simmetra

By now, this story is really familiar. In my mind, it's a better version of King of Tears. That series focused on the fight between the brothers and his conflict with his father. There was some mention of his conflict with his wife but the entire drama set was dodged in real life by scandal after scandal. It's sad because that was a great drama that suffered from poor ratings as a result of incidents outside its sphere.

This series, in my opinion, takes off from King of Tears which first highlighted that perhaps the king wasn't totally in control but was mostly manipulated and helped by his wife and her powerful family. This drama focuses on the conflict between husband and wife. There's also fantastic acting by Reborn Rich grandfather, Lee Sung Min and I'm a great fan of his. There's a prequel which focuses on the love story between husband and wife - I wonder why they had it as two separate series. 12 episodes for one drama, especially a sageuk, is really too short. I think it would have been better for the flow of the story to have included those 2 episodes into this one instead.

Anyway, one final thought - this drama highlights the control and subjugation of a powerful and strong woman. Sadly, she wasn't allowed to leave an unhappy and toxic marriage but had to stand by watch as she was repeated subjugated, humiliated and demeaned. In today's terms, she would have been within her rights to seek a divorce. I wish women had the right to do so in those days without suffering the consequences such as being financially cut off and facing social derision..