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Mar. 22nd, 2020 10:22 amMore kdrama posting, this time a bit less wacky!
A few years ago![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
innerbrat and I watched the 2008 kdrama Hong Gil Dong, and then I read a translation of The Story of Hong Gildong, and at this point I was invested enough in Hong Gil Dong adaptations that I eventually talked innerbrat into watching the latest Hong Gil Dong kdrama variant with me, Rebel: Thief Who Stole the People.
Traditionally, the story of Hong Gil Dong focuses on the illegitimate younger son of a nobleman, who has super-strength and is upset that illegitimate sons aren't allowed to socially advance. Rebel blows that up completely: this Hong Gil Dong is a slave from a slave family with no noble lineage whatsoever, and though he does indeed have super-strength, the first four or five episodes are entirely focused on the horrors of slavery and how Hong Gil Dong's father struggles to maneuver his family into freedom, semi-accidentally building himself a criminal empire along the way.
Unfortunately, criminal empires are still vulnerable to the whims of the aristocracy; tragedy strikes when the family runs afoul of an extremely evil minor prince and is promptly scattered to the four winds. Little sister Uhrini gets picked up and spirited away by mysterious forces; eldest brother Gil Hyun lies about his identity to pass the civil service exam, where he has an opportunity to witness the corruption of the court from within; and Gil Dong focuses on rebuilding his father's criminal empire in order to get revenge, occasionally interrupted by a judgmental oracle who pops up every few episodes to inform him that with great power comes great responsibility and he should probably cool it with the criminal empire and get on with starting a people's revolution already. Which, eventually, he indeed does! But not until approximately the back third of the show. (The politics are very sound but the pacing is sometimes questionable.)
(Sidenote: we have a lot of questions about that judgmental oracle, ( which include minor spoilers )
Meanwhile, a historically terrible king is rising to power and getting increasingly terrible in historically documented ways, backed up by a secret society of ardent Confucianists who are dedicated to making sure the upper-crust stay crusty and the poor know their place. All the villains in this show are royalty and aristocrats and people who abuse their structural power; all the heroes are peasants, servants, and former slaves; all the sympathetic antiheroes are people who fall into the latter category and struggle to gain security and stability within the establishment rather than outside of it, such as Hong Gil Dong's ex-girlfriend, a gisaeng who ends up in the royal harem, and Hong Gil Dong's rival, the adopted son of another gangster who is failed by father figure after father figure until he ends up with the worst father figures of all.
There are a lot of plotlines whereinnerbrat and I looked at each other and said "well, if we were writing it, we would have done it this way" -- the most annoying one is probably the recurring joke about Hong Gil Dong's love interest, a budding novelist, and how she sends everyone to sleep with her stories; let her be good at the thing she loves please! -- but overall the bones of the show are really good and solid, and! very surprisingly! it doesn't end with complete soul-crushing tragedy!! WE WERE PLEASED BUT SHOCKED.
( Ending spoilers )
(Admittedly I didn't remember until I read my old post that the original Hong Gil Dong novel doesn't end with heartbreaking tragedy either. The Hong Sisters and 2008 kdrama tropes thoroughly misled me!)
Also, and completely unrelatedly, I was shocked and delighted by ( unexpected pop? culture reference under the cut )
A few years ago
innerbrat and I watched the 2008 kdrama Hong Gil Dong, and then I read a translation of The Story of Hong Gildong, and at this point I was invested enough in Hong Gil Dong adaptations that I eventually talked innerbrat into watching the latest Hong Gil Dong kdrama variant with me, Rebel: Thief Who Stole the People.Traditionally, the story of Hong Gil Dong focuses on the illegitimate younger son of a nobleman, who has super-strength and is upset that illegitimate sons aren't allowed to socially advance. Rebel blows that up completely: this Hong Gil Dong is a slave from a slave family with no noble lineage whatsoever, and though he does indeed have super-strength, the first four or five episodes are entirely focused on the horrors of slavery and how Hong Gil Dong's father struggles to maneuver his family into freedom, semi-accidentally building himself a criminal empire along the way.
Unfortunately, criminal empires are still vulnerable to the whims of the aristocracy; tragedy strikes when the family runs afoul of an extremely evil minor prince and is promptly scattered to the four winds. Little sister Uhrini gets picked up and spirited away by mysterious forces; eldest brother Gil Hyun lies about his identity to pass the civil service exam, where he has an opportunity to witness the corruption of the court from within; and Gil Dong focuses on rebuilding his father's criminal empire in order to get revenge, occasionally interrupted by a judgmental oracle who pops up every few episodes to inform him that with great power comes great responsibility and he should probably cool it with the criminal empire and get on with starting a people's revolution already. Which, eventually, he indeed does! But not until approximately the back third of the show. (The politics are very sound but the pacing is sometimes questionable.)
(Sidenote: we have a lot of questions about that judgmental oracle, ( which include minor spoilers )
Meanwhile, a historically terrible king is rising to power and getting increasingly terrible in historically documented ways, backed up by a secret society of ardent Confucianists who are dedicated to making sure the upper-crust stay crusty and the poor know their place. All the villains in this show are royalty and aristocrats and people who abuse their structural power; all the heroes are peasants, servants, and former slaves; all the sympathetic antiheroes are people who fall into the latter category and struggle to gain security and stability within the establishment rather than outside of it, such as Hong Gil Dong's ex-girlfriend, a gisaeng who ends up in the royal harem, and Hong Gil Dong's rival, the adopted son of another gangster who is failed by father figure after father figure until he ends up with the worst father figures of all.
There are a lot of plotlines where
innerbrat and I looked at each other and said "well, if we were writing it, we would have done it this way" -- the most annoying one is probably the recurring joke about Hong Gil Dong's love interest, a budding novelist, and how she sends everyone to sleep with her stories; let her be good at the thing she loves please! -- but overall the bones of the show are really good and solid, and! very surprisingly! it doesn't end with complete soul-crushing tragedy!! WE WERE PLEASED BUT SHOCKED.( Ending spoilers )
(Admittedly I didn't remember until I read my old post that the original Hong Gil Dong novel doesn't end with heartbreaking tragedy either. The Hong Sisters and 2008 kdrama tropes thoroughly misled me!)
Also, and completely unrelatedly, I was shocked and delighted by ( unexpected pop? culture reference under the cut )
