And if you like LONG mediaeval dramas and foreign cultures, this is it for 62 hours of play-time. It’s called The Great Queen Soendaek, and it’s one of those drop what you’re doing and read the subtitles numbers, because if you miss a turn in this sequence, you’ll be left wondering.
We’re really enjoying it. We got hooked on Dae Jo Yeong, earlier, just about as long, and really loved it. These are live action, and for anyone who loves costuming and oriental art, delicious.
As a brief what’s going on, Korea has 3 sections: the north, Gogoryeo, which was the setting for Dae Jo Yeong; the central east, called Silla or Shilla; and the western south, Paek–something. They were separate kingdoms, and to a certain extent separate cultures. Gogoryeo in the north was early on much concerned with invasion by the Chinese (it IS a peninsula) but that is now settled, and this is the 600’s, when Shilla was mostly concerned with an internal power struggle. Reading up on the Korean samurai types, or Hwarang, the “Flower Girls” of legend, they are male at the time of this story, but have a tradition of, apparently, female court officials as the leaders. It’s a different culture, and quite interesting. And the kid who plays young Deok Man (pronounced Taman or Daman) is one of the best actresses I’ve ever seen on screen. She can pitch a tizzy like no other, and the one that plays Deok Man as an adult is no slouch.
There’s been some great stuff coming out China and Korea for a decade and a bit. My roommate used to check out things at random from the video store next to the Chinese grocer we would frequenst. About half the time these movies and TV shows would have subtitles. Hong Kong, especially, would crank out some great supernatural dramas. My favorite of the bunch was a Twilight Zone sort of show which had a short teleplay about paper funerary dolls come to life to try to live as humans for a night.
Back in the day, my Kung-Fu instructor told us that we could learn a lot of Chinese history by watching martial arts movies. He said that rather than write entirely new scripts, the HK movie studies would take classical literature and history and adapt them as Kung-Fu movies.
THese have been doing Korean history. We know a bit about Japanese and Chinese history, and follow a little of the language of those two—but this sends us for Wiki to look up things, and that’s rather fun.
Totally new world.
and Korea has a fantastic tradition of ceramics! dragon kilns, moon jars … nowadays amazingly expressionist white slip painted/thrown over dark body big bold jars … some very good young potters using the old traditions 😀
There’s an anagama kiln out around Astoria somewhere that gets wood fired a couple times a year.
http://www.opb.org/programs/artbeat/segments/view/788
There’s a potter in Pembrokeshire, Wales who does gorgeous moon jars, inspired by the Korean pottery tradition. His name’s Adam Buick. You can google for his website. He uses wood to fire his kiln and gets some interesting glaze effects using natural materials like seaweed.
Here’s yet another new world, and another different style of production – an ancient Indian epic.
The Ramayana is a long ancient epic poem in Sanskrit. It has a similar place in Indian cuture to the Iliad and the Odyssey in ancient Greek culture. There are many different movie and TV versions of it, both animated and live versions, movie-length versions and ones with umpteen episodes, versions that emphasize the battles and monsters and magic, and versions that emphasize character and morality.
Here’s a clip from a live action version.
After the death of King Dasharatha, his second son Bharata nobly refuses to accept the throne, which is rightfully due to his exiled older half-brother, Rama. Rama was exiled due to the machinations of Bharata’s mother, Dasharatha’s second wife.
http://youtu.be/lJHSoIcgOKU?t=22m38s
Been researching family history lately. Sounds a bit like a variation on what happened with Edward II & Isabella “the she-wolf” of France, and Edward III.
Korean dramas are hot stuff at our library. One of the branches has a very active Korean community, and has tapped them for guidance about what to acquire. The system consequently has over 100 Korean series, and they are constantly cycling out. They aren’t my bowl of tea, but I could probably get you a list of suggested titles.
Agreed about the Korean ceramics as well. There’s a kids’ book called A Single Shard, by Linda Sue Park, which is a fast read and a good story about Korean pottery and how it was regarded.
If the Korean films are as lush and beautifully photographed as some of the Chinese ones, I’ll be right over. Since you Netflix, have you gotten into the Joseph Campbell stuff or seen “Cave of Forgotten Dreams?” I take it you’ve seen “The Curse of the Golden Flower” which costarred a favorite actor, Liu Ye — who is fabulous in “A Beautiful Life.” As a newbie to Netflix, I’m playing catch-up — between the books I want to read and the films I want to see, there don’t seem to be enough hours in the day. . . . Since you are a fan of animation, I can recommend two French-Scottish (hey, it worked for Mary) productions, “The Triplets of Belleville” and “The Illusionist” — really well done. Neither of which, alas, are on Netflix, but can be picked up on Amazon fairly inexpensively.
This is off topic but might be of intrest to some. Amazone has Georgette Heyer’s e-books on sale $2.51 & $2.99. I don’t know if it is for the day (8/20), month or permanent. I do know the last time I checked they were a lot more expensive. They must do this with no notice, I picked up all Barbara Hambley this way, I could never afforded to buy all at the regular price. Yes I did blow the budget.
Thanks for the tip! The books are still on for $2.99 or $2.51 today, so perhaps this pricing will go on for awhile. I can’t afford them at the full price either, so I got four of my favorites last time they were on sale, and now I have four more — stretching the budget — but I love Georgette Heyer’s Regency novels, not at all profound but very well researched and very funny. Pure entertainment!
WE can’t figure what Amazon’s doing…we HOPE this is a legitmate site Amazon is linking to. AMazon is so robot-driven that who knows what they could link to by accident?
not available here in the UK, they are all about £5.22 ….
My wife and I started watching this series a few days ago in response to your suggestion. I work at home and this has NOT been good for my business, I seem to be somewhat addicted to the show and keep neglecting the work I should be doing!
Thanks for the recommendation. My own failings are–my own!
If you’re in a really long Korean historical drama mood, might I suggest Jumong?
We’ll see if we can find it!
We are huge fans of Korean drama, and it informs our choices of places to visit there. I’m surprised you didn’t mention Dae Jang Geum. Is it difficult to access that series there? It is truly the most popular one (check Wikipedia), and it’s beautiful. And two other favorites (much shorter than Jumong or Dae Jo Yeong [which is also a fav] are Chuno, aka The Slave Hunters (which is currently re-running on KBS America) and Couple or Trouble, aka Fantasy Couple. The latter is not historic, but it is a comedy. If you can find the director’s comment on it, everything will come clear. A new one which is historic, but about a Korean masked hero during the 20th century Japanese occupation is Gashital (Bridal Mask). They are running it a second time in Korea right now, and it just finished here. Many of these are on Viki and or Drama Fever. I was in Korea last month and visited Unjusa, one of the locations in Chuno, and it was just beautiful.
Haven’t seen Dae Jang Geum…I think we’ve got Jumong on order from Netflix: they don’t have the streaming. My brother is now hooked on Great Queen, and about halfway through it. We’re enjoying learning more about Korean History as we go. We’re kind of prisoners of Netflix, but with the success of Great Queen—and several impassioned emails—they may get better about getting it in.
You might try Viki, http://www.viki.com/ Dae Jang Geum is listed there as “The Jewel in the Palace.” You can find Chuno or The Slave Hunters there. Viki is online, doesn’t cost. It’s beautiful on my Samsung tablet, but also good on desktop. I bought dvds of DJG from YesAsia and Chuno from KBS, but also watch newer fare on KBS via DishTV.
The historiographers of the Jeoson dynasty kept incredible records: the kings were not allowed to read them, and certainly could not control them. They kept records in 3 separate places in case of disaster. The respect for education and the arts in Korea is impressive and has been long term. In the 15th century, linguists spent over 25 years developing the phonetic writing system, Hangul for their language. (yes, there was a drama about King Sejong).
Thanks for your info about Netflix. I know they are carrying Kdramas because friends in PDX are accessing. I was trying to decide whether to subscribe, now that they carry some.
Your site is impressive! The explanations are models of clarity.