kdrama: Grand Prince, episodes 1-3
Grand Prince is the first of this year’s sageuk offerings, and based on the first three episodes, definitely the sageuk you’ve been waiting for if you’re exhausted by all the youth romance sageuks from the last year and a half or so. The initial descriptions did make it sound like another of the same, with an ambitious prince trying to win a woman his brother was also in love with, but the creative team-Jo Hyun Kyung, the writer of Maids, and Kim Jung Min, the PD of Joseon Gunman, The Princess’ Man and the recent-ish Hometown Legends revival-gave plenty of reason for hope. The more information that came out, the less concern there was for a rehash of recent romantic triangles (thankfully-I watched a bit to most of all those and none were actually shows that I thought were particularly good), though I know most had a good deal of popularity with international internet fandom, with the trailers showing a different show than early teasers, and the first 3 episodes are an even more different show.
Grand Prince features fictional characters loosely based on historical ones. The core basis for the story is the conflict between Grand Prince Suyang (later King Sejo) and Grand Prince Anpyeong over the former’s political coup taking control and power from their young nephew, King Danjong, and eventually exiling him. In history, Grand Prince Anpyeong is exiled and later put to death, and King Danjong is successfully supplanted soon after that, and also poisoned not long after. Plenty of other political murders and exiles and executions also happened along the way. Despite the ruthlessness of his methods of becoming king, King Sejo ended up an apparently pretty able and competent king, as such things go.
How much history Grand Prince will use beyond the general inspiration is up in the air, but I suspect the show intends to primarily do its own thing. This world’s version of King Sejong is long gone and has only warranted a couple of mentions. Instead, the palace is effectively (and efficiently with a side of ruthlessness) ruled by Park Mi Kyung’s Queen Shim, who serves as her son’s advisor and aide and her grandson’s regent, long after her historical counterpart died. In addition, the little king is only three when his Unnamed-After-Three-Episodes father dies, as compared to King Danjong’s ten years old. Joo Sang Wook’s Lee Kang, aka Grand Prince Jin Yang, is our representative for Prince Suyang. At this point, I’ll be surprised if he becomes this universe’s version of King Sejo, as the drama is pretty consistent about his being a terrible person. He’s also a strong argument for the existence of self fulfilling prophecies, as most of his nastiness revolved around having been banished from the castle as an infant because he would bring bad fortune to his older brother (bad fortune that the third prince apparently wouldn’t bring) and kept from his family. Growing up a seething ball of abandoned and neglected (as much as a prince sill kept in a nice house with servants can be) and ignored by most of his family until effectively being turned over to an uncle who apparently lives off of bitterness over his own younger brother, the then-current king, being chosen over him. I mean, Kang probably would have turned out somewhat bad regardless, but all that is just begging to have someone grow up to be an angry ball of resentment. Yoon Shi Yoon’s Lee Hwi, aka Grand Prince Eun Song, is our representative for Prince Anpyong. Unlike his historical counterpart, Hwi has no apparent ambitions, for the throne or otherwise, and spent his childhood through early adulthood being a lighthearted ball of fluff adored by his parents and oldest brother, and just going around making lovely paintings and calligraphy, and trying to convince himself that Big Bro Kang loves him as much as he claims even though he kinda knows better. To be fair, I doubt even Kang knows how much actual affection is mixed in with the jealousy and resentment.
The first half of the first episode deals with fluffball Hwi, now a scruffy swordsman, returning to the palace after several ears of exile/travel/circumstances-not-yet-known, just in time for King No Name to croak and ruin Kang’s plans by declaring Queen Shim to be the tiny prince’s regent, and is soon told that his lover, Sung Ja Hyeon, played by Jin Se Yeon, is about to be married off. Ja Hyeon, for her part, would also really rather be left alone so she can paint everything ever, and would rather shave her head and become a nun than get married. Her “don’t get married, EVER” is, happily (ish?) not because of Hwi himself, but rather, Hwi was an exception to her longtime desire to not marry. Ja Hyeon’s attitude towards Kang is a pretty firm Hate You Forever, while the “love” Kang has towards Ja Hyeon is pretty obviously more a desire to posses than anything else. The second half of the first episode is about Kang and Hwi as children, setting up their relationship as adults, before the story moves to the events surrounding the tiny prince’s birth, and Je Hyeun met the two princes. I know some people thought the story’s flow was thrown off by this format, but I really liked it.
Much like Hwang Jin Young’s (writer of Rebel: Thief Who Stole The People and King’s Daughter Soo Baek Hyang) focus on class and legal status and how they intersect, Jo Hyun Kyung tends to focus on families and the running of households. Antics in the Sung household appears to be his favorite part (And with Kim Mi Kyung as Ja Hyeon’s kinda-tigress mom with a slight gambling problem who has to juggle her family’s sometimes-incompatible personalities…well, can you blame Writer Jo?) and the events involving the royal family are often treated more as a family with a large household and lots of problems, as opposed to the more detached affairs of many sageuks. The relationships between the two main sets of siblings are also interesting contrasts. Kang and Hwi present as very close, affectionate brothers, but both are aware of the anger and resentment Kang has towards Hwi because Hwi was adored by the people who effectively threw Kang away, even if there is (at least in the current part of the plot) apparently a degree of actual affection mixed in, while Hwi has a certain passivity regarding Kang and his suspicions about some of Kang’s actions (act on those suspicions soon, please) that actually end up enabling Kang to a degree. Meanwhile, Ja Hyeon and her brother, Deuk Shik, have a more openly antagonistic relationship-apparently largely because he gets mad at her disobedience and tendency to plunge into things without thinking which can get others (especially him and Kkeut Dan, who he seems to have a crush on) in trouble, and she gets mad because he gets mad at her when she’s just trying to do her on thing and isn’t exactly nice about trying to put a stop to certain things, but these are the siblings you can buy actually standing by each other when needed. In fact, Ja Hyeon’s Hate You Forever attitude towards Kang actually begins with his mistreating Deuk Shik. One of Jin Se Yeon’s strengths is rationally worded but passionate and righteous speeches, and she treat Kang to a long one that amount to “You hit my brother for no good reason and I Will Hate You Forever, You Are Mud.”
According to mydramalist, Jo Hyun Kyung is male (I had assumed it was a woman with a masculine pseudonym) which is a surprise to me because, much like Maids (and both of Hwang Jin Young’s sageuks), large swaths of this show-Ja Hyeon and her relationships with her mother and her maid, Kkeut Dan, her friends Na Gyeon and Seol Hwa as they prepare to be sent off to political marriages by their families, and even Queen Shim’s machinations to maintain stability in the palace under trying conditions-read like a woman who grew up loving sageuks but thinking that the roles women were often assigned and the POV towards women really needed to have some work done, but there you have it. I mean, I know men are perfectly capable of writing good, exploratory omen's stories, it's just that they usually...don't do a good job of it. And you can usually still tell it's a man. And sometimes they turn into joss Whedon.
The show is off to a very good start, and if it meaintains even half the momentum and enjoyment factor of the first three episodes in the next seventeen episodes, this will be the first sageuk I finish since Rebel and Saimdang aired at the beginning of last year. (Tree With Deep Roots doesn’t count, since it aired in 2011.)
Grand Prince features fictional characters loosely based on historical ones. The core basis for the story is the conflict between Grand Prince Suyang (later King Sejo) and Grand Prince Anpyeong over the former’s political coup taking control and power from their young nephew, King Danjong, and eventually exiling him. In history, Grand Prince Anpyeong is exiled and later put to death, and King Danjong is successfully supplanted soon after that, and also poisoned not long after. Plenty of other political murders and exiles and executions also happened along the way. Despite the ruthlessness of his methods of becoming king, King Sejo ended up an apparently pretty able and competent king, as such things go.
How much history Grand Prince will use beyond the general inspiration is up in the air, but I suspect the show intends to primarily do its own thing. This world’s version of King Sejong is long gone and has only warranted a couple of mentions. Instead, the palace is effectively (and efficiently with a side of ruthlessness) ruled by Park Mi Kyung’s Queen Shim, who serves as her son’s advisor and aide and her grandson’s regent, long after her historical counterpart died. In addition, the little king is only three when his Unnamed-After-Three-Episodes father dies, as compared to King Danjong’s ten years old. Joo Sang Wook’s Lee Kang, aka Grand Prince Jin Yang, is our representative for Prince Suyang. At this point, I’ll be surprised if he becomes this universe’s version of King Sejo, as the drama is pretty consistent about his being a terrible person. He’s also a strong argument for the existence of self fulfilling prophecies, as most of his nastiness revolved around having been banished from the castle as an infant because he would bring bad fortune to his older brother (bad fortune that the third prince apparently wouldn’t bring) and kept from his family. Growing up a seething ball of abandoned and neglected (as much as a prince sill kept in a nice house with servants can be) and ignored by most of his family until effectively being turned over to an uncle who apparently lives off of bitterness over his own younger brother, the then-current king, being chosen over him. I mean, Kang probably would have turned out somewhat bad regardless, but all that is just begging to have someone grow up to be an angry ball of resentment. Yoon Shi Yoon’s Lee Hwi, aka Grand Prince Eun Song, is our representative for Prince Anpyong. Unlike his historical counterpart, Hwi has no apparent ambitions, for the throne or otherwise, and spent his childhood through early adulthood being a lighthearted ball of fluff adored by his parents and oldest brother, and just going around making lovely paintings and calligraphy, and trying to convince himself that Big Bro Kang loves him as much as he claims even though he kinda knows better. To be fair, I doubt even Kang knows how much actual affection is mixed in with the jealousy and resentment.
The first half of the first episode deals with fluffball Hwi, now a scruffy swordsman, returning to the palace after several ears of exile/travel/circumstances-not-yet-known, just in time for King No Name to croak and ruin Kang’s plans by declaring Queen Shim to be the tiny prince’s regent, and is soon told that his lover, Sung Ja Hyeon, played by Jin Se Yeon, is about to be married off. Ja Hyeon, for her part, would also really rather be left alone so she can paint everything ever, and would rather shave her head and become a nun than get married. Her “don’t get married, EVER” is, happily (ish?) not because of Hwi himself, but rather, Hwi was an exception to her longtime desire to not marry. Ja Hyeon’s attitude towards Kang is a pretty firm Hate You Forever, while the “love” Kang has towards Ja Hyeon is pretty obviously more a desire to posses than anything else. The second half of the first episode is about Kang and Hwi as children, setting up their relationship as adults, before the story moves to the events surrounding the tiny prince’s birth, and Je Hyeun met the two princes. I know some people thought the story’s flow was thrown off by this format, but I really liked it.
Much like Hwang Jin Young’s (writer of Rebel: Thief Who Stole The People and King’s Daughter Soo Baek Hyang) focus on class and legal status and how they intersect, Jo Hyun Kyung tends to focus on families and the running of households. Antics in the Sung household appears to be his favorite part (And with Kim Mi Kyung as Ja Hyeon’s kinda-tigress mom with a slight gambling problem who has to juggle her family’s sometimes-incompatible personalities…well, can you blame Writer Jo?) and the events involving the royal family are often treated more as a family with a large household and lots of problems, as opposed to the more detached affairs of many sageuks. The relationships between the two main sets of siblings are also interesting contrasts. Kang and Hwi present as very close, affectionate brothers, but both are aware of the anger and resentment Kang has towards Hwi because Hwi was adored by the people who effectively threw Kang away, even if there is (at least in the current part of the plot) apparently a degree of actual affection mixed in, while Hwi has a certain passivity regarding Kang and his suspicions about some of Kang’s actions (act on those suspicions soon, please) that actually end up enabling Kang to a degree. Meanwhile, Ja Hyeon and her brother, Deuk Shik, have a more openly antagonistic relationship-apparently largely because he gets mad at her disobedience and tendency to plunge into things without thinking which can get others (especially him and Kkeut Dan, who he seems to have a crush on) in trouble, and she gets mad because he gets mad at her when she’s just trying to do her on thing and isn’t exactly nice about trying to put a stop to certain things, but these are the siblings you can buy actually standing by each other when needed. In fact, Ja Hyeon’s Hate You Forever attitude towards Kang actually begins with his mistreating Deuk Shik. One of Jin Se Yeon’s strengths is rationally worded but passionate and righteous speeches, and she treat Kang to a long one that amount to “You hit my brother for no good reason and I Will Hate You Forever, You Are Mud.”
According to mydramalist, Jo Hyun Kyung is male (I had assumed it was a woman with a masculine pseudonym) which is a surprise to me because, much like Maids (and both of Hwang Jin Young’s sageuks), large swaths of this show-Ja Hyeon and her relationships with her mother and her maid, Kkeut Dan, her friends Na Gyeon and Seol Hwa as they prepare to be sent off to political marriages by their families, and even Queen Shim’s machinations to maintain stability in the palace under trying conditions-read like a woman who grew up loving sageuks but thinking that the roles women were often assigned and the POV towards women really needed to have some work done, but there you have it. I mean, I know men are perfectly capable of writing good, exploratory omen's stories, it's just that they usually...don't do a good job of it. And you can usually still tell it's a man. And sometimes they turn into joss Whedon.
The show is off to a very good start, and if it meaintains even half the momentum and enjoyment factor of the first three episodes in the next seventeen episodes, this will be the first sageuk I finish since Rebel and Saimdang aired at the beginning of last year. (Tree With Deep Roots doesn’t count, since it aired in 2011.)