Celebrity 
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This review may contain spoilers
will stand the test of time
I had neither read the french novel nor seen any of the film adaptations. So I watched this as a standalone piece.
Time will tell, but I think it is a solid show, worth watching and very memorable. It is a very sad show, but if you love kdrama sadness is one of the requirements.
This is not the French novel, although literacy is still a wonderful part of the show. It is not a romance either.
The plot is about emotions and memories.
A boy falls in love with a wildly intelligent girl cousin. She dominates him, plays literary games with him and then gives him up when she is married off. He never, ever gets over her. He never matures. And when he actually comes face-to-face with his love, who has also been fantasizing about him all these years, she manipulates him into another game. A selfish, stupid. callous game. But they are now grownups and actions have consequences.
The acting is phenomenal -- within 2 episodes the emotional premises of the show were clear as day.
The costumes and lighting echo Jang Ok Jung -- resonating themes.
The obsessive fugues of baroque music are broken up by some pansori and a very bucolic soundscape.
That constant background of barnyard noise, mainly mooing cows. oddly makes the s** scenes much less shocking.
And there is a lot of fooling around, mostly in flashbacks.
Son Hye Jin's character, Lady Cho, is older, a married but childless woman running a silk business. She seems to be suffocating. The interweave of the flashbacks from her brilliant teenage past with her current intense frustration is incredibly sad. When Cho Won is near her she begins to glow, as if the years peel back. But the pansori singer in the final scenes has a lot to say about old beans that will never sprout.
Ji Chang Wook's character, Cho Won, is an investigative advisor to the king. Heart-broken after Lady Cho marries, he becomes a seducer of women, distracted as a dragonfly. JCW plays him in a precise and delicate way as a man always at the edge of desperation. His life is actually ruined by the consequences of the wager that Lady Cho pressures him into making.
The wager is horrific. JCW is expected to share all the details of a planned seduction with Lady Cho, give written proof that the deed is done, all this so that he will be rewarded by a night with Lady Cho. He chooses as his target a widow living across the way from Lady Cho. She is being pressured psychologically to commit suicide as a 'virtuous woman'.
Nana's character, the widow HuiYeon, is a secret Catholic, so that although Lady Cho keeps suggesting that she kill herself, she shows much more resilience than one would expect.
In fact although the action of deceiving the King could have resulted in a lot of damage, it is contained and limited to the two main protagonists. Cho Won's life is destroyed and Lady Cho loses him forever.
Call me crazy but I think this will be a good rewatch.
Time will tell, but I think it is a solid show, worth watching and very memorable. It is a very sad show, but if you love kdrama sadness is one of the requirements.
This is not the French novel, although literacy is still a wonderful part of the show. It is not a romance either.
The plot is about emotions and memories.
A boy falls in love with a wildly intelligent girl cousin. She dominates him, plays literary games with him and then gives him up when she is married off. He never, ever gets over her. He never matures. And when he actually comes face-to-face with his love, who has also been fantasizing about him all these years, she manipulates him into another game. A selfish, stupid. callous game. But they are now grownups and actions have consequences.
The acting is phenomenal -- within 2 episodes the emotional premises of the show were clear as day.
The costumes and lighting echo Jang Ok Jung -- resonating themes.
The obsessive fugues of baroque music are broken up by some pansori and a very bucolic soundscape.
That constant background of barnyard noise, mainly mooing cows. oddly makes the s** scenes much less shocking.
And there is a lot of fooling around, mostly in flashbacks.
Son Hye Jin's character, Lady Cho, is older, a married but childless woman running a silk business. She seems to be suffocating. The interweave of the flashbacks from her brilliant teenage past with her current intense frustration is incredibly sad. When Cho Won is near her she begins to glow, as if the years peel back. But the pansori singer in the final scenes has a lot to say about old beans that will never sprout.
Ji Chang Wook's character, Cho Won, is an investigative advisor to the king. Heart-broken after Lady Cho marries, he becomes a seducer of women, distracted as a dragonfly. JCW plays him in a precise and delicate way as a man always at the edge of desperation. His life is actually ruined by the consequences of the wager that Lady Cho pressures him into making.
The wager is horrific. JCW is expected to share all the details of a planned seduction with Lady Cho, give written proof that the deed is done, all this so that he will be rewarded by a night with Lady Cho. He chooses as his target a widow living across the way from Lady Cho. She is being pressured psychologically to commit suicide as a 'virtuous woman'.
Nana's character, the widow HuiYeon, is a secret Catholic, so that although Lady Cho keeps suggesting that she kill herself, she shows much more resilience than one would expect.
In fact although the action of deceiving the King could have resulted in a lot of damage, it is contained and limited to the two main protagonists. Cho Won's life is destroyed and Lady Cho loses him forever.
Call me crazy but I think this will be a good rewatch.
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