crown Prince Ui Ja on a regular basis. This has prompted the King of Baekje to assign his most loyal and skilled swordsman Moo Jin (Cha In Pyo) to guard them.  But due to unforeseen events, the Queen dies to save her son, and Moo Jins wife dies while giving birth to a son, Gye Baek.

Several years later, Gye Baek (Lee Hyun Woo) now a youngster, works odd jobs, so he can take care of his drunk father. Here he meets merchant-in-training Eun Ko (Park Eun Bin), whom he immediately falls for. Moo Jin, who has lost his arm, has remarried, so the past is unknown, and Gye Baek believes his stepmother and stepbrother, are his real mother and brother. Though mourning, Moo Jin meets the Crown Prince Ui Ja (No Young Hak) again, now a regular Prince due to the new Queens (Oh Yeon Soo) son taking that title and sees right through his pretense, about not caring about the past.

While trying to uncover the truth, and helping Ui Ja, Moo Jin dies, while Gye Baek witnesses it. Filled with anger, Gye Baek blames Ui Ja for the murder of his father but ends up as a hostage of Silla. As years pass, Gye Baek (Lee Seo Jin) lives only for one sole purpose: to kill the man, who killed his father, unaware that there is more to the story than meets the eyes…

Yeah, I know this is very detailed, and yes, I did spoil a bit, but I tried to stay off the details, so if you decide to watch it, you will get several surprises and you will notice the details I left out.

Out of all the historical dramas out there, this one is the first one where I was in awe of the quality of the costumes - like the first 10 min seemed extremely well. I don’t now much about the uniforms of Baekje, but I know that the armor was iron, and it kind of looked like iron. In most dramas I can see that they are made of plastic (or whatever it is) but I didn’t in this one - at least not in the beginning. Also, it might be because I had the first episode in HD quality (I think 1080p), that might have something to do with it too. What I mean is, it was nice to see that there exist good costumes out there, like realistic ones anyways.

This is also one of my first dramas where the lead actors are over 30 years old, as they (directors, or whoever casts these actors) usually have young actors doing quality and popular dramas. And they were all ‘veteran’ actors, with skill, which was extremely nice to see. I have to admit, I was amazed by Song Ji Hyo. I never knew she could act mean or evil - she can officially do both. I liked her in this, and she is very good at acting. Though I noticed that she was tired (haha, blaming RM for that). The rest were good too.

The lacking thing in this one is both pace and extreme character development, which I couldn’t really comprehend. Though the fact that these developments are the reason the story end as it did.

But all in all, an alright drama that made me emotional, and confused at the same time.

☆☆☆☆ / 4 out of 5 stars

♥♥♥½ / 3½ out of 5 hearts

Jeong Do Jeon Review

Title: Jeong Do Jeon

Genre: Historical, Political, Drama

Episodes: 50

Broadcast period: 2014-Jan to 2014-Jun

Cast: Cho Jae Hyun, Yoo Dong Geun, Park Young Gyu and Lim Ho.

This story is about the man who changed the corrupt Goryeo by making laws to help the low class and poor, and helped establish Joseon, by installing a new king on the throne.

Jeong Do Jeon (Cho Jae Hyun) is a low-class noble working for the government as a scholar in Sungkyunkwan. When the king, who was betrayed by his most loyal servants repeatedly, trials Do Jeon, the two come to an agreement, and decide to work together to fix the crumbling Goryeo. Unfortunately, the king is assassinated, by his guards, and the prime minister, together with his allies, put a young prince on the throne, to manipulate him behind the curtain. In opposition of this, Do Jeon becomes labeled as a traitor, and is forced in exile.

Loosing all hope and desire for the future, he meets the peasants of Goryeo, the ill treatment they suffer, and decides to once again help the government, but soon notices how bad the political situation in Goryeo is, so he decides to do the unthinkable: if the problem is the government, we change the government…

As a history buff this idea made me all excited, since it’s one of “those” stories/highlights of Korean history. Even if this has a lot of storytelling and a lot of moments, I kind of don’t understand the necessity of 50 episodes - which was one of the things that made my brown frown, when I started it. But as I went along with episodes, I noticed the “change” in history, which made me annoyed. Even if it didn’t change the overall history part it kind of made it “sentimental” or “emotional” without it being it. Also, simply historically incorrect. I don’t want to spoil, so I’m just going to say, trying to make a man seem like he is “feeling” bad for the poor people when he doesn’t care for his own family in the same sense is plain weird. Though I must give the production credit for portraying Jeong Do Jeon as he is portrayed in history books, and not some hero, is what made me continue this drama (even though the above mentioned annoyed me A LOT). Plus: Cho Jae Hyun is perfect casting. The rest seem okay, but the acting just seems like how any actor would act in the given roles - I mean like it doesn’t give anything extra. Besides that, this drama can seem boring - there is sooo much political TALK. They keep talking and talking, and unless you can see the history part, you’ll be bored. So they didn’t really think about that while making this drama.

OKAY, summing up: a fine drama with mostly accurate storyline, but has some flaws that just aren’t acceptable as a history buff, and can be quite boring for those who aren’t.

☆☆☆½ / 3½ out of 5 stars

♥♥♥ / 3 out of 5 hearts

The Fatal Encounter Movie Review

Title: The Fatal Encounter
AKA: The Kings Wrath, King of Misfortune
Genre: Historical,
Origin: Korea
Release Date: April 30, 2014
Cast: Hyun Bin, Jung Jae Yeong, Jo Jung Suk, Cho Jae Hyun, Han Ji Min, Kim Sung Ryung, Park Sung Woong, Jung Eun Cha,

Kim Jeongjo (Hyun Bin) has been in power for only one year. He has already gone through several failed assassination attempts on his life and his hold on power is fragile. He trusts only his eunuch named Sang Chaek (Jung Jae Young) and the commander (Park Sung Woong). Outside the palace Eul soo (Jo Jung suk) was raised as an elite assassin, one day he gets order from Queen Jungsoon (Han Ji Min) to kill the king otherwise they would kill his love.

This was the hardest intro I had to write so far. Since it was a movie, it was hard to explain what it was about without spoiling anything, so forgive me if it sounded half-heartily written. However, I have to say, the director did not leave me any choice, it was the most confusing movie ever, so many things happened at once, and you’re just left with the only reason to continue; Jo Jung suk. The role as an assassin surprisingly fits him. As I finished the movie, I had to go back to the description to figure out what the whole thing was about, it wasn’t boring at all, but personally I preferred to know what was going on in the entire movie, or just half of it. Anyhow, if you are into assassins, vengeful historical movies, this is a good choice.

☆☆☆½ / 3½ out of 5 stars


♥♥♥ / 3 out of 5 hearts