annelee2019

Cheers! I share your sentiment completely. We've been so fortunate to be part of this experience, ranting and rejoicing, crying and criticizing together... This memory is for the ages. And the drama changed my heart in many ways.

From what I've read on Twitter, the inscriptions were Bride Gil Chae and Groom Jang Hyun

Thank you for sharing this journey with me. <3
I'll miss your insightful commentary. Let's meet again in other threads!

I'd like to try and defend the amnesia trope, because it would be very implausible if Jang Hyun was the only main character who had managed to go through war unscathed (both of his scars were Gil Chae-related and badges of honor, to be honest). I fully expected him to lose a limb or maybe eyesight after that bloody beach scene. But the war, being betrayed by his father and being forced to fight his own people 100 to 1 broke him mentally. He had always been the wisest, the most stoic, the most self-assured character in the show. And when he finally recognizes Gil Chae, we see him at his most vulnerable. Just a man, with a broken heart and a broken mind, who desperately needs healing. His mind has always been his shining attribute. Losing that to war and trauma was appropriate, plotwise.

It ties very nicely with the fact that Gil Chae cherished her beauty and her pride most. Yet she had to scar herself to avoid being defiled - and that didn't save her dignity in the end, and left her as broken and dead-eyed, as Jang Hyun was in ep. 21. He helped her heal - and now she will help him too. I cried buckets at this part of the story.

You may say that first bout of amnesia was unnecessary. While I feel that it might have been added for the sake of extending the show, it actually set up the next occurrence, showing that the cracks in Jang Hyun's psyche were already there. And that Gil Chae was the only person who could accept him and help him through this with love and patience. If we had only the second amnesia bit, we would be left wondering, how they would live together at their new home, with him being a tad mad. Thanks to ep. 19's domesticity, we know that they will be okay and happy - even if he never recovers fully. Plus, given Gil Chae's silk clothes, she came into some money again (probably, from Crown Princess' gift), so Jang Hyun wouldn't have to go about being a merchant again to provide for his family. He can finally take a rest.

At the meeting of King Injo with the Qing envoy in episode 20, Jang Hyun mentions as part of his interpreting that all three children of Crown Prince and Crown Princess were stripped of their titles and sent away as traitor's children, which is historically accurate.

My theory is that Young Rang asked her master, a prominent official of King Injo's court, to hide Ryang Eum in that mental asylum. And they said he was a mad man, so they wouldn't kill him as a captives/rebels' sympathizer. In Ep. 19, when Young Rang helped hide Jang Hyun in her house and that important master drove away the guards looking for Jang Hyun, she said that she invited Ryang Eum to sing at their elder's birthday. It's logical that a higher-up who knew how talented Ryang Eum is (and unimportant on the grand scale of things) would be willing to save him at the request of their mistress.

It was a pretty sad ending, though, with Gil Chae and Jang Hyun being separated for many years again (he built a house according to her request - that takes time), because of his traumatic memory loss, and Reung Eum waiting for his hyung to come back and save him from the asylum. I cried buckets of not so happy tears. But yeah, the ending was unexpected, like most of the non-historic parts of the plot. I hope you liked it. :)

You mean at Young Rang's house? Some very important King's minister, who wasn't a friend to captives at all, as we see in later episodes. I don't think he knew his mistress was hiding a fugitive with a memory loss, though.

And you did stick the landing to me, show.

Were you perfect? No. Did you play fast and loose with the timeline until the bitter end? Yes. Did you run out of time production-wise? Obviously - but not as obviously as I was afraid of.

You may end watching at ep. 20. Cool romcom ending with a wedding, everyone is alive.
You may end watching at ep. 21, a true high romance ending, where every visual clue and every word uttered came full circle.

Personally, I wouldn't skip ep. 21. The theme of fatherlessness and being betrayed by fathers, which what the war and the after-war was about, hit me so hard... And the fact that Jang Hyun, this larger than life heroic man no-one could make bend the knee or defeat in the battle, was hit the hardest and traumatized to the point of oblivion... that's war. That was it does to such people. And it's so fair and cathartic that Jang Hyun was able to get back home again, albeit after "many years," no other ending would do.

The rest is details. (Of course, they'll pick up Reung Eum at some point, he's just another person who is waiting in this story.)

I thank you all for accompanying me on this journey. Hope it was worth three months of your time. Even if not everything was executed perfectly, this show made us feel so much, think so much, yearn so much. That doesn't happen often.

I'm going to say this aloud and bear the consequences: Lee Chung-ah is totally miscast in her role.

According to some scholarly Twitter users, the historical Qing princess is supposed to be much younger, in her twenties. A younger, vicious person being so hung up on an unattainable man is more understandable. Princess Gak Hwa looks older than Gil Chae, but behaves more childishly than pre-war Gil Chae. And apparently, she has nothing better to do in her own country among all the political intrigue than travel to Joseon to get her errant boyfriend back (or probably kill him like she did her husband, because he fooled her). So powerful, on good terms with the current Emperor, but not doing anything of note - an older capable person would be engaged in some important Qing business (like training a new generation of spies or something) if she were not married off.

The second problem is that Princess Gak Hwa is not at all intimidating, to say the least. That's why they gave her a bow - this doll-like lithe woman wouldn't look convincing wielding a sword. And when she spits out threats in her languid sonorous voice, I'm like, "Girl, please, I don't believe you, get your bodyguards to get this stuff for you."

Maybe MBC did try to sell the reunion, given the ending of Episode 10 that sent the fans reeling. They did back down on this secondary romance after the backlash a little. I wish we got the director's version on the Blu-Ray to be able to judge more accurately.

Quick review. :)
Episode 18 was heartbreaking perfection.
Episode 19 was a very solid historical drama with a stupid amnesia plot... which I wouldn't lose for the world, because:
a) we are so not going to get domestic Jang Chae in the last two episodes;
b) the only way to keep Jang Hyun in one place and not off to save the universe is to bash him on the head; if he had his wits about him, he would try to save Crown Prince and Crown Princess - and this wouldn't end well for the historical accuracy, because Jang Hyun gets things done;
c) in the confines of this bizarre plot, the writer actually tied up some things nicely - like Reung Eum's accepting Gil Chae's role in Jang Hyun's life (I howled with laughter at, "I thought, of all people in this world, you would remember HER"), Gil Chae's expressing her feelings in so many words and actions (I'd rather have her do it in this situation that at Jang Hyun's deathbed, you know).

We also learned a little about Jang Hyun's past - and gave Gil Chae an insight into the said past... it was definitely not a comprehensive, but pretty serviceable account of what had happened to him in his childhood (and how he was as a child before his personal trauma). The sequence with the falling ring was very memorable, too. It almost felt like this plot was in the main story all along - not the last minute addition to pad out the show for one more episode... almost.

I just wish we had a whole episode of amnesia and Nam Goongmin being hilarious . Uninterrupted by deaths and devastation that kicked me in the teeth. This kind of levity was much very needed after episode 18. So I am not even going to dare to analyze the timeline. Or the probability of not finding Jang Hyun at that house. (Seems like Princess Gak Hwa is not going to have this kind of problem.)

For once, I'm going to bow my head and say, "Okay, show, do what you think is right - only give me a satisfying ending, please-please-please."

The Joseon royals in Part 2 are actual 3D people - and I like it a lot. Too bad we can't have another ending for this young couple. :(

e “oh things it can’t possibly get any worse than this” AND THEN THEY DO!" ---- I relate to this comment on every level of my being, LOL. So much heartbreak -and before bedtime, too.
Thank you for your review, I enjoyed it!

I really liked episode 17, show. Thank you.

Of course, this has everything to do with how you set up your iconic scenes that are meant to be remembered for years to come, lauded by anyone with a heart, quoted by next generations of k-drama-makers, etc. It's just I sometimes don't envy Ahn Eun-jin - her sunbaenim gets all the killer lines, and she has to stand for whole minutes emoting the context... but she did great. Very moving scenes at the end, not a single wrong note.

I also liked the delicate approach to a very sensitive topic of what Gil Chae went through after she had been sold to a foreign intruder. They shied away from showing it, but there were clues here and there before she told Jang Hyun directly - again, very delicately. Now we know why she flinched when he tried to touch her shoulder at the slave market, why she stubbornly stuck to the role of a grateful carer even after he made it clear what kind of relationship he wanted, what she tried to tell him the night Jang Hyun sent her back to Hanyang and why she obeyed him... some of it was loyalty to her then husband, sure, but mostly it was shame. Gil Chae could tell Eun Ae that nothing had happened to her with conviction. She couldn't convince herself. She needed that reassurance, too, just like Young Rang did. I felt that the show nailed this, and with the necessary nuance.

But in this essay, I wanted to try and take on a bigger topic, i.e. Princess Gak Hwa. :)
It seems that we are going to see more of her, so we might as well take a deep breath, strap in, and try to explain her away from the point of view of the writing purpose... because, sadly, she is still a cardboard character.

(Nothing against the actress Lee Chung-ah, she's doing her best, just like her hair and makeup team... and unlike the costuming department that made exactly two (maybe three) outfits for a member of Qing royalty.)

So, Princess Gak Hwa is obsessed with Jang Hyun. Even Jong Jong calls it like it is. This obsession involves making him spending time with her, playing some games, and making some moves on him while probing if he is thinking about that other woman at that very moment. Though the man in question told her what he thought of her (i.e. evil, selfish, foolish) and kind of threatened to kill her, she insisted she was winning him over, because he let her kiss him before pulling away. He also promised to get back to her after settling some things in Joseon in exchange for some favor, related to the safety of enslaved Joseon people. We may assume that Gak Hwa's motivation is to win. She plainly disregards anything else, logic, red flags, looking like an idiot, helping foreigners she never considered people in the first place. She just wants this man, because she couldn't get him at the first try.

As for Jang Hyun, his interest is mainly political (he is using his connection to Princess to protect the Joseon people in his care), but on a personal level, she is the only woman who somewhat reminds him of Gil Chae... I imagine, the common characteristic is bluntness. This is similar to why Reung Eum used to visit Gil Chae's home in Hanyang religiously, every day - she was his only link to Jang Hyun. And now Princess Gak Hwa is that for Jang Hyun too. He is not blind to her cruelty and other faults. It's just she sometimes reminds him of his beloved - and they can discuss how his love life turned out, too, because Gak Hwa was part of it and could relate. I'll be generous and add, that unlike the Simyang women we saw Jang Hyun spend time with in previous episodes, Gak Hwa is pretty, smart, and insistent. He probably thought that he could handle her, if they were to enter a relationship - which would not contradict his anti-marriage views. He also knew she would grow tired of him soon if she got him. So he hesitated on the personal level and calculated on the political one.

The depth of Jang Hyun's true interest in this woman became obvious at the end of the episode. When he was all, "There are no obstacles between you and me, Gil Chae" and "I'll settle my affairs with Princess when I am back in Simyang." Nothing personal, just business. (Of course, I was like, "Ahem, wasn't Gak Hwa the insurmountable obstacle between you and Gil Chae just an episode ago? Such was her power that you broke Gil Chae's heart and send her back to a good-for-nothing husband to live an imaginary good life?")

But here we come to the main point of the essay. The writer needed a Qing character tied to the fate of Joseon slaves, to give a historically accurate account of their coming back home after Crown Prince's return - and create suspense. We don't have many Qing characters in the show per se, and it would be difficult to introduce a historical figure with the same purpose. So the writer had to use an imaginary one. And, to save time and space, give her a personal connection to Jang Hyun as well, so she could meddle between the lovers pushing the plot forward. This two-pronged strategy was hard to pull off. The team cast a really good actress who has really good chemistry with Namgoong Min - but it didn't work for me and for many other people. We got a fanfiction character in an otherwise realistic setting. To make Gak Hwa more realistic, we would divide her role and functions and introduce a couple of other characters, which was, probably, not possible with the initially planned episode count. I just think that after making her that important the writer should give her a proper unexpected but crucial ending... akin to Gollum's in Lord of the Ring... or something along the lines.

To be fair, at the very beginning, Officer Gu had his moments. He returned to pick Gil Chae up at the Ganghwa island when the other officer told him to abandon the women. He even told her the truth back then, that he wasn't the one who fought 17 intruders to save them. He brought her to see Jang Hyun off when he was leaving for Simyang. He lent her 10 rolls of linen when her family and Eun Ae were starving after Yeon Jun got imprisoned and let her run his forge.

It all went downhill when Officer Gu decided to marry Gil Chae. And most of his actions were, well, because the plot needed them to happen. I can barely piece together his motivation, to be honest.

I completely agree with you about Ryang Eum. :) I don't know what's gotten into him, but he needs a slap or two.

I feel like in Part 2 the characters are heavily used to move the plot along, to tell the story of the captivity in the widest possible way. Whereas in Part 1 they had much more air to breathe, and it was more about their personal stories and journeys. I also think that Part 1 had a better music score.

Two identical cliffhangers in episode 11 and episode 12 did not help things either. Trying to piece together a not very complicated story that could easily be told linearly in those episodes was exhausting. The leads had been apart for too long in the beginning of Part 2 - and when they finally got together, the writer had to come up with new things to prevent them from being together, but at the same time, move with the historical part of the plot.

It just feels more contrived, tbh. I still think that the show is very good, but if before episode 16 I was ready to give it 10/10 without a doubt, now I have to see the ending, if it fits.

The more I think about it, the weirder it gets, tbh.

"Go and live like a flower." With the husband that has abandoned her and was the main reason she got to that slave market with her eyes dead? What if the said husband did not want to take her back? "Pester him until he does, I'm sure you'll be fine, Gil Chae, you can do it."

I get it, the story needs Gil Chae back in Joseon to show the pain and humiliation the returned women suffered. And I expected something along the lines, "Jang Hyun, I know how steadfast your love is, etc., I really want to be with you, but first, I need to go back to Joseon, get a divorce and sort things out with my family - otherwise, I will never be at peace. Can you wait for me to do so? Come pick me in Joseon when you have the opportunity."

But nooooo, instead, we needed to shove in another parallel scene!

I know how much time and effort it takes trying to make sense of this timeline, and I commiserate with you. :)

I keep telling myself it's "historical records that need to be removed." (i. e. ep.1). But this spell doesn't always work.

We may get the couple working together in the last four episodes, but I am not very hopeful, because the writer has established her themes already and adding a new one this late in the story is unlikely...

I wouldn't mind a second female lead if she felt real.
Plotwise, I understand what the writer was trying to do there - to flip Gil Chae's sacrifice of her heart for the sake of her family and make Jang Hyun do the same - for the sake of the people. The writing is fine, the execution is fine - it's just that the whole parallel feels artificial, like it's there for the sake of the parallel. We do care about Gil Chae's family by the time she decides to get married. Captain Gu is also well-established by that time - they have a history together, he seems to be a nice enough chap, who helped her out with the 10 rolls of linen and letting Gil Chae run his forge when her family lived hand-to-mouth.

Princess Gak Hwa, on the other hand, is just a vehicle to keep the leads apart. And Jang Hyun's giving in to her for the sake of the captives is very out of character. To me, the parallel failed. Why would he sacrifice his heart now, when he knew that his love for Gil Chae wasn't unrequited, instead of finding another way? The idea that he might enter this arrangement with the princess who tried to kill him and threatened to kill innocent people if he didn't is laughable. Of course, he will find another way. After letting Gil Chae go and cutting all ties with her! Which is worse, we already know that they will forget all about that when they meet next - because there is a pattern there.

*Sigh* I know, I know, there must be some payoff for that later in the story. There should be. But for now, I feel betrayed. Why is that in episode 15 Jang Hyun and Gil Chae were discussing heavy topics like two mature people and in episode 16 they suddenly regressed?

Oh, my dear fellow suspender-of-disbelief, it is entirely possible, of course. But still, we are talking months here (like a couple of months). Things went from spring to summer, at the very least.

Remember that Jang Hyun got the cows for plowing the first field just before he learned that Gil Chae is in Simyang. Then he got her out of the slave market. Cue a full moon. Then she got into the princess' court. Cue another full moon (another month passed, at least in our universe). Then he got shot, sometime later. If we generously assume that the cows' arrival was the start of the sowing, and the rice becomes mature in 120 days (according to Wikipedia)... It's still a couple of months. Maybe, probably, Gil Chae had been successfully deceiving herself because she wanted to have Jang Hyun in her care for as long as possible. And I'm okay with that. It's just the show suddenly jumps from realism to fantasy without a warning that is frustrating.

I agree with you that Gil Chae was gearing up to tell Jang Hyun that she wanted to stay. And they both knew it. It's just... the princess plot.
I was appalled at the husband. And how he was like, "Oh, there is a pregnant girl living here with me now, don't mind her, I'll sort this out." What the actual..?