Dae Jang Geum, ep. 01-06

[oyceter]

Jang Geum is known as being the only female royal doctor in Korean history; we know of her from brief mentions in Annals of the Joseon Dynasty (which, btw, from the book on Joseon royal court culture that I read, is a pretty freaking amazing document in terms of breadth and scope and effort). From what I got off Wiki, some people speculate that Jang Geum in the Annals is an amalgamation of various female court physicians.

The drama opens with a plotline that I think could have been cut, though it gives a good sense of the intrigue and politics that we'll see later on. Eventually, when we are introduced to Jang Geum, she's a court lady in the royal kitchens.

I mean, I knew she was going to be a doctor and I vaguely remembered something about the royal kitchens, but no one told me about the massive amounts of food porn! There are scenes of the court ladies serving banquets to crowds of people, each individual getting their own tray. There are close-ups of a court lady creating a midnight snack for the king from scraps of ingredients. There are bits that are straight out of shounen, in which the various young court ladies are tested to determine what ingredients a dish is made out of by a single taste (of course Jang Geum is the bestest).

So far, I am not invested in any of the characters so far, largely because Jang Geum is too perfect to be interesting. All her flaws are ones that demonstrate how precocious and good she is at things, though I have to say, I am glad that while there are female rivals among the court ladies, frequently there's a challenge to the kitchen as a whole, and all the kitchen court ladies must team up and figure things out.

I love the details and the looks into the daily lives of people in the palace, no matter how dramatized they are (big crisis: the princess will not eat!), so will stick with this a little more.

Also, it helps that my library has the DVDs ;).

Comments

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

Is this worth watching? I'm watching far too many dramas at the moment, and none of them are as good as Dal Ja's Spring, which was my only drama at the beginning of the year. Although Zettai Kareshi is much better than the manga.

[oyceter]

Hrm. It's not as good as the trendy dramas I like, and there are a lot of tropes that I am less fond of. It really does remind me a lot of shounen manga in the dramatization of challenges and the focus on ganbare and improving yourself. I'm also not in love with the characters. But it's a neat look at Joseon culture, and there's a lot of food porn, if that's your thing. So I'd say it depends on if you want a fun, happy-making drama, or if you're good with looking at historical stuff.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Do you mean only royal doctor in Korean history or only female royal doctor in Korean history? JOOC.

[oyceter]

Doh! I accidentally an important adjective, clearly... -_-;;

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Hee!

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

I assumed that the other royals were all really healthy.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Heh. Apparently health problems were endemic in the Joseon line, from what I recall...

[oyceter]

Bwaha, yes. Royal cousin marriages?

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

Nobles do always seem to be inbreeding.

[oyceter]

Until forced to drink poison!

I forgot to mention that there is much poison drinking in the first few episodes... as one does!

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

For some reason this reminded me of the Duchess of Malfi and how an evil cardinal murders his lover by making her kiss a poisoned Bible he just happened to have on (maybe it's a part of every evil Cardinal's arsenal?).

And that makes me think there should be a manga version of the Duchess of Malfi: secret marriages, evil cardinals, renaissance Italy, aristocracy, murder, sororicide, implied twincest... It would be most wonderful.

[oyceter]

No way! That is so awesome and should totally be manga!

[estara.livejournal.com]

If you're into this historical figure, you might also like the four Korean(?) anime episodes released (the action is quite cute) which set the young Jang Geum as a 12?-year old girl in the same situation.
Reminds me of World Masterpiece Theatre Anime only with a Korean legend this time.

http://ppalgananime.wordpress.com/
You can still find the links to the torrents on Tokyotosho, but I'm not sure if they're seeded. I wish someone would pick this up and sub it faster, or help the person who's doing it.

P.S. I read on Telophase's chapbook backcover that your last name is Tsai (I don't know if that name is like Smith in Taiwan...): do you know a person named Dorrit Tsai, by any chance? I think her Taiwanese name is When Shuen (I only transcribe how I heard it).

She studied in Germany for a while and went back to work in her family's business, I believe. I met her in Würzburg.

[oyceter]

Cool, thanks for the link!

I sadly don't know a Dorrit Tsai, sorry...

[estara.livejournal.com]

I hope you can still get the files ^^.

Ah well, it would have been amazing. So is Tsai a surname that is used a lot?

[oyceter]

Well, not as much as something like Lee/Li or Zhang/Chang, but still fairly common. Also, it's just that there are much fewer Chinese surnames than US ones, I think (thought not sure about German).