I am a huge fan of Jang Hyuk. His screen presence is definitely up there with the greats. But on the portrayal of Bang Won, Yoo Ah In remains unbeaten and the gold standard, One of the more remarkable aspects of SFD was that rare happenstance where a drama with a wide range of multiple characters came together stupendously because the directors insightfully picked the right actors for each role. The chemistry and interplay between the xters played out beautifully on screen and made 50 episodes seem way too short.
Key points:Taejo and Jeong Do Jeon both had their very selfish reasons for picking Taejo's youngest son as the…
Yes, greed certainly played a huge and central role in a lot of the machinations that played out during that time. But to limit Do Jeon and Bang Won's actions to greed will be a huge disservice to these remarkable men.
As for the Min Clan and most especially Wonkyeong, how they could have so gravely miscalculated with Bang Won was truly remarkable. For a family that survived and thrived for over 200 years of the Goryeo period, they displayed an astonishing and basic grasp for power.
Bang Won's killing of Do Jeon and Poeun (in self-defense), was an indication of his remarkable strength of mind and willingness to take hard decisions that others, including the Min clan, would have shied away from. Bang Won's execution of his own young half brothers (whose lives he'd also risked his own to save previously) was also a telling display of ruthlessness and farsightedness that should have been a red flag for the Min Clan. Bang Won did not kill his half brothers in secret nor did he use a 3rd party. His personal and public execution of them was a naked display of his rise to power and what he would be willing to do to keep that power. Wonkyeong's brothers' displayed an astonishing level of repeated stupidity in failing to heed this lesson in this regard.
I will agree that Bang Won did Wonkyeong very very dirty. However, Bang Won's cruelty in this regard was not selective and limited to her and her clan judging by how Bang Won readily displayed the same to his second son's (Sejong The Great) wife's family as well as any family member either by marriage or otherwise, who displayed any untoward 'ambition' for political power.
History and even present day records have never been kind to women who show a desire for political power. Hence I have always taken Wonkyeong's historical portrayal with grains of salt. Neither Gogoryeo, nor Goryeo welcomed women to power. Women who wielded political and economic power often did so from behind their men. History says that the Min clan recognized the Wonkyeong's high intelligence and political savvy from a young age and smartly deferred to her advise and observations.
Wonkyeong's head-on confrontation and collision with Bang Won was particularly perplexing for someone so smart. It was pretty obvious from the onset that Bang Won was not going to allow any concentration of power outside of himself. Lesser women than her had schemed their way to power in the face of such naked aggression from their royal husbands.
Joseon's Neo-Confucianism was birthed from the womb of Goguryeo's Confucianism, an overtly patriarchal way of life that had no regard for and was downright hostile to any consideration of women's autonomy. Why and how Wonkyeong thought she could openly share power with Bang Won in light of these was hubris in its highest form. The Min clan pretty much signed their own death warrants in triplicate.
Okay, so little history lesson - background - which might help with understanding the series.Taejo - 1st king…
Key points: Taejo and Jeong Do Jeon both had their very selfish reasons for picking Taejo's youngest son as the crown prince.
For Taejo, it was because Bang Sok being the youngest would have probably given the longest time for Taejo himself to rule (without being overthrown). This informed the decision to skip over Bang Sok's older brother and go for the youngest. However selfish this particular motivation was, it did have some merit. Joseon was a brand spanking new country and to survive and have stability, Taejo surmised that the monarchy did not need any succession strife and upheaval. Who could have thought that this was exactly what the Gods had in mind to preserve and empower Joseon's survival for the next 600+ years. It was also obvious that Taejo recognized some leadership qualities and political savvy in Bang Won which he himself lacked. Having Bang Won as crown prince would have possibly hastened his departure from the palace as Bang Won's charismatic nature would have drawn considerable support and followership that would eventually eclipse that of his father. Likewise, Taejo's almost slavish devotion and deference (and to a great extent, inferiority complex) to not only Do Jeon, but also to Jeong Mong Ju was troubling. Taejo was literary okay with Jeong Mong Ju killing Bang Won and anyone else for that matter as long as he had Jeong Mong Ju's approval.
As for Jeong Do Jeon, he shrewdly foresaw and calculated that having a young and malleable crown prince will serve his towering and somewhat inimical ambition to have Joseon ruled by scholars while having a puppet monarchy, a puppet with string held and pulled by his very own hands.
Queen Sindeok's deadly ambition for her sons must also not be overlooked. Aside from her attempted assassinations of Bang Won, she recognized a kindred spirit in Jeong Do Jeon in the earnest effort to wipe out any opposition to her son's ascent to the throne, including Bang Won and all his brothers. There can be no doubt that had Queen Sindeok and Do Jeon succeeded in installing Bank Sok as crown Prince beyond the amount of time they had, Taejo's entire line outside of her children would have been wiped out and Do Jeon himself would have found that he miscalculated in his scheming and cooperating with her. Queen Sindeok has to be admired though for her boldness in asking Bang Won, on her death bed, to protect her son.
On the one hand, Do Jeon's conclusion and estimation of the scope of threat posed by Bang Won to his grand plan was spot on and quite accurate. On the other, why Taejo, Do Jeon and Queen Sindeok appeared to under-estimate Bang Won's reaction to essentially being used and then killed, was baffling to say the least. These 3 were cold and ruthless in their ambitions. Why they expected less from Bang Won who displayed a remarkable agility of the mind and intelligence that matched and atimes stymied Do Jeon's own remarkable I.Q. remains a puzzle.
One of the more fascinating part of this piece of history is why everyone expected Bang Won to just roll over and get his throat cut to satisfy their own noble ambitions. It is not entirely wrong to conclude that without Bang Won, Lee Song Gye would not have survived to become the first king of Joseon.
It seems there is a black out level of conspiracy of silence on this message board because whys is ABSOLUTLEY no one out of everyone who says they have watched the final episode answering everyone asking where they watched it?
Can Seo Ji Hwan send me a reeeeeeally long voice note and also talk me to sleep... Rewatch value - 10+ just to hear him speak and threaten grievous bodily harm..😁
A historical faction drama based on a historical figure with extremely limited records and scanty pictorial information for that time-period, being heavily critiqued for historical and costume inaccuracies is some next level twilight zone insanity.
I agree with you, except that I think that the four episodes are enough to say if someone like or dislike it.…
Though rare, it is entirely possible to send the remaining 4 episodes back to the chopping block for some editing that may save the entire plot and give more coherence to an otherwise indulgent and messy plotline. You get the sense of the vision that the script/screen writer and director probably had going into this on paper, an epic and stylized historical fiction drama. But there seems to be a big gap between that vision and the screen rendition of it so far. Hence the push-pull between giving an F grade for the plot line and a good P grade for the efforts of the cast members.
I think one of the reasons there is a lot of angst about this drama is the sense of been dropped into the middle of an epic story (regardless of it been largely fictional) without any plot build up or background story. There is an expectation for such heavy weight casts to have a more fleshed out backstory and none of that is present here in the traditional sense. Its almost like been drooped into the middle of the ocean and the script writer and director expects you to find the shoreline and swim towards it while constantly shifting the event horizon. The audience can only swim for so long before running out of patience. Added to this is knowing that its only 8 episodes with multiple plotlines - all occurring in the span of 24hrs - bringing a disorienting sense of urgency to the table. Who is going to do what and succeed or fail in 24hrs! You want to see more of your favorite actor and even though you went in knowing his time was short - you literally want to change the script and give him more screen time, and you know he is not going to get it. And that character(s) you are thinking is going to be a decisive power broker, gets loped off in a most unceremonious manner like an afterthought. This is a deliberate intent by the script writer to not indulge in any of the usual k-drama tropes. Tightly wound scripts like this are a double-edged sword - when it works, it leaves behind a brilliant, well-crafted drama that teases and challenges the audience on a cerebral level with a rewatch value that is off the scales. When it fails, it becomes an epic train wreck littered with regrets of what could have been. 4 episodes in, it's too early to tell (not necessarily a good thing for this drama). But I'd say it's on a 50-40 scale in favor based purely on the gravitas and brilliant acting chops of all the main characters. As for the S&N (nothing new here - A Frozen Flower, The King and the Clown, Obsessed, Empire of Lust, Portrait of A Beauty, The Servant, The Handmaiden, The Concubine - to mention a few). What strikes here though is that it was almost gratuitous and not quite organic - seemed crafted for just the shock value. It just did not fit and one gets the sense that the parts where it comes up could have been done very well without it (the scene with Prince Bal Gi and his wife for instance). Nevertheless, looking forward to the last 4 episodes.
The one thing that ran through my mind by the 3rd episode of this epic drama is that how is it that KingYeonsangun has a worse rap than the vacuous, manipulative, cowardly and deadly King Seon Jo? There is nothing quite as deadly as a person with these sterling xter traits having the ultimate power of an absolute monarch. Add to this a highly developed sense of cunning self-preservation, then you have the perfect storm of suffering and death as evidenced by the avoidable massive loss of life during the Imjin wars, and it did not help matters that Seon Jo also unfortunately lived longer than most monarchs - 41yrs too long.
I call them "My Demon fans".By that I mean anything that doesn't have romance, an idol looking ML and a braindead…
Marvel does this all the time - take a totally far out (and sometimes new and made-up) thread from a main story and spin it into a stand-alone off shoot and then leave some crumbs for follow up seasons. But since its marvel, its okay with the fans... 🙄
But on the portrayal of Bang Won, Yoo Ah In remains unbeaten and the gold standard,
One of the more remarkable aspects of SFD was that rare happenstance where a drama with a wide range of multiple characters came together stupendously because the directors insightfully picked the right actors for each role. The chemistry and interplay between the xters played out beautifully on screen and made 50 episodes seem way too short.
As for the Min Clan and most especially Wonkyeong, how they could have so gravely miscalculated with Bang Won was truly remarkable. For a family that survived and thrived for over 200 years of the Goryeo period, they displayed an astonishing and basic grasp for power.
Bang Won's killing of Do Jeon and Poeun (in self-defense), was an indication of his remarkable strength of mind and willingness to take hard decisions that others, including the Min clan, would have shied away from.
Bang Won's execution of his own young half brothers (whose lives he'd also risked his own to save previously) was also a telling display of ruthlessness and farsightedness that should have been a red flag for the Min Clan. Bang Won did not kill his half brothers in secret nor did he use a 3rd party. His personal and public execution of them was a naked display of his rise to power and what he would be willing to do to keep that power. Wonkyeong's brothers' displayed an astonishing level of repeated stupidity in failing to heed this lesson in this regard.
I will agree that Bang Won did Wonkyeong very very dirty. However, Bang Won's cruelty in this regard was not selective and limited to her and her clan judging by how Bang Won readily displayed the same to his second son's (Sejong The Great) wife's family as well as any family member either by marriage or otherwise, who displayed any untoward 'ambition' for political power.
History and even present day records have never been kind to women who show a desire for political power. Hence I have always taken Wonkyeong's historical portrayal with grains of salt. Neither Gogoryeo, nor Goryeo welcomed women to power. Women who wielded political and economic power often did so from behind their men. History says that the Min clan recognized the Wonkyeong's high intelligence and political savvy from a young age and smartly deferred to her advise and observations.
Wonkyeong's head-on confrontation and collision with Bang Won was particularly perplexing for someone so smart. It was pretty obvious from the onset that Bang Won was not going to allow any concentration of power outside of himself. Lesser women than her had schemed their way to power in the face of such naked aggression from their royal husbands.
Joseon's Neo-Confucianism was birthed from the womb of Goguryeo's Confucianism, an overtly patriarchal way of life that had no regard for and was downright hostile to any consideration of women's autonomy.
Why and how Wonkyeong thought she could openly share power with Bang Won in light of these was hubris in its highest form.
The Min clan pretty much signed their own death warrants in triplicate.
Taejo and Jeong Do Jeon both had their very selfish reasons for picking Taejo's youngest son
as the crown prince.
For Taejo, it was because Bang Sok being the youngest would have probably given the longest time for Taejo himself to rule (without being overthrown). This informed the decision to skip
over Bang Sok's older brother and go for the youngest.
However selfish this particular motivation was, it did have some merit. Joseon was a brand
spanking new country and to survive and have stability, Taejo surmised that the monarchy did not need any succession strife and upheaval.
Who could have thought that this was exactly what the Gods had in mind to preserve and
empower Joseon's survival for the next 600+ years.
It was also obvious that Taejo recognized some leadership qualities and political savvy in Bang Won which he himself lacked. Having Bang Won as crown prince would have possibly
hastened his departure from the palace as Bang Won's charismatic nature would have drawn considerable support and followership that would eventually eclipse that of his father.
Likewise, Taejo's almost slavish devotion and deference (and to a great extent, inferiority
complex) to not only Do Jeon, but also to Jeong Mong Ju was troubling. Taejo was literary
okay with Jeong Mong Ju killing Bang Won and anyone else for that matter as long as he had
Jeong Mong Ju's approval.
As for Jeong Do Jeon, he shrewdly foresaw and calculated that having a young and malleable
crown prince will serve his towering and somewhat inimical ambition to have Joseon ruled by scholars while having a puppet monarchy, a puppet with string held and pulled by his very own hands.
Queen Sindeok's deadly ambition for her sons must also not be overlooked. Aside from her
attempted assassinations of Bang Won, she recognized a kindred spirit in Jeong Do Jeon in
the
earnest effort to wipe out any opposition to her son's ascent to the throne, including Bang
Won and all his brothers. There can be no doubt that had Queen Sindeok and Do Jeon
succeeded in installing Bank Sok as crown Prince beyond the amount of time they had, Taejo's entire
line outside of her children would have been wiped out and Do Jeon himself would have found that he miscalculated in his scheming and cooperating with her.
Queen Sindeok has to be admired though for her boldness in asking Bang Won, on her death
bed, to protect her son.
On the one hand, Do Jeon's conclusion and estimation of the scope of threat posed by Bang
Won to his grand plan was spot on and quite accurate.
On the other, why Taejo, Do Jeon and Queen Sindeok appeared to under-estimate Bang
Won's reaction to essentially being used and then killed, was baffling to say the least. These 3 were cold and ruthless in their ambitions. Why they expected less from Bang Won who
displayed a remarkable agility of the mind and intelligence that matched and atimes stymied Do
Jeon's own remarkable I.Q. remains a puzzle.
One of the more fascinating part of this piece of history is why everyone expected Bang Won to just roll over and get his throat cut to satisfy their own noble ambitions.
It is not entirely wrong to conclude that without Bang Won, Lee Song Gye would not have
survived to become the first king of Joseon.
Rewatch value - 10+ just to hear him speak and threaten grievous bodily harm..😁
You get the sense of the vision that the script/screen writer and director probably had going into this on paper, an epic and stylized historical fiction drama. But there seems to be a big gap between that vision and the screen rendition of it so far. Hence the push-pull between giving an F grade for the plot line and a good P grade for the efforts of the cast members.
There is an expectation for such heavy weight casts to have a more fleshed out backstory and none of that is present here in the traditional sense. Its almost like been drooped into the middle of the ocean and the script writer and director expects you to find the shoreline and swim towards it while constantly shifting the event horizon. The audience can only swim for so long before running out of patience.
Added to this is knowing that its only 8 episodes with multiple plotlines - all occurring in the span of 24hrs - bringing a disorienting sense of urgency to the table. Who is going to do what and succeed or fail in 24hrs! You want to see more of your favorite actor and even though you went in knowing his time was short - you literally want to change the script and give him more screen time, and you know he is not going to get it. And that character(s) you are thinking is going to be a decisive power broker, gets loped off in a most unceremonious manner like an afterthought. This is a deliberate intent by the script writer to not indulge in any of the usual k-drama tropes.
Tightly wound scripts like this are a double-edged sword - when it works, it leaves behind a brilliant, well-crafted drama that teases and challenges the audience on a cerebral level with a rewatch value that is off the scales. When it fails, it becomes an epic train wreck littered with regrets of what could have been.
4 episodes in, it's too early to tell (not necessarily a good thing for this drama). But I'd say it's on a 50-40 scale in favor based purely on the gravitas and brilliant acting chops of all the main characters.
As for the S&N (nothing new here - A Frozen Flower, The King and the Clown, Obsessed, Empire of Lust, Portrait of A Beauty, The Servant, The Handmaiden, The Concubine - to mention a few). What strikes here though is that it was almost gratuitous and not quite organic - seemed crafted for just the shock value. It just did not fit and one gets the sense that the parts where it comes up could have been done very well without it (the scene with Prince Bal Gi and his wife for instance).
Nevertheless, looking forward to the last 4 episodes.
Sign me up!
There is nothing quite as deadly as a person with these sterling xter traits having the ultimate power of an absolute monarch. Add to this a highly developed sense of cunning self-preservation, then you have the perfect storm of suffering and death as evidenced by the avoidable massive loss of life during the Imjin wars, and it did not help matters that Seon Jo also unfortunately lived longer than most monarchs - 41yrs too long.
But since its marvel, its okay with the fans... 🙄