Thank you Dear Javabeans

DEAR JAVABEANS
Last night I watched 3 princes (sun ki ,ha rim, min youp) in arirang TV report about Korean drama festival 2007, I think they are special guests.
http://www.kdfo.org/2007/index_en.asp

Before the soompi crash of 2005, my nick there was damoforever. Yup, I'm a Damo nutcase and proud of it. And my No. 1 K-movie, the one that makes me go weak in the knees, is Duelist. No matter how some people diss this movie and decry its supposed lack of plot, I love it to bits. So yes, I'm definitely a fan of saguek. I enjoy the way the characters speak, dress, fight, love... The attention to details in the costumes and sets is impressive. I'm happy that you're gonna 'try looking at the sageuk genre with an open mind,' sarahbeans. Yes!

i agree... i never saw the appeal of saguek~ (im new to dramas in general, id say) but its intriguing to hear about your long-time dislike and now ... maybe conversion over? if anything, it'll provide for a LOTTTT of catch-up viewing =D

perhaps i have been interested in historical dramas regardless of country of production , so saguek is also part of my kdrama list ....it just open up channels to see how the people of the past had lived and love ..in terms of historical facts .i find it quite educational .lol but then not all that had been shown in drama are accurate history .you had to do a bit more research on your own ..but that was what is fun for me too .
lol you are so right on the *just a simple touch or hug will get you excited . and the declaration of love ..is just a glance .and you feel such power .sometimes i think is that we know it is so forbidden , just a cross over the boundaries make it a strong statement of love ..sometimes others wonder how i can watch saguek where there is hardly any kisses or whatever passionate scenes you hope to find for a romance .but i can only say the element of romance in sageuk is abit different yet never less powerful ..

CONSPIRACY IN THE COURT (Han Sung Byul Gok) is very intense in terms of the power struggle.within the palace , the different fractions ..rivting to see how all mystery are revealed ..very well produced mini sageuk. but still it wont surpass Damo ..lol i am a damo peiyin .it shall remain a classic forever to me ..the first fusion drama that leave its mark in kdrama history

currently watching The King and I ..and ...waiting for Yi San to start ...^^

Hmmmm.... I am getting intrigued by your write-up. Is there any chance I will find this drama Hyang Dan Jeon with English subs? Saw that both episodes are already uploaded on Veoh but could not bring myself to spoil the story.
Gosh, how I wish I could understand Korean!

Thanks Javabeans. What is the meaning of the word "Saguek"? Is "Saguek" = "Fusion"? Why Fusion?
Conspiracy in the Court has beautiful cinematography...the colors are rich and sharp.

#8 the meaning of the word “Saguek"

Sageuk or 사극 means "historical drama/play"
Write the same word in Chinese characters 史劇 and anyone lucky enough to be able to read them will see at once which of the very many senses of "sa" and "geuk" we're dealing with in this compound: "history" plus "drama".

"Fusion" gets into the picture because so many recent movie and TV sageuks have been "fusion" pieces, injecting more modern concerns, behaviors (and sometimes speech patterns) into what were traditionally rather stuffy museum pieces. Especially through creating plots where women have prominent roles of a kind that it's pretty hard to find in strictly historical accounts of life in Old Korea.

BTW, anybody thinking of starting a sageuk blog be careful. The largest producer of business accounting software in the EU, Sage UK Ltd, will sue you into the ground. They regard themselves as the legal owners of the character sequence Sageuk. Which is silly enough. Sillier still is that they have had this claim upheld in various jurisdictions, thanks I suppose to the general ignorance of things Korean in the "educated" world. Reminds me of the way Standard Oil commissioned a search for a corporate name that would be guaranteed not to be rude in any language ("Esso" being apparently pretty obscene in some African tongues). Their wizards came up with Exxon, thinking that no language has "xx" as a normal character. They forgot about Maltese, in which language "exxon" is not far from meaning "up ours". Still, shortly after they came out with this new name, the then Maltese government nationalised all the oil companies and took away their brands anyway...

First of all Javabeans, thank you for letting me in on a bit about yr parents, which perhaps explains yr linguistic talents. Secondly, I think after CP with its blatant display of afffections, we almost welcome the subtleties of romantic love. Heh.

Javabeans, I believe you will love sageuks once you give them a chance. Jumong was long but was worth every minute of my time and every A i sacrificed in my college classes. I also liked seodongyo/Ballad of Seodong and Dae Jang Geum.

historical dramas tend to be to promote nationalistic (conservative?) beliefs--it is fun to compare historical dramas, books and plays made in different eras in a country to see the way the view of the past has changed (ex. edo period in japan is different in different decades--few are accurate). This dramas are to promote values and to restore the social order-- they usually avoid challenging causes of social problems. they can be controversial outside a country: for example, "Dae Jang Geum" is criticized heavily in China because (as I read in Chinese and Japanese papers) of claims in the show that the Koreans invented acupunture.
dan hyung is not a historical drama--it is a fairy tale set in an imaginary time that has some resemblence to a historical period. Even, "Dae Jang Geum" promotes social views of women that are more conservative--she may seem modern and progressive, but her role is with traditional womenly virtues of motherly nursing, teaching. these values cause historical dramas to be popular in older people looking to find comfort and belief in their society, and lack of interest in young people who want dreams, new ideas, improvements in society.
interesting is to compare how the characteristics of heroes in historical dramas are almost never seen in modern day political and social leaders. One could conclude that historical dramas while glorifying and building up the country's past, shows how a country's people have morally and ethically deterioated.
in korean romantic comedy dramas, there is often a similar conservative value trend: a tendency to have a cinderella ending which is predictable, and can be why many dramas start fun but die off in the middle. these trends could be why korean romantic comedies have not grown popular in main stream non-asian north american audiences, yet movies like taegukgi can be quite popular in theatres in america.

we have a winner! The Story of Hyang Dan it is! looking forward, thanks javabeans... :D

Thanks Gramps for defining “Saguek”! Now that I can see the Chinese characters I understand what it's about. There's “Saguek” style Chinese dramas too - my grandma watches them, and my parents too. Waaaaaaaaay too long for my tastes in general, and for some reason a lot of them are about this famous king from so-and-so (sorry I'm no history buff) dynasty who's known to be a flirt and had relationships with lots of women. I've watched some with my parents when I was younger and as Javabeans pointed out, I only kept up with viewing if it was fun. There were one or two that were interesting enough to keep my adolescent short attention span - funny moments, intrigue, flow to the story, and of course, eye candy. :-) I don't think I've seen any of them become international though - or even fansubbed for that matter. What a nightmare it would be to fansub all that antiquated speech and the long episodes!
Downloading The Story of Hyang Dan episode 2 as I type - looking forward to it as part of Friday night relaxation. :-)

Dunno, javabeans… personally, I think that it’s the generation gap kinda-thingy that probably explains my less than enthusiastic attempt to watch historical dramas (may they be sageuk or any other Asian). I think that as I get “older” (but not necessarily wiser since they don’t often come in tandem), I am more opened to experience things that I was biased against during the prime of my teenage youth. I guess you can say that it’s a maturity hurdle that I have to overcome. Well, the same thing can be said about fashion and music; so if that can be done, why not a sageuk revival? There are some impressive productions over the years that are more than justified their popularity. Heck, I’m no History Channel buff but have started Jumong awhile back. Haven’t gone beyond the first few episodes although it seems like a spectacular production. Give credit to the Coffee Prince mania. It’s a daunting task, considering the emotional and time commitments these historical dramas required (blame it on my Gen-XYZ ADD-mentality). Anyway, it’s thumbs-up for fusion sageuk if the style helps to elicit our youth’s positive response toward this genre. Often historical dramas recite the past (in a very subjective way) and challenge us to interpret their renditions. And isn’t there usually a valuable lesson to be learned at the end of these 30+ episodes (at least, that’s what I’m assuming…)? Fun or not, gotta admit, these sageuks are quite astounding in production and artistic values. Plus, their endings rarely suck! Hey, it’s a good thing that we’re getting educated while being entertained. Talk about multi-tasking!

Dexter, now that’s a little bit too intense and twisted for me (although I like M. Hall). House is more relatable. Still in mourning for the demise of Six Feet Under and Gilmore Girls. Yup, so unlikely WB-ish of me but gawd people, the witty dialogues are so cool. Maybe I’ll give Dexter another try, when I’m in a sunny happy mood with plenty of company around. BTW, Weeds is quite something else also (con.tro.ver.sial). Interesting post, javabeans.

After watching the second episode of Hyang Dan Jeon (no worries, no spoilers here) and missing TONS of the folktale / cultural references (heck I even have trouble telling people apart since most of have similar hairstyles and/or clothing), I had to look up more about the folktale of Shim Chung - and found it at a University website for Korean Ballet production: http://inside.binghamton.edu/March-April/27apr00/ballet.html. According to there, Shim Chung;s story is rooted in shamanistic rituals conducted for fishing vessels on the East Sea, tracing back 1,500 years!! Won't have that kind of history for American folktales, that's for sure (USA is less than 300 years old, after all). Yay for Sageuk revival! :-)

I'm glad you're giving sageuk dramas a whirl because if it weren't for Dae Jang Geum, I would not have become an addicted Kdrama phobe and been exposed and inspired by the lovely Korean culture. I hope you'll also give DAMO a chance too, as it has some great romantic moments and awesome martial arts sequences, even if the hereoes never consummate their love for one another (not that you would want them to in one particular case, because as it turns out, they're siblings.) I would love to hear your thoughts on them.

Oh sorry, Hua,
I didn't mean to borrow your moniker as I it didn't notice until it was too late.

No problem all4movies. Something about the form for comments keeps the last commenter's name in the name section after the post.
Javabeans, I'm liking The Story of Hyang Dan more and more as I look up more Korean culture references. I was just reading about the Binyeo, and it explained how a married and unmarried Korean girl would wear their hair (for those watching episode 2, you'll know what I'm talking about). So many interesting things I'm learning!
Thanks as always, Javabeans for your awesome summaries and non-drama related posts as well! :-)

In that story about the daughter of the blind girl in the last post...I heard the version that, under the sea, she met her mother and that she was sent back up in a lotus flower and some king found her in his garden. After that they married and had a festival for all the blind people and found her father and were reunited. Yep. thats it. (there are more details but I really dont want to go that deep.)

AH....so the meaning of Saguek is 史劇. Thank you.

I love to watch the Korean historical drama if its translated in our language (Tagalog). It is because I get tired reading the subs for long episodes. Currently Jumong is still airing in the Philippines (nearing the end i guess) and after that Hwangjini is going to replace Jumong. Dae Jang Geum was aired first and so many mothers like the drama also (because of the cooking). Also at the moment I'm following Dr. Heo Jun on Arirang and kinda hook to it because I learn different herbal plants used in Korea. From what I heard Dr. Heo Jun started it all. I noticed that actor Jeun Kwang-ryeul (Dr. Heo Jun and King Geum Wa of Jumong) appeared mostly on long dramas. From my point of view, Saeguk helps promote Korea. People became interested and like to see it personally so they come to Korea.

oppps! i forgot to change the name... that's my comment! forgive my forgetfullness "joenjwang". he he he

thanks for ur post sarah. it was an interesting read :) well really, im not that big a fan of Korean Saeguks.. but yes, i have watched some that have caught my attention (i.e. Dae Jang Geum ( i love that it is about food and history + Ji Jin Hee), Jumong (storyline + Song Il Gook!!), Damo (romance + Lee Seo Jin!!!). heartthrobs aside, i find they are interesting in their own right, makes me learn more about Korean history too, but as some are fusion its not always the same feelings as everyone. The chinese Saeguks are my favorite, but yes that's what my granny watches before and what I am more used to, probably have passed through some or the others. I find Saeguks can be hard to follow sometimes coz of the main events that entine each other, its like you have to intently watch it, the names ahhh i tend to interchange them too.
I tried to watch Han Sung Byul Gok when it was airing on KBSworld with subs, but i couldnt understand it for some reason. Maybe I was so unfamiliar with the storyline and stuff. Hearing many good things, about it i wondered about it. Maybe I should try again?
I loved Hyang Dan!! i loved how they did it, it was interesting, amusing and yes the cast! the interpretation of that story that is different than those from before.
But yes, as of recent I am following King and I... and waiting for Yi San + Hong Gil Dong!! :)

Ps. I love those other American Shows mentioned :)

I didn't realised that drama like Dae Jae Geum and Damo have a type of classification - 'Saguek' . Thanks for enlightening me (and many more people as well)

Despite watching only the two sagueks mentioned above, I enjoyed both dramas. My mum watches more of those (I only remember SangDo and another one on a medical practitioner) and she finds it more engaging than those storylines potrayed during the modern times. I am currently waiting for Jumong to be aired here in Malaysia.

I'm not sure if the general Korean audience would find it offending if a well known classic tale is changed (in this case the what if Moon Ryong falls for Hyang Dan) which is why the storyline sticks with how it has been always known to be, hence predictable. It seems to me that Hyang Dan Jeon is testing the waters and that's not a bad thing after all.

Who knows, you may come to like sagueks one day! :)

i just had to give you props for it's always sunny in philadelphia. i keep telling people how fantastic that show is, because it's the MOST wrong thing i've ever seen. also a big fan of dexter. have you seen extras? that's also wrong, in a very hilarious way. ...ok, i'll contribute an on-topic remark. i have been avoiding historical dramas under the pretense that they are boring. however, i've gotten completely addicted to jumong. i started watching it despite an unconvincing summary, but it's got this very intense pacing which provides some nice suspense and anticipation. it seemed daunting due to length, but i'm finding it very easy to continue watching, and made a huge dent in a short amount of time (eh, procrastination will be discovered to be a real psychological disease sometime in the very near future, i'm sure). anyway, just wanted to say, from the perspective of someone who was previously prejudiced against sagueks, i have totally changed my mind. in fact, i like jumong better than a lot of recent dramas (that i had really loved). there's something to be said for cinematography and scenery.

i loved hwang jin yi

I have seen Yi Soon Shin (which made me cry like crazy) and Dae Jo Young....which is....eh...okay.

hi
I am from iran .
after long time I canjoin to arirang tv and watch series Dr.heo jun .I think very wonderful history as like the dae jang geum.I love to travel a korea someday and see the beautiful drama korea.
thank you so much.

im a tipical filipino lover of a film..

I watch it from the beginning till it was end, its nice love story with amazing ending and craving adventurius seen of a film.. i want to watch it again if the GMA 7 would replay it with the film.. its a very good love story that could dream of. dare to have another set of a film looks like this from korea...

hi,me and my friends are the 1 fan of soong il gook,we wacth jumong here in the philipines,we love you,,,,,,,,,we hope or we wish that we see you in personal,,,,,,,,

pero ponez algo en español coñoooooooooooooooooooo

I would like to learn Spanish ym something more than this is not podriais put something in Spanish coñooooo

I love korean movies much that why very interesting and wonderful I would to travel in korea......

thanks

how are you jumong.I dont know your name.bye

tankyou and top

is there any difference between "Daeha Drama" and "Daeha Sageuk"??? (sorry can't input hangeul on my computer...)

actually, it is in the sageuk Dae Jang-geum that sparked my first interest about Korea, and also it is my first sageuk that got me interested also on its fellow sageuks...

If you search for the Wikipedia article "List of Korean television series", I was the one who did the major editting for the "Historical Drama" section; I was the one who input all those freaking tiresome and fuse-shortening dates...

...well, some of it are incomplete, since I don't know if "The Count of Myeongdong" (Myeongdong Baekjak) is a sageuk, I'm not sure of the dates of "The King's Woman" (Wang-ui Yeoja), and the dates for those sageuks ranging from 1999-1980's are vague (well, except the Joseon 500 years series, I only got the dates from Youtube...)...

i like to meet people

i like jumong alot because he is so sweet and lovely and too handsome if i saw him i will kiss him with a loudl voice MUCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

hey i am iranian

hello
the film jumong very good in iran all see film jumong
i love korean

sigord
from iran

Hmmmm…. I am getting intrigued by your write-up. Is there any chance I will find this drama Hyang Dan Jeon with English subs? Saw that both episodes are already uploaded on Veoh but could not bring myself to spoil the story.
Gosh, how I wish I could understand Korean!

hello
i am from iran
i love jumong, i love mr song eil gook
i love koren very much
good luck

hi im from iran i love jumong alot

hi.thank you it is very good

JUMONG is xtremelly coool nice the most popular n educative series in a manner such children n agedn people can enjoy it.... Here in Tanzania, East Africa everbody here loved it so much.
i love u JUmong n Sosunhyo, mo palmo, n others.

i really HATE the king and I