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Post by Alexa on Oct 17, 2005 22:51:45 GMT -5
This episode was so sad It was really hard to watch Commander Hwang (?) fight the Japanese in order to save that selfish Ming Commander. He fought so bravely along with the other soldiers, and the guy in the green suit (what was his name?) So sad, to see him die and for what? That stupid ming commander didn't even give a crap! I can't believe that one guy told YSS that YSS put them out there to be annihilated. Who the heck told them to advance forward? It was the Ming Commanders pride and selfishness that got him in the situation he was in and yet he refused to acknowledge he had any part in it. How horrible YSS must've felt to see his own cousin being killed and to watch all those Chosunese hostages being killed too. How hard it must've been for the admiral. and I cannot believe that the King believed the Ming message over YSS message. I mean when has YSS failed him? NEVER!! Yet he chooses to believe the Ming commanders report of defeat. Is all of this historically correct?
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Post by ginnycat5 on Oct 18, 2005 10:21:12 GMT -5
It seemed that in lhis report, YSS whitewashed the conduct of the Ming navy commander, not to mention the army commander. If he had told it as he saw it, would the king have had more reason to question the objectivity of the Ming's report? The king is so hard to take, isn't there a monk with a generous spirit who can counsel him?
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Post by TheBo on Oct 18, 2005 10:34:48 GMT -5
Oh, ginny, your suggestion is so right. (And funny, besides.) I think that actor is doing a marvelous job of showing the king's travels in and out of sanity. It's scary but not over the top, seems perfectly realistic. The king is not so goofy that someone HAS to assassinate him, but he's certainly not in such good shape that no one can see that he's got problems; this must be a difficult part for the actor to play without getting all obvious with it.
Bo
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Post by roxelanahybrida on Oct 18, 2005 12:37:24 GMT -5
I have to say once again what a wonderful actor the guy who plays YSS is. Did you guys notice the hurt expression on his facewhen he was confronted by the Ming officer after suffering so many losses? He can get more across in a look than many actors can get across in dialogue.
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Post by TheBo on Oct 18, 2005 14:32:13 GMT -5
CONSARNIT (to quote Ginny)!!!!!!! I missed this episode! I forgot to change the tape this morning, and it ran out.
Drat, drat, drat. Unless by some miracle, it got onto the end of my WML tape...
This episode is one of those that repeats what happened in the first four, isn't it? Anything important I might have missed?
Bo
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Post by ginnycat5 on Oct 18, 2005 15:36:11 GMT -5
I don't know how important it is, but if I'm remembering right, When the Ming navy commander's ship was grounded and surrounded, YSS ordered a rescue team or two to pull him out, and Lt. Yi Young-nam, I think, protested that it was too dangerous. Then when the rescue team (led by YSS's cousin, it seems) was getting overwhelmed, he said to send a team to save them. Horrible choices . Another was Konishi displaying his Chosun hostages, causing YSS to stop firing. Then when the hostages said "Kill the enemy!" he was torn but resumed the attack, and some hostages jumped overboard. Also it was interesting that when the Ming army commander sent a carrier pigeon message to the navy commander to stay back and let YSS lead the attack, the navy guy took it as the army guy's sneaky way of taking all the honors for himself, so he disobeyed (and got stuck). Really, it was the army guy's sneaky way of getting YSS killed as agreed to with the Japanese in a doublecross. Apparently it was the 6th time he stayed out of a fight he had agreed to join, and left the Chosun forces to fight alone. At the end, both YSS's men and the Ming army's men raced their reports to the king. Stupid king believed the Ming, who said it had been a defeat, rather than a victory as YSS said, to the disbelief of the prime minister and others. And that's only part of it, whew.
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Post by TheBo on Oct 18, 2005 16:22:17 GMT -5
Thank you, Ginny. Your grace is...well, you know.
Bo
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Post by tim on Oct 19, 2005 0:57:19 GMT -5
blah, this drama discredits the Ming way too much. u ever realized that every time the Ming ppl loses, they film so much on it, but when the Ming wins a battle against the Japanese, they barely even mention it?
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Post by theSPICYcabbage on Oct 19, 2005 9:10:38 GMT -5
actually, i think the Ming naval admiral respects YSS now. He tried defending YSS but the Yu Jung or whatever didnt listen. Actually i think it's Yu Jungs fault, not Ming in general. I think it is natural for the Ming Admiral to rush forward and try to defeat the Japanese army. On contrast, think that Yu Jung is a total idiot. He shouldnt have given in to the Japanese.
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Post by TheBo on Oct 19, 2005 14:37:45 GMT -5
Also, it was the Ming generall who wanted King Paranoid to make YSS a high court official. He really pushed the king for it, and then the king "pardoned" YSS instead. So it seems Ming officials are not all portrayed as jerks.
Bo
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Post by chigirl68 on Oct 19, 2005 16:18:11 GMT -5
Also when Liu Ting said to blame the lost Ming ships and soldiers on YSS Chen Lin said he would not go along with it because YSS saved his life. That was until he was advised to do differently. He still didn't seem very pleased. When Deung Ja Ryong (mr. bow tie mustache) asked about the heads from the Japanese to strike a deal and clear the path Chen Lin said "is that why you think I accepted the heads?" and he did not clear a path for the Japanese withdrawal. (from ep. 101)
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Post by tim on Oct 19, 2005 20:59:04 GMT -5
lol, yeah. u guys make good points. but i still think they discredit the Ming ppl alot. the generals i can understand (about 90% of Ming generals, whether they participated in the Imjin war or not, are total losers.) say for example, when Zhao Chengxun made an idiotic mistake, they filmed how horribly the Mings were being massacred by the Japanese, but when Li Ru-song takes back Pyongyang, they only mention it! And one other thing, they make it seem like if though the Ming ppl and the Japanese are friends or something. Liu Ting abides to Yoshira's every demand (maybe he is just an idiot) and the way they film the Mings, the Ming army just sit back on the sidelines and watch the Chosunese being massacred. I find that highly unusual. why? because Japan had tried invading Ming about a 100 years before Yi Soon Shin, and the Ming people would gladly go to war with Chosun as an excuse to fight off the Japanese. ok, so maybe they weren't as spirited as the Chosunese, and maybe they did violate the people of Chosun as much as the Japanese, but the two countries certainly are not that close as they show it in the drama. (two countries meaning Japan and Ming, not Ming and Chosun)
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Post by florel on Oct 19, 2005 23:10:17 GMT -5
The image of the Mings in the drama is not as bad as that of the Japanese. They are sometimes caricatured, but at least they didn't bring a cat in a battle field ! The dramatists didn't show the Battle of Pyung-yang. But it's not in order to discredit the Mings. They omitted the whole winter battles between late 1592 and early 1593. So they skipped over the Chosunese victories in Ham-kyung province over Kato Kiyomasa, the Mings' victory in the 3rd of Battle of Pyung-yang, the Japanese victory in the Battle of Byokchegwan and Kwon Yul's victories in Suwon (Doksung Mountain Castle) and in Haengju. (I inventoried those battles in my History & fiction thread.) The reason ? Certainly, because of the budget problem. The dramatists didn't have sufficient budget to depict all important battles. They described historical facts until the 1st Battle of Jinju in Autumn 1592 (relating it with the installation of the advanced navy camp on Hansan Island). And then they skipped over the winter and spring periods until August 1593 when YSS became Supreme Navy Commander. At least, they mentioned the 3rd Battle of Pyung-yang and the Battle of Byokchegwan with narration. But the great victory of Kwon Yul in Haengju is not at all mentioned. Okay, this drama is not "The Immortal Kwon Yul". So the dramatists didn't depict the Battle of Pyung-yang. But at the same time, they also didn't mention the fact that Li Rusong slaughtered 10,000 Chosunese civilians in Pyung-yang and that he faked their heads as Japanese ones. This incident, recored in the Royal Annals, caused a diplomatic scandal between Ming and Chosun courts. Since then, the Ming court in Beijing dispatched inspectors to oversee the Ming commanders in Chosun for preventing this kind of incident. And I think the Mings in the drama are not depicted as a friend of the Japanese. Only Shen Wejing (along with Tan Tsung-Jen) and Konishi Yukinaga are a kind of "business partners". It's a historical fact that Shen Weijing conspired with Konishi and planned to divide Korean peninsula. In the drama, Liu Ting (Yu Jung) didn't know their conspiracy. But in real history, many Ming commanders in Chosun knew this plan (Song Ingchang certainly knew it), but they didn't tell what was exactly going on between the Ming envoys and the Japanese to the Ming court in Beijing. That's why the imperial court imprisoned Minister Shi Xing and executed Shen Wejing in 1597. The dramatists didn't mention this fact. To discredit the Mings ? I don't think so. They often didn't pay attention to minor facts and to minor personages (regardless of their nationality) which were not directly related to YSS, the hero of the drama. Shen Weijing (Shim Yu-Kyung) Tan Tsung-Jen (Dam Jong-In) It's also true that Liu Ting showed lukewarm attitude in the Battle of Waekyo and he didn't attack the Japanese (Episode 1 and Episode 100). Korean primary sources present two explications. (At that time, the Right Minister Yi Duk-Hyung was in Liu Ting's camp and he sent detailed reports to the royal court in Seoul. But in the drama, he is in Seoul. lol) 1) Liu Ting would lose the fighting spirit and be seized with fear after Dong Yiyuan's defeat in Sacheon (1st October 1598). 2) Liu Ting would be bribed by the Japanese. The dramatists selected the second explication. On the other hand, Tim, I agree with you that the dramatists are giving a bad image to Liu Ting by making him conspire against YSS. AFAIK, in real history, Liu Ting didn't accuse YSS as being responsible for the assumed "defeat" in Waekyo Battle. Yi Duk-Hyung Liu Ting (Yu Jung)
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Post by TheBo on Oct 20, 2005 11:35:13 GMT -5
Oh, about the cat. I didn't think Wakizaka was throwing the cat, he seemed to be dropping it in surprise and anger. As though he forgot he was holding onto a cat. (A kudo to the sound effects person for the cat-pissed-off sound.) Any time he held the cat, he was gentle with it. Not that I want to excuse the Big Ham Wakizaka, but I don't think he was hurting the cat. I saw worse things happening with living animals on Dae Jang-geum.
Bo
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Post by skinz on Oct 20, 2005 13:21:30 GMT -5
The image of the Mings in the drama is not as bad as that of the Japanese. They are sometimes caricatured, but at least they didn't bring a cat in a battle field ! HAHA!!! I do agree that they are portrayed like they are there just for certain sequences ie: the battle sequences for the last four episodes, Shen Weijing negotiating with Konishi, and Li Rusong meeting with YSS, etc. I think they should've dealt more with WHY some of the Mings officers were sometimes unwilling to participate in battle. They were in another land, dragged to another war after finishing off one before, and the Ming Court was beginning to turn for the worst. We hardly had a chance to know Li Rusong, Yang Hao, Liu Ting and others. But hey, the drama is focused on YSS and his point of view on things so its expected to see only events concerning YSS with the Mings. You can go here to get more historical info on certain Ming Characters Ming Officers
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