K Drama Chat

Listeners, we apologize that Joanna’s audio is not as good as normal. She was traveling and had to record this episode on her phone.

Today, we’ll be discussing Episode 3 of Season 2 of Kingdom, the hit K Drama on Netflix starring Ju Ji-hoon as Crown Prince Yi Chang, Bae Doona as Seo-bi, Ryu Seung-ryong as Cho Hak ju, Kim Sang-ho as Mou Young, Kim Sung-kyu as Yeong shin, and Kim Hye-jun as the Queen Consort. We discuss:

• The timeline of the queen’s evil plan to get a baby boy. We have differing opinions about when it all began!
• We also disagree about when we think Mu Yeong started spying on the Crown Prince for Cho Beom Il.
• What happened three years ago when Cho Hak ju asked Lord Ahn to take the patients in the Sumang Village leper colony, kill them, and turn them into zombies to fight the Japanese army. 
• Lord Ahn agreed to the plan but he has regretted it ever since.
• How this show is an exploration of the lines that we cross and don’t dare cross to protect our families, communities, and nation.
• Whether or not Young shin knew the truth about what happened to his brother in Sumang Village.
• The Crown Prince’s impassioned speech to the soldiers at Mungyeong Saejae, whose loyalty he wants.
• The Crown Prince’s commitment to save the people trapped in the citadel of Sangju by delivering food to them.
• We now know that Mu Yeong is the traitor because he has taken Cho Hak ju and is rushing him to Hanyang.
• Seo bi’s suspicion that something is very wrong with the Queen and her pregnancy because the Queen had Cho Beom Pal bring her sappanwood from Japan. Sappanwood is known to stop bleeding after a miscarriage.
• The soldiers who take Cho Hak ju and kill Mu Yeong.
• The Crown Prince’s grief over losing Mu Yeong. When Young shin asks the Crown Prince why he did nothing about Mu Yeong’s betrayal, the Crown Prince said he didn’t want to lose someone else. 
• By the end of this episode, the Crown Prince has lost the three most important men in his life: his father, Lord Ahn, and Mu Yeong AND beheaded two of these men.
• How the head of the Royal Commandery Division is arrested and punished for daring to barge into the Royal Delivery area.
• Mu Yeong’s motivations in betraying the Crown Prince.
• Why Young shin continues to stay with the Crown Prince.
• The filming locations for Kingdom.

References

• Kingdom Filming Locations
• Visit Changdeokgung, the Filming Site of Netflix's Kingdom
• Netflix's Kingdom: Where Was the Korean Show Filmed?
• Changdeokgung - Wikipedia
• Changgyeonggung - Wikipedia
• Leprosy on Wikipedia

Today, we’ll be discussing Episode 2 of Season 2 of Kingdom, the hit K Drama on Netflix starring Ju Ji-hoon as Crown Prince Yi Chang, Bae Doona as Seo-bi, Ryu Seung-ryong as Cho Hak ju, Kim Sang-ho as Mou Young, Kim Sung-kyu as Yeong shin, and Kim Hye-jun as the Queen Consort. We discuss:

• How this episode is full of betrayal: someone betrayed the Crown Prince, Cho Hak ju betrays Lord Ahn, and the Queen Consort betrays her father and the rest of the Haewon Cho clan
• How Seo-bi violated our rule of never opening mysterious chests without knowing that what’s inside is a friendly person or a cute, furry animal.
• How the Crown Prince must kill his zombie father, thereby honoring his father’s words to him from so long ago: Stay alive!
• We learn more about what happened three years ago and we learn that Lord Ahn has deeply regretted his decision to create zombies ever since.
• Cho Hak ju had Lord Ahn killed, something that the soldiers do with hesitation, given that Lord Ahn is a national war hero. So now, the Crown Prince’s mentor and guide has left him.
• Lord Ahn makes himself a weapon against Cho Hak ju when he asks the Crown Prince to turn him into a zombie.
• Back at Hanyang, the Minister of War orders the queen’s residence searched and the soldiers discover the bodies of seven mothers and babies. Curiously, the baby boy died of natural causes, while the baby girls were strangled to death.
• The court officials debate the line of succession in light of the king’s death when the head eunuch announces that the Queen Consort has gone into labor.
• The Queen, of course, is not in labor, but waiting for a baby boy to be born.
• The ID tags that all men over the age of 18 carried around during the Joseon dynasty.
• The desire for revenge by Young shin and Lord Ahn’s men, which leads them to try and take down Cho Hak ju when they are taken out of their jail cell to be transported to Hanyang.
• We wonder where Mu Yeong is.
• The crazy ending where the zombie Lord Ahn takes a chunk out of Cho Hak ju’s left cheek!
• The K Drama elements in this episode, including the Crown Prince sinking to the ground with great emotion, and the queen’s amazing abs in episode 1 of season 2.
• The enduring popularity of zombies, from around the world!
• How Korean zombies are different from Western dramas in that they often focus on the relationships between the humans and the zombies.

References

• Worn Identity, or information about the ID tags worn by people during the Joseon dynasty
• King Cheoljong and his family, who were banished to Ganghwa Island
• 30 Zombie TV Shows Ranked by Tomatometer
• The Last Of Us: A Closer Look at the Zombie Genre

Today, we’ll be discussing Episode 1 of Season 2 of Kingdom, the hit K Drama on Netflix starring Ju Ji-hoon as Crown Prince Yi Chang, Bae Doona as Seo-bi, Ryu Seung-ryong as Cho Hak ju, Kim Sang-ho as Mou Young, Kim Sung-kyu as Yeong shin, and Kim Hye-jun as the Queen Consort. We discuss:

• The Kingdom wiki that Joanna discovered!
• How we start to learn what happened in Sangju three years earlier and the roles that Cho Hak ju and Lord Ahn played. We wonder if Lord  Ahn has regrets over his decisions at the time.
• Deok Sung’s act of sacrifice and how Young shin gave him his dignity by killing him.
• The Crown Prince’s suspicion that Mu Young is the traitor working for Cho Hak ju.
• The moral dilemmas in this show that ask us just how far we’ll go to save our loved ones.
• How Seo bi and Cho Beom Pal make it to Mungyeong Saejae and are given shelter because Cho Beom Pal is a member of the Haewo Cho clan. We also find out that Cho Beom Pal is now the heir to the clan.
• The palace guards are on to the Queen’s evil plot to get a baby boy, but she’s counting on her baby boy to protect her.
• How the Crown Prince has decided to travel to Mungyeong Saejae and kill Cho Hak ju. Cho Hak ju is in Sangju to kill the Crown Prince.
• How extreme crisis can push people to do extreme things they didn’t know was possible.
• The actress Kim Hye-jun, who plays the Queen Consort.

References

• Kingdom wiki
• Crash Landing On You wiki
• Open Source Wiki Software
• Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598) - Wikipedia
• About - Aftermath of the East Asian War of 1592-1598

Today, we’ll be discussing Episode 6 of Season 1 of Kingdom, the hit K Drama on Netflix starring Ju Ji-hoon as Crown Prince Yi Chang, Bae Doona as Seo-bi, Ryu Seung-ryon as Cho Hak ju, Kim Sang-ho as Mou Young, Kim Sung-kyu as Yeong shin, and Kim Hye-jun as the Queen Consort. We discuss:

• How Season 2 of Kingdom dropped at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic - crazy!
• The power struggle between Chief State Councilor Cho Hak ju and the Queen Consort.
• How Lord Ahn put himself squarely in the Crown Prince’s camp when his archers shot the palace guards.
• How the Crown Prince seems like a new person. He’s determined and confident when he strikes down the chief palace guard.
• Who might be the traitor among the Crown Prince’s companions?
• The thousands of people amassing at the southern gates of Sangju. The magistrate doesn’t want to let them in, but the Crown Prince decides that the magistrate is NOT the person to make that decision.
• The Crown Prince’s plan to protect Sangju by taking advantage of the bodies of water surrounding Sangju.
• The Queen’s evil plan to have a baby boy by taking pregnant, peasant women and waiting for one of them to have a boy. The queen is not pregnant after all!
• Joanna’s theory that the queen might have had a miscarriage or gotten her period the day she asked her head court lady to burn her clothes because they had blood on them.
• How the queen punished the court lady who gossiped about her clothing.
• Why Cho Hak ju left Hanyang to go to Mungyeong Saejae, why he’s traveling with a zombie, and what his plans might be regarding the Crown Prince.
• How Seo bi finds the resurrection plant in the Frozen Valley close to Sangju. But while in the cave, she and Cheo Beom Pal are trapped by zombies, who have come out during the day! Seo bi realizes that it's the temperature, not the day and night, that controls when the zombies come out.
• How the Crown Prince and the men have an uneventful evening, but come morning, when they think they have a day’s respite, they realize that a zombie horde is coming!
• The versatile Kim Sung-kyu, the actor who plays Young shin

Next week, we will start Season 2 of Kingdom!

References

• COVID 19 from the US Centers for Disease Control
• Forbes review of Kingdom from March 2020

Today, we’ll be discussing Episode 5 of Season 1 of Kingdom, the hit K Drama on Netflix starring  Ju Ji-hoon as Crown Prince Yi Chang, Bae Doona as Seo-bi, Ryu Seung-ryong as Cho Hak ju, Kim Sang-ho as Mou Young, Kim Sung-kyu as Yeong shin, and Kim Hye-jun as the Queen Consort. We discuss:

• K Drama Chat is featured in this month’s episode of Asian American Life from CUNY-TV! Check us out at the 10:30 mark (see link below).
• The Korean concept of Han, which is uniquely Korean and represents a emotion that is a form of resentment and hatred.
• The geography of Joseon so that we can understand the context of this episode. The Crown Prince starts in Dongnae, which was in the southeast corner of Gyeongsang Province. He was traveling to Sangju, which was in the northwestern corner of Gyeongsang. Dongnae is located in what is now Busan.
• How the Five Armies closed the gates of the mountain garrison of Mungyeong Saejae, aka Joryeong.
• How the Crown Prince wanted to be different from those who abandoned the weak. He blames himself for the deaths of the villagers, but Seo bi and Mu Young see a brave and noble prince who is risking his life for ordinary people.
• How Lord Ahn and his men show up at the pivotal moment when the Crown Prince and his crew are attacked by the village men AND the zombies.
• We learn that Lord Ahn was the prince’s teacher when he was young. Lord Ahn taught him and supported him, but also told him that he had to fend for himself AND fight injustice. Lord Ahn means so much to the prince!
• We learn more about Youngshin and his background. He is probably a member of the chakho, or the elite group that hunts tigers. He used to live in Sangju, but left during the Imjin War and even left his little brother behind.
• The evil Cho Hak ju is conducting experiments on prisoners and a mysterious noble has taken in pregnant, peasant women and is giving them shelter and food! The group includes Mu Young’s wife!
• The Queen Consort declares herself Regent, but we know that Cho Hak ju is now running the country.
• Ryu Seung-ryong, the actor who plays Cho Hak ju.

References

• Asian American Life episode featuring K Drama Chat at the 10:30 mark
• 8 Provinces of Korea during the Joseon dynasty on Wikipedia
• 8 Provinces of Korea, including where Sangju and Hanyang are located
• Crash Landing On You to be remade with Netflix USA
• Mungyeong Saejae - Wikipedia
• There's a uniquely Korean word for rage and regret. So why had I never heard of it?
• Han (cultural) - Wikipedia
• Sexagenary cycle - Wikipedia

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Today, we’ll be discussing Episode 4 of Season 1 of Kingdom, the hit K Drama on Netflix starring Ju Ji-hoon as Crown Prince Yi Chang, Bae Doona as Seo-bi, Ryu Seung-ryong as Cho Hak ju, Kim Sang-ho as Mou Young, Kim Sung-kyu as Yeong shin, and Kim Hye-jun as the Queen Consort. We discuss:

• Recent comments from our listeners, including Shine, who has attended many K Drama star meet and greets in Manila. Shine says it’s common for fans to walk up on stage to say hello to stars at the end of these events.
• The Hero’s Journey framework, which was researched and popularized by writer Joseph Campbell, who researched thousands of myths, stories and legends from around the world. He came up with what he called the monomyth or the Hero’s Journey, which he says is basically the template for so many of our myths and legends.
• How exciting it is to map Kingdom to the Hero’s Journey. 
  • We think the Call to Adventure has happened
  • The Crown Prince at first tried to refuse the call
  • Mu Young is clearly his guide
  • The Crown Prince is being tested; witness the people who died by the arrows of the palace guards
  • But the Crown Prince is also gaining allies in Seo bi and Young shin
  • The Crown Prince is also an orphan. We see a lot of orphans in hero’s journey movies and shows: Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Peter Parker, Frodo Baggins
• In this episode, it seems everyone is headed to Sangju.
• How Cho Hak ju had the messenger who delivered his son’s head killed on the spot, which means he killed the messenger. We discuss the origins of the phrase, “don’t shoot the messenger.”
• The beacon fires used to alert the country, or bongsu. In Lord of the Rings, there are beacon fires used to alert the Kingdom of Gondor in the event of an attack.
• How Cho Hak ju shows the court officials that the king is a monster and proclaims him still alive and still king.
• The Crown Prince’s continued evolution. In the previous episode, he was mostly looking out for himself. In this episode, the people are looking to him for what to do next.
• The samo, or the hat that the court officials wear when they wear their court attire, or the dallyeong
• Kim Sang-ho, the actor who plays Mu Young.

References

• Beacon Towers during the Joseon Dynasty
• Lord of the Rings: Warning Beacons of Gondor
• Why So Many  Superheroes are Orphans
• Podcast: D-Day: The Tide Turns
• Podcast: History’s Secret Heroes

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Today, we’ll be discussing Episode 3 of Season 1 of Kingdom, the hit K Drama on Netflix starring Ju Ji-hoon as Crown Prince Yi Chang, Bae Doona as Seo-bi, Ryu Seung-ryong as Cho Hak ju, Kim Sang-ho as Mou Young, Kim Sung-kyu as Yeong shin, and Kim Hye-jun as the Queen Consort. We discuss:

• The Seo In Guk Meet and Greet in Washington, DC that Joanna attended! It was amazing!
• The enduring appeal of zombies!
• How the opening sequence of the show describes exactly how the king was revived using the resurrection plant, as described in Lee Seung Hui’s medical journal. Although this scene is quite horrific, it is beautifully filmed!
• How Cho Hak Ju and the Queen Consort keep the king chained and how they feed him unwitting court ladies. Who are the real monsters in the palace?
• The head scholar and Minister of War are suspicious about all the dead bodies in the palace. They want Lord Ahn Hyeon to ally with them, but Cho Hak Ju is confident that Lord Ahn will never oppose the Cho clan.
• How Youngshin is doing everything he can to save people from the zombies and Seo bi comes to his defense when Cho Beom Pal and the head clerk accused him of crimes.
• How we are seeing a different Crown Prince in this episode. HE tried to climb the barracks wall, and he took charge at the magistrate’s office when Cho Beom Pal and the head clerk came up with a ridiculous plan re: the zombie bodies.
• We now know of a few ways to stop the zombies: burn them, cut off their heads, drown them.
• Cho Beom Pal is clearly the comic relief in the show, especially in this episode when Seo bi diagnosed him as having gonorrhea.
• The Crown Prince now knows what happened to the king, how he died, and was brought back to life by Lee Seung Hui using the resurrection plan. He is now mourning the death of his father.
• How the king somehow foresaw that his son would be in danger. The king urged his son to stay alive!
• The officials, nobles and soldiers use the one remaining ship to sail to Sangju, stranding all the villagers on the dock.
• How Joseon was a tremendously classist society. Although society has flattened a great deal today, you can still see the emphasis on hierarchy in modern day language and culture.
• We wonder what happened three years ago that clearly involved Cho Hak Ju, Lord Ahn Hyeon, and Lee Seung Hui.
• The amazing and beautiful Bae Doona, the actress who plays Seo bi.

References

• A rare look at Joseon king's funeral
• Anyone know the korean name of or more info on the way they wrap the body in the opening sequence? : r/NetflixKingdom
• .Unidentified artist | Dragon and Carp | Korea | Joseon dynasty (1392–1910) | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• 왕의 죽음에서 왕릉의 건설까지
• Review of Traditional Chinese Medicine Pulse Diagnosis Quantification | IntechOpen

Today, we’ll be discussing Episode 2 of Season 1 of Kingdom, the hit K Drama on Netflix starring Ju Ji-hoon as Crown Prince Yi Chang, Bae Doona as Seo-bi, Ryu Seung-ryon as Cho Hak ju, Kim Sang-ho as Mou Young, Kim Sung-kyu as Yeong shin, and Kim Hye-jun as the Queen Consort. We discuss:

• We’re learning about how the zombie outbreak started in the first place, that it started in Hanyang when physician Lee Seung Hui brought the king back to life with the resurrection plant and then attacked Dan i. The prince now knows that his father has become one of the zombies.
• How the Crown Prince makes some important decisions that almost seem out of character:
  • Despite the horrible scene at Jihulyeon, the prince decides to go to the Frozen Valley to find Seo bi and learn more about what happened to his father.
  • When Seo bi explains that the people aren’t dead, the prince tells Mu Yeong to go back to the magistrate’s office with Seo bi, while he will go back alone to Jihulyeon to find physician Lee Seung Hui’s medical journals.
• We wonder why Seo bi and Young shin didn’t burn the bodies and we think it’s because Seo bi believed she could save the people, AND it was considered immoral to burn the bodies of the deceased.
• The epic fight scene between the prince and Cho Beom il; Cho Beom il now knows that the prince knows what happened to the king.
• The flashback that shows the king being pronounced dead by Lee Seung Hui, but Cho Hak ju and the Queen consort tell the physician he must do what he did three years ago.
• The mysterious dead bodies being dropped in the lake, which we believe are victims of the king.
• Young shin and Seo bi try to convince the magistrate that the dead people aren’t dead but nobody believes them, and they are both jailed.
• In the last scene, the prince escapes the zombies, runs through the forest, runs toward the water’s edge and sees Dong Nae burning in the distance.
• The amazing Ju Ji hoon, including his education, acting success, and how he wasn’t the first choice for the part of the Crown Prince!

References

• Sungkyunkwan - Wikipedia
• Trend of cremation for Korea's deceased

Welcome to Season 9 of K Drama Chat! In this season, we’ll be recapping and analyzing Kingdom, the zombie historical from 2019. Kingdom is the first original series K Drama on Netflix, produced by AStory. Kingdom stars Ju Ji-hoon as Crown Prince Yi Chang, Bae Doona as Seo-bi, Ryu Seung-ryon as Cho Hak ju, Kim Sang-ho as Mou Young, Kim Sung-kyu as Yeong shin, and Kim Hye-jun as the Queen Consort. We discuss:

• Our enduring love for Crash Landing On You, and how we’re finding it tough to move on.
• How we can’t seem to find much information on the music composer from Kingdom, Mok Yeong Jin.
• How Kingdom is set at the start of the 17th century, three years after the end of the Imjin War against Japan. Although Kingdom is entirely fictional, the Sunjo Annals describe a plague that swept through Korea in the early 1800s. Other annals report on a famine between 1670 and 1671 that resulted in mass famine.
• The main characters: Crown Prince Lee Chang, physician Seo-bi, Chief State Councilor Cho Hak ju, the Crown Prince’s body Mu Young, the mysterious peasant Young shin, and the Queen Consort.
• The mystery behind the king’s illness and disappearance from public life.
• Court hierarchy and how the Crown Prince, as the son of a concubine, is in danger because the Queen Consort is pregnant. If she bears a son, that son will be the Crown Prince, unless the king dies before the child is born.
• The Crown Prince’s audacious decision to leave the palace, search for physician Lee Seung hui, and travel the great distance to Dong Nae.
• The Crown Prince’s confession to Mu Young that it was HE who committed treason by writing the letter and getting the other scholars to sign it.
• Young shin’s decision to take Dan I and turn him into soup, which ultimately leads all of the patients at the clinic to turn into monsters.

References

• Is Kingdom historically accurate? 
• The smallpox epidemic in the US during the 1700s
• ASTORY website
• Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty - Wikipedia

Today is a special episode of K Drama Chat. Jean Rhim, Sung Hee’s sister, is with us and we share our favorites in a bunch of K Drama categories, including:

• Best OST
• Best Dressed
• Favorite Korean Phrase or Word
• Favorite Song
• Best Supporting Actor and Actress
• Best Actor and Actress
• Best Villain
• Best Abs
• Best Historical Drama
• Best Modern Drama
• Best Ensemble Cast
• And many more categories!

Please comment on the blog at https://KDramaChat.com or on Instagram @ KDramaChat. 

Next Season 9 begins! We will recap and analyze episode 1 of Kingdom!