Jumong (Korean Series)

I've long looked for a worthy successor to the great Korean tv epic Dae Jang Geum and found it in Ju Mong.

The story starts around 50BC in the Korean peninsula dominated by a economically large and technologically advance China. At that time Korea was divided into many small kingdoms at odds with each other.

A princeling of the state of Buyeo was trying to rescue citizens from Buyeo and other Korean states from the grasp of a Chinese-allied kingdom which had annexed some of their territories. The princeling was assisted by an able and skilled tactician by the name of Hae Mosu who led his own elite soldiers.
Both the princeling and Hae Mosu fell in love with the same woman but she chose to return the affection of the tactician and became pregnant with his child. Before the child is born, the father was ambushed and taken prisoner by the enemy. He was tortured and blinded.
His child, Jumong and his wife, Yuhwa, was taken in by the princeling as his family. Soon, the princeling became king of Buyeo and Jumong as raised as a prince.

As Jumong was the favoured of the king, his step brothers plotted his "accidental" deaths many times. Unwilling and unable to step up against these elder princelings due to his lack of martial skills and his more pacifistic mindset.
Jumong was left to die by the princelings on one mission and he was saved by the daughter of a commercial house.

Jumong met his father and was taught swordsmanship and archery by him who'd suspected Jumong's true identity early on. Jumong was unaware of his father's identity until it was too late and his father was ambushed and killed by the princelings.

Realising his true identity at last, Jumong was determined to leave Buyeo and found his own kingdom, Goguryeo. This sets the stage for conflict with his adopted father who viewed Jumong and his new kingdom as a direct threat to him.

Cast:

• Song Il Gook(송일국) as Prince Jumong(주몽)
• Han Hye-jin(한혜진) as Lady Soseono(소서노)
• Kim Seung-soo(김성수) as Prince Daeso(대소)
• Jeon Gwang-ryeol(전광렬) as King Geumwa(금와)
• Oh Yeon-soo(오연수) as Lady Yuhwa(유화)
• Kyeon Mi-ri(견미리) as Queen Wonhu(원후)
• Kim Byeong-ki (김병기) as Yeontabal(연타발)
• Jin Hee-kyeong(진희경) as Sorceress Yeomieul(여미을)
• Lee Jae-yong(이재용) as Prime Minister Budeukbul(부득불)
• Heo Joon-ho(허준호) as General Haemosu(해모수)
• Song Ji-hyo(송지효) as Lady Yesoya(예소야)
• Won Ki-joon(원기준) as Prince Yeongpo (영포)
• Bae Soo-bin(배수빈) as Sayong (사용)
• Park Tam-hee(박탐희) as Lady Yangseolran (양설란)
• Lim So-yeong(임소영) as Buyeong (부영)
• Yoon Dong-hwan(윤동환) as Yangjeong (양정)
• Ahn Jeong-hoon(안정훈) as Mari (마리)
• Lim Dae-ho(임대호) as Hyeopbo (협보)
• Yeo Ho-min(여호민) as Oyi (오이)
• Jeong Ho-bin(정호빈) as Wootae (우태)
• An Young Jun as Yuri

More info......
(This is an edition with English subtitles)

Video Caps:
Opening Theme
Battle for the Han-allied Korean city
Fight to clear ambush point
Defeating the pro-Han forces on the battlefield

Links:
Jumong the tv series
Jumong the wikipedia

Forum:
SPCNet Forum

Rating: 4.5 out of 5
I chose not to watch Song of the Prince nor Goong as they are nothing more than soap operas appealing to the fanboyz and fangirls. I prefer something more substantial and meaty like Dae Jang Geum.
This Jumong is a very long series of 82 chapters but I can assure you that each chapter is not boring as it has good storyline as well as action.

Sympathy for Lady Vengence (Korean Movie)

This Korean movie is by Director Park Chan Wook and concludes his Vengeance trilogy. It stars Lee Young Ae as Geum Ja, a fun-loving student who became pregnant and left home to seek shelter with her teacher Mr. Baek acted by Choi Min Sik of Old Boy fame.

Unknown to her, Mr Baek is a serial kidnapper and murderer of young children, for ransom and for thrill. Geum Ja was caught by the police and took the blame after a young boy was kidnapped and killed, and she was found guilty of the crime . As a result she spent 13 years in prison. She survived those years by being nice to all the inmates, even to the biggest bully in her cell block. She made friends with all and as a result, made many friends there wiling to help her at a later stage.

Released from prison, she was no longer the same naive girl of her younger days nor was she the sweet helpful girl her prison mates knew. Geum Ja became cold and calculating, plotting her revenge on Mr Baek who'd left her in prison.
Calling in the debts owed her, she managed to obtain plans for a gun, got it made, tracked down Mr Baek.
Geum Ja was reunited with her daughter who was adopted while she was in prison.
The end justified the means, and justice from Geum Ja's view was served. The parents of all the children that Mr Baek had kidnapped and murdered were able to be part of that justice.

More info....

Cast:
Lee Young Ae as Geum Ja
Choi Min Sik as Mr Baek

Rating: 4/5
This is a side of Lee Young Ae that is totally new. No more the sweet innocence but the cold, calculating and vengeful demon woman. This, alone, makes Sympathy for Lady Vengeance a definite must-see. Young Ae showed why she is so highly regarded in the Korean entertainment scene. When Korean movies are good, Korean movies are very good.
They don't believe in half measures.

Typhoon (Korean Movie)

This is touted as the most expensive Korean movie ever made. It tells a tale of a Korean terrorist, Jang Dong Gun, bend on exacting revenge on both North and South Koreas.
As a young boy, he and his family defected to South Korea. Through trickery, they were returned by the South Koreans to the North. In attempting to escape the whole family were slaughtered except for the young boy and his sister, but even then they became separated.

Falling into the hands of SEA bandits he grew up with them and gained leadership of a pirate group. The movie starts with this group hijacking a covert US ship transporting nuclear weapon kits. Jang Dong Gun intended to sell these kits to Pakistan but the deal fell through and he had to do a deal with a Russian general in a black-market trade.

This is where Lee Jeong Jae comes in as a South Korean agent tasked with preventing Jang Dong Gun from using these weapons of mass destruction.
The chase leads to Jang Dong Gun's long lost sister who became his bait to trap Dong Gun. Jeong Jae learned Dong Gun's past from the sister and felt sympathy for them.

The sister was shot when Dong Gun escaped from Jeong Jae's men and he implemented his plan to destroy both the North and South Koreas with contaminated nuclear waste material he'd gotten from the Russian general. His plan was to hide in a typhoon and release balloons lifting drums of these materials and detonating them when they are over the Korean peninsula.
The fight between these 2 men climaxed onboard the ship in the midst of the typhoon, with a US submarine waiting to sink it.

More info....

Cast:
Jang Dong Gun
Lee Jeong Jae

Rating: 2/5
Nothing original here. My personal opinion is that this movie doesn't show where all the money went to. The ending was cliche as the villain became a good guy at the end and never set the load to auto-detonate in the first place. It's a cop-out ending. When Korean movies are bad, they are very bad and this one is no exception. Most expensive but I really don't see where the money went.

Daisy (Korean Movie)

This is the 4th and latest movie of the Korean actress Jeon Ji Hyun of My Sassy Girl and Windstruck fame. In this movie she has moved away from her cutsie characters in the 2 earlier movies and into a serious dramatic role here.

In Daisy, Jeong Ji Hyun is a side walk sketch artist in Amsterdam. She lives above her gallery and often wanders the countryside doing impressionist styled paintings of it and dreams of being able to have an exhibition show of her own one day.

While crossing a log bridge one day she fell off and into a shallow stream. Unknown to her, she was watched by a Korean man, Jung Woo Sung, who was living nearby and he retrieved her satchel which was washed away. Besotted with her innocent beauty, he began sending a pot of daisy to her gallery every afternoon. He also replaced the crude log bridge with a more wider and safer bridge for her to cross.
Touched by this mysterious admirer, Ji Hyun left a painting of a field of daisy behind on the bridge for him.

Every morning, he watches her from afar as she does her morning round of sketching for customers in the square. Due to his work as an international professional killer he kept his distance from Ji Hyun.

One day, a young Korean man, Lee Seong Jae, approached Ji Hyun for a sketch but he left before she could complete but promised to be back the next day. Ji Hyun completed it based on her memory so was able to hand it to him the next day. He was smittened by her and was soon at her shop with a pot of flowers. Ji Hyun mistakened him for her mysterious admirer and he did not want her to know he is not the man she was waiting for.
Soon, they became close and he often visited her in the square but one day, some men started walking quickly towards him. Lee Seong Jae was in actual fact an undercover Interpol agent and he was their target now.
Jung Woo Sung was, as usual, watching and he saw these armed men approaching Ji Hyun and Seong Jae who were unaware of their danger. Woo Sung fired at these gunmen and soon the square turned into a battlefield. Ji Hyun was shot in the throat in the cross fire.

Seong Jae was devastated that she was injured because of him but because he undercover status was exposed he could not remain in Holland and must leave Ji Hyun, who had lost her speech as a result of her injury.
Heart broken that Seong Jae had left her, she went through her days in a daze.
Unable to look at her constant lonely pain, Jung Woo Sung approached her daily and tried to fill the gap in her life left vacant when Seong Jae left her.
Despite the kindness of Woo Sung, Ji Hyun could not get over her love for Seong Jae and told him so in writing.
Still, Woo Sung continued to keep her company but one day Seong Jae turned up suddenly at her apartment while Woo Sung was there.

Thus, the stage was set for the girl caught in between the killer and the hunter. There can be only one end result.

While this is a fresh side of Jeon Ji Hyun, perhaps she chose the wrong vehicle to extend her dramatic range as the formula is pretty cliche. Still, pretty watchable because Jeon Ji Hyun is very pretty and watchable.
More info....

MV from Daisy

Cast:
Jeon Ji Hyun as Hye Young
Jung Woo Sung as Park Yi the assassin
Lee Seong Jae as Jeong Woo the Interpol agent
David Chiang as head of the assassin guild

Rating: 3/5
I had originally wanted to rate this show at 2 as it's not original in anyway but a ripoff off many Hongkong movies that cloned each other. But, as I'd mentioned, Jeon Ji Hyun is really very very sweet and pretty so giving in to this weakness, I revised my opinion of Daisy to 3/5

Jewel in the Palace aka Dae Jang Geum (Korean Series)

This is a truly epic Korean production that took Asia by storm conquering every country and making everyone sit through the story of a young apprentice palace cook, Jang Guem, who worked her way up to the never heard of position of a female personal physician to the emporer of Korea.
"Dae" was the special personal title that the emporer conferred on her.

Told in 70 chapters was the story of her mother who rose to become a supervisor in the imperial kitchen who had witnessed an act of high treason committed in the kitchen itself and whom told the wrong person. As a result she was poisoned to keep the scandal from being revealed.
Surviving the attempt she started a new life with a palace guardman who, unfortunately, was a party to a power struggle between courtiers and a young emporer which ended in the poisoning of the young emporer's mother. After coming into power, he was determined to punish everyone who was involved in causing his mother's death. As a result, young Jang Geum and her family was forced to uproot constantly to escape from his pursuers.

Losing her father and then her mother's last breathe urging her to attain the position of Matron of the Imperial kitchen, young Jang Geum''s story unfold. We are treated to spectacular and colourful images of an ancient imperial Korean court, the sumptuous food and the detailed preparation of each dish.

Young Jang Geum showed an incredible inner source of strength that helped her overcome great adversities and near tragic encounters. Along the way, her determination enabled her to master not only the art of good cooking but married it with the understanding of how to use various food and herbs to nourish the body. She mastered the arts of cookery and healing.
There is a sweet love story woven into this epic story between her and a senior guardsman who stood by her side constantly.
There is simply too much to put into words here in this short synopsis. All I can say is, "get this show". You simply can't go wrong with it. You will laugh and you will cry as you follow the story of Dae Jang Geum.
More info.....

Cast:
Lee Young Ae as Dae Jang Geum


Opening Theme

Onara MV1

Onara MV2
Forum:
SPCNet

Rating: 5/5
Get it now!! What are you waiting for?

Hidden Blade (Japanese Movie)

Second in director Yamada Yoji's samurai trilogy, it tells the story of a young samurai, Katagiri Munezo, tasked with killing a prisoner who had escaped from prison.

Prior to this, the young samurai had rescued a married woman from an unhappy marriage. She was a former servant of his family. Social conventions forced him to ask the woman to return to her father's home as he could not keep her by his side.

Upon receiving his order to kill this renegade samurai, Munezo visited his sword master for advice as he know he is not so skillful as this renegade who were also trained by his teacher.

On the night before he was to confront the escaped prisoner he was visited by the prisoner's wife who offered her body if he'd spare her husband's life. Munezo turned her down and she told him she'd visit his superior who'd ordered the death of her husband. Munezo tried to persuade her from this course of action as he knows this officer cannot be trusted to keep his word.

In the duel he wounded the renegade who was then shot dead by a hidden musketeer. The renegade's wife committed suicide in despair and Munezo was filled with anguish. He decided to seek revenge for the dead renegade and his wife and redeem their honour by assassinating the superior officer. This is where the title of the movie is revealed.

Munezo resigned his position after the deed and went to look for the woman he loved and live the life of a commoner.
More info......

Cast:
Nagase Masatoshi as Samurai Katagiri Munezo
Matsu Takako

Rating: 3.5/5
Don't expect lots of sword play as this is not the director's style nor is he telling a sword flick story.
It does have a happy ending and I'm a sucker for that.

Love and Honour (Japanese Movie)

Third in director Yamada Yoji's samurai trilogy, it tells the story of a low ranked samurai, Shinnojo, serving as his liege lord's food taster. Although he gets by on his annual allowance of 30 kokus, he dreams of leaving his job and starting his own sword training dojo. He is supported in his aspiration by his lovely wife. Kayo.

One day, he fell ill while tasting an out-of-season shellfish and as a result of the poisoning he became blind despite recovering.
Despondent and in despair over how to survive and feed his family he wanted to end his life.

Kayo was forced by his relatives to appeal to his Senior Duty Officer to help her husband. He agreed but the price was high and he continued to take advantage of her by threatening to tell her husband.

Eventually, rumours reached him and he found out what hi wife was doing and he divorced her. Angry and humiliated he took up his sword training and reached an even higher plateau of achievement in being able to sense his opponent's movement without seeing. His sword master taught him to fight with no thoughts of surviving, thereby attaining a psychological edge over his opponent.

He was to challenge this senior officer to a duel and he defeated him. In humiliation, the officer later ended his own life but never told of who had so handily defeated him, a senior disciple of a famous master.

Not to spoil the story for you, there is a happy ending here. Yes, I'm a sucker for happy endings.
More info.......

Cast:
Kimura Takuya as retainer Mimura Shinnojo
Dan Rei as wife Kayo

Rating: 4/5
Don't expect lots of sword fighting as that's not the director's focus which is on story telling based on the main characters. He'd rather dwell on their emotions than on the external appeal of swordsmanship.
But, the fight when it happens is exciting as we are rooting for the young blinded samurai defending his honour.

My Sassy Girl (Korean Movie)

The movie that launched the Korean Wave and the career of Jeon Ji-Hyun, the female lead.
Take a simple and common boy-meets-girl story, add a bit of Korean kimchi and it became a massive hit across Asia.

Young man (Cha Tae Hyun), wanting to meet the girl of his dreams takes the night train home and saved a drunken young girl (Jeon Ji-Hyun) from falling off the platform.
Inside the carriage she pukes all over a man and then passes out while calling out to Cha Tae Hyun "honey". Forced to take care of the girl by the other passengers who assumed he was her boyfriend, he carried her out of the station and to a motel. He's a nice guy so he didn't take advantage of her. Instead, he was taken to jail by a sudden police raid.
Getting home in the morning he gets beaten by his mother who disliked his constant staying out late. This time she's mad at him for not visiting his aunt who'd just lost her son.

Ji-Hyun calls him out to find out what happened to them the other night.
And thus, his adventures with this girl commences. She's not an ordinary girl but very wacky, hot tempered, prone to scolding strangers if she did not like their actions, and last but not least, violent towards Tae Hyun.
He tries to avoid her initially but always ended up together and he soon realises that despite her outwardly happy expression she seems to be hiding some deep sadness within.
He changes from a self-centred young man to one discovering the inner ability to feel caring, sympathy and the need to help others be happy even at some cost to himself. He learned to accept the unpredictable nature of his girlfriend and tries to please her, including bringing a single stalk of rose to her in class on her birthday, only to find out that her class was all girls and everyone looking at him as he walked towards her.

We can identify with this couple as we have gone through the stages of burgeoning love and all its insecurities. The story made me laugh and it made me cry as I too recollect my own past pain.

In the end, her own painful past forced her to leave Tae Hyun and they agreed to bury their letters to each other in a time capsule under a tree and meeting again 2 years later. What I could not stomach at this point was how Tae Hyun let her just walk away when he knew he does have feelings for her.
He spend those 2 years writing the story of how they met and the adventures they had together. That story was sold and made into a film.
The 2 years past quickly and he returned to the tree to wait for her but she did not come.
He returned often to that spot and even replaced the tree when it was killed in a lightning storm.

Not to spoil the story with the ending, I will let it end here but highly recommends this movie. The version is available with Chinese dialogue besides Korean and has English subtitle.

More info......

Cast:
Cha Tae Hyun

Jeon Ji-Hyun
(SPCNet forum)

Storyline

Rating: 4/5
Superb retelling of the age old romance story.

200 LBS Beauty (Korean Movie)

Watched this very enjoyable Korean comedy. While the fat suit has been done to death already this is still a very fun movie to watch mainly because of the newcomer Kim Ah Jung who portrays her character with a mixture of very potent innocence and hot sexiness. She bears a striking resemblance to the Taiwan actress Shu Qi.

In this comedy, Kim Ah Jung (Hanna) is a grossly overweight ghost singer for a popular Korean singer who has the looks and body but cannot sing. Hence, Hanna sings behind the stage while she lip-synced. Being fat, Hanna is constantly put down by the singer and while Hanna has feelings for her manager she dares not tell him the truth.
One day she overheard him telling the singer that he is good to Hanna because her voice is making sales for his company. Sad and depressed, Hanna disappeared, and then make a mess of a suicide attempt.
As a last resort, she blackmailed a very good plastic surgeon to give her a total body make-over. She re-emerged in a lithe and beautiful body and love her new "shell".
One funny scene is when a traffic policeman asked to see her driver's license and looking at the old fat Hanna and the beautiful and slim girl standing in front of him he just couldn't make the connection and kept looking from the picture back to the person.
Hanna, with her new stage name Jenny managed to become a new and rising star in her old manager's company and as well as winning his heart.
Another funny scene is when they were trying to make out and he put his hand on her breast and she immediately pushed it away as she feared he'd feel the silicon implant there. And when he put his hand on her buttocks, she again pushed his hand away. They ended up talking to each other on other side of the recording room until daybreak.
With all her new found fame and acceptance Hanna is not happy as she feels she's living a lie. She denied her own father because she did not want others to know she is really Hanna and not Jenny.
Finally, at her first live concert she couldn't keep living the lie as she saw the security guards drag her father away from the stage. She told the truth to the thousands of concert goers. She said she wants to be Hanna and not the fake Jenny. She explained why she became Jenny; to sing, to be accepted, to be loved.
The crowd was moved by her sincerity and screamed back their acceptance of her.

So Jenny the singing sensation became Hanna the singing sensation.

Enjoy the video clip on the right. It's a good rocking song titled Ave Maria from the movie's sound track.
More info.....

Rating: 4/5
It's no wonder this movie is so big in Korea. It's fun, it's flighty, it's a screwball! Kim Ah Jung presents a sexy but naive persona.

Twilight Samurai (Japanese Movie)

First in Yamada Yoji's acclaimed samurai trilogy, The Twilight Samurai, looks beyond the shallow surface of the Japanese culture of that period on the effect on an individual's conduct. One is required to conform to social norms and standards to the extent of suppressing all individuality in order to "fit in".

Sanada Hiroyuki plays a low ranked but highly skilled samurai widower with 2 young children around whom his life revolves. He's attracted to a beautiful but married woman so it seems their relationship is doomed even though she is divorced from her husband as social convention frowns upon such relationship. That and his reticent and reserved nature that prevents him from opening up to her.

The motto of this story is that life is short and we should make the best of each moment, social norms be damned. More info........

Cast:
Sanada Hiroyuki
Miyazawa Rie

Rating: 3/5
This is the first movie of this director that I've watched and it's very different from the usual samurai flicks that I'm so fond of. It's not about fighting. It's about the man and his emotions. That's so atypical of Japanese samurai movies.
Sad to say it has a sad ending and I'm not a fan of such endings.