Post by ajk on Mar 24, 2009 11:40:46 GMT -5
“I was just joking,” the empress dowager tells Su, seeing her horrified reaction. Su tells her, Don't scare me like that again. Of course, she wasn't joking, but know she knows how Su feels.
In a courtyard, the king is frolicking with maidens and drinking. His eunuch Go Hyun begs him to go to the ministers who have been waiting for him for days and attend to state affairs. But Gyeongjong won't go, and grumbles about his eunuch's audacity. Then suddenly he has a brief hallucination of Su’s face on one of the maidens, then snaps out of it, scatters the food on his table and storms off.
Myeongbok Palace, Hwangju: The empress dowager has returned from the north, along with her new guests Prince Gyeongjuwon, Gang Gamchan, Gang Jo, and Gang's baby sister. Gang Jo is introduced to Yi Sulhwa, a woman who teaches martial arts to the women in the palace. Even Gang's sister will get to learn them.
Prince Wang Chi is studying in a room; his wife brings food to him. We saw her outside when the empress' party arrived home; he snubbed her out there and he snubs her again in here. What's his problem?
Princess Seol and Prince Gyeongjuwon are playing a game of go. She's asking him about all the places he's been, and she couldn't be more smitten with him. Then she says, "You travel so much...your wife must worry a lot." Smooth, kid. (We lost the rest of this scene to a broadcast download problem; presumably he told her he isn't married and she managed to restrain herself.)
Gang Gamchan tells Su about the former Balhae lands lost to the Khitans. Gang tells says he believes it's more important to show compassion to the Balhaean refugees than it is to get back the land. She smiles, seemingly in agreement.
The next day we see Gang Jo and Su stick-fighting. He's just toying with her, of course, and knocks her down at his whim, although she gets in a cheap shot at one point and knocks his stick from his hands. We also see Prince Gyeongjuwon teaching Seol to play a mandolin-like stringed instrument. (As best I can tell from Googling, it was a Chinese instrument called a pipa, but if I’m wrong, somebody please correct me.) His arms are wrapped around her as he teaches her. (Okay, okay, we get the idea.)
At the imperial palace: Empress Hunsook is speaking to the assembled ministers. Because there still is no male heir to the throne, the imperial house has decided to accept another consort. The announcement troubles the ministers, but it's her decision and will hear no backtalk. She even seems strangely undisturbed with the idea, like it’s all part of business. She won't reveal anything more, not even whether or not a particular clan has been chosen. She leaves. The only minister not visibly concerned by this development is Choe Sum.
Yi Gyeoumi, who is now governor of Seogyeong, comes to see the empress dowager. He informs her that the king has been taken on a boating trip by Choe Sum. This is disturbing news.
On the Yesung River: We see a large, fancy boat with a canopy in the middle, under which the king is having a meal with Choe Sum and that shady merchant Kim Wonsoong. The king says he's bored, which makes Kim and Choe squirm a bit. Then, on the riverbank, we see dancers with cloths mimic the opening of a flower. A finely dressed maiden emerges, bathed in bright light. This is Kim Wonsoong's daughter, and this is an elaborate staging to get the king all hot. She does a few dance moves, looks at him teasingly, and he's mesmerized. (Typical guy.) Kim tells the king who the girl is, anticipating an eager reaction...and instead the king busts out laughing. "You are a businessman indeed! Are you offering your daughter to me?" A surprised Kim thinks quickly: "There is nothing under the sky that does not already belong to you." Smooth answer. Gyeongjong agrees with him, and then asks what Kim wants in return. Just take the girl inside, Choe tells him, and don't worry about that tonight.
At Myeongbok Palace: A bit of sister-talk about what kind of man Su and Seol each want to marry, which only emphasizes that Seol has completely fallen for Gyeongjuwon. They go to sleep.
Back at the river: The empress dowager, along with Seo Hui and Yi Jibaek, have come to see the king. But Foreman Jo (who works for Wonsoong, remember) and what apparently are Kim’s private guards won't let her see him--the king is not to be disturbed. Seo and Yi raise a ruckus about resisting the empress dowager. This all goes on within earshot of the king, who's now on dry land, so he goes and asks his grandmother what she's doing there at such a late hour.
Some of the Shillan plotters are meeting. This whole staging with Wonsoong's daughter was their plot, and now they're beyond concerned about the empress dowager showing up and throwing a wrench into the works.
The empress dowager knows what's going on and tells Gyeongjong that the girl is "the rootless daughter of a merchant." But he doesn't care. Then she goes so far as to ask, "What's wrong with you?” You used to be so "sharp and astute;" what's hurting you now? It's you, he says. "Your greedy desire to put your son on the throne killed my mother!" She's shocked at the very idea of it, but he's completely serious. She swears to him that he's wrong; She was my daughter too; my heart is broken too. But he doesn't buy it: "You'd do anything and everything for power and for your clan." By now he's throwing things around and having a temper tantrum. The Shillans are bringing in a new empress and you don't want them to have more power than you do, he says. Then he calms down. So what are you going to do, he asks her--give me your granddaughters? If you want power, why don’t you give me both of them.
At Myeongbok palace, the next morning: The empress dowager is back, and is sitting outside by herself. Her attendant Yu Jujeong is surprised to see her back and to find her sitting alone. She calmly asks that Su and Seol be brought to her chambers. Inside, she asks her granddaughters, for clan and country, to marry the king. Both of them. And she ain't joking this time. "You have to do this," she tells them. "It's for our survival." They're horrified. She orders them to do it; they refuse. Your brother could die, she tells them (why?), but they storm out.
The king announces to his ministers that he's decided to marry again. And that his new empresses "are likely to be the two princesses of Hwangju." Choe Sum and Han Ungong object (Is Han part of this Shilla thing too?). First they argue against it because Su and Seol are his maternal cousins. Even the idiot king can shoot that one down; intra-family marriage has been the preference here in Goryeo, he reminds them, and besides that, it was that way in your own Shilla royal house too! So they try another tack: that the empress already has someone else in mind. "I'm the one getting married, not her!" Don't I get to pick? So all Choe and Han can do is grovel and offer their congratulations.
"How could this happen!" Kim Wonsoong is whining to Choe Sum about the time and money he's invested trying to acquire power through this latest plan. So Choe tells him he'll have to spend more, this time buying off the military. Kim asks, And then what--who do we put on the throne? Kim wonders, Who am I spending all this money for? Am I just being used? Choe tries to calm him down; then Choe’s son-in-law Kim Shimun enters and tells them that Prince Gyeongjuwon is now staying nearby, which they find an intriguing development.
An angry Wang Chi tells his grandmother that he married a woman he has no feelings for because of her, "because you said it would get me closer to the throne." (So that explains it.) And now I'm supposed to give up the throne for my sisters? WHAP! She slaps him. Shillans are trying to destroy our clan, she tells him, "so I'm sending your sisters to the demented king to protect you. And all you can think about is yourself? Despicable fool!" And she walks away, having dropped quite a guilt trip on the kid. (Aside comment: You could see steam on people's breath in this scene; give them credit for actually filming outside in cool weather. In a lot of supposedly winter scenes in these dramas, you don’t see any steam.)
We hear the empress dowager explaining to Su: "It all started with a fallacious letter. The former emperor believed the treasonous plot that the letter alleged, and brutally murdered the heirs, merit subjects and lords." As she speaks, we see a historical flashback of King Gwangjong with a bloody sword, menacingly approaching his young son--the future Gyeongjong. He raises the sword to strike the boy, but his wife Empress Daemok, who has been trying to protect the boy, takes the blow instead and falls dead. Then we see Dae Jonguk--father to Su, Seol and Chi--executed by poisoning, and we see other men in the family being wiped out left and right...Flashback ending, "In those nightmarish nine years, I lost my sons, my daughters and my brothers. I lost them all." But I have survived, she says, because "I couldn't leave you children here alone and die." Now, she says, the same people who were responsible for that letter are trying to bring in a new empress and kill your brother Chi. And I can't let that happen. "So you must marry the emperor and turn him around." Gyeongjong, she tells Su, believes that she's the cause of alleged past treason. You have the strength to turn him around and maybe even make him a benevolent ruler again. He sees his mother in you, she believes, and we see a brief flashback from the beginning of Ep3 of Su stepping in front of the little girl to take the blow from Gyeongjong’s sword--just like he saw his mother do as a young boy.
A brief narration explains to us that according to the Chronicles of Goryeo, the years from 960 to 975 were marked by treachery throughout the palace and court, and that Gwangjong “mercilessly liquidated veteran ministers and illustrious generals” and even royal relatives. Gwangjong also “harbored jealousy and distruct for his only son, and as a result, Gyeongjong lived his life with irrational fear.” (Very revealing.)
"I'll do it," Su tells her grandmother. But leave Seol out of it, she says; Seol is still too young. Her grandmother refuses. "You can't win his heart," she tells Su, because you love archery, horseback riding and martial arts and lack "womanly virtues." (In other words, she isn’t sexy enough for him. But a too-young-to-marry Seol is? ewwwwww....) Gyeongjong is "a capricious man" and "to get a firm grip on him, you alone will not be enough."
By a riverbank: Su has gone riding with Gang Jo. She's upset that she doesn't like weaving like most women do. "I wish I had been born a man," she says. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) "Why do I like riding and shooting arrows like men do?" Gang tells her he knew a woman like that once--and thought she was wonderful. It was probably his fiancee, but he says no more. Then Su makes up her mind not to feel sad about her fate; "It's too late anyway."
Wang Chi enters a room where Su has prepared some tea for him. She's speaking happily, trying to put a brave face on things for her brother's sake. But he can't even look at her, and is devastated that "You're forced to marry a maniac because of me." I know what I'm doing, she says cheerfully; I'm going to bring him around. He tells her she'll have to be very careful because "There are invisible blades hiding around every corner" in the palace. She says with a smile that she's not worried--because her brother will protect her like he always has. He's crying now and hugs her. She's still trying to put up a brave front, but as they hug, tears start to fall from her eyes too.
As a mournful, beautiful song plays, we see the wedding take place in a large palace courtyard. The king is drunk, tottering and barely upright. He can't be sober even for this. We see the two girls process, utterly miserable looks on their faces. (Maybe they can hear the beautiful song now being ruined by a rock-ballad backbeat. AUGHH) As they approach the steps, the girls bow to the king....
In a courtyard, the king is frolicking with maidens and drinking. His eunuch Go Hyun begs him to go to the ministers who have been waiting for him for days and attend to state affairs. But Gyeongjong won't go, and grumbles about his eunuch's audacity. Then suddenly he has a brief hallucination of Su’s face on one of the maidens, then snaps out of it, scatters the food on his table and storms off.
Myeongbok Palace, Hwangju: The empress dowager has returned from the north, along with her new guests Prince Gyeongjuwon, Gang Gamchan, Gang Jo, and Gang's baby sister. Gang Jo is introduced to Yi Sulhwa, a woman who teaches martial arts to the women in the palace. Even Gang's sister will get to learn them.
Prince Wang Chi is studying in a room; his wife brings food to him. We saw her outside when the empress' party arrived home; he snubbed her out there and he snubs her again in here. What's his problem?
Princess Seol and Prince Gyeongjuwon are playing a game of go. She's asking him about all the places he's been, and she couldn't be more smitten with him. Then she says, "You travel so much...your wife must worry a lot." Smooth, kid. (We lost the rest of this scene to a broadcast download problem; presumably he told her he isn't married and she managed to restrain herself.)
Gang Gamchan tells Su about the former Balhae lands lost to the Khitans. Gang tells says he believes it's more important to show compassion to the Balhaean refugees than it is to get back the land. She smiles, seemingly in agreement.
The next day we see Gang Jo and Su stick-fighting. He's just toying with her, of course, and knocks her down at his whim, although she gets in a cheap shot at one point and knocks his stick from his hands. We also see Prince Gyeongjuwon teaching Seol to play a mandolin-like stringed instrument. (As best I can tell from Googling, it was a Chinese instrument called a pipa, but if I’m wrong, somebody please correct me.) His arms are wrapped around her as he teaches her. (Okay, okay, we get the idea.)
At the imperial palace: Empress Hunsook is speaking to the assembled ministers. Because there still is no male heir to the throne, the imperial house has decided to accept another consort. The announcement troubles the ministers, but it's her decision and will hear no backtalk. She even seems strangely undisturbed with the idea, like it’s all part of business. She won't reveal anything more, not even whether or not a particular clan has been chosen. She leaves. The only minister not visibly concerned by this development is Choe Sum.
Yi Gyeoumi, who is now governor of Seogyeong, comes to see the empress dowager. He informs her that the king has been taken on a boating trip by Choe Sum. This is disturbing news.
On the Yesung River: We see a large, fancy boat with a canopy in the middle, under which the king is having a meal with Choe Sum and that shady merchant Kim Wonsoong. The king says he's bored, which makes Kim and Choe squirm a bit. Then, on the riverbank, we see dancers with cloths mimic the opening of a flower. A finely dressed maiden emerges, bathed in bright light. This is Kim Wonsoong's daughter, and this is an elaborate staging to get the king all hot. She does a few dance moves, looks at him teasingly, and he's mesmerized. (Typical guy.) Kim tells the king who the girl is, anticipating an eager reaction...and instead the king busts out laughing. "You are a businessman indeed! Are you offering your daughter to me?" A surprised Kim thinks quickly: "There is nothing under the sky that does not already belong to you." Smooth answer. Gyeongjong agrees with him, and then asks what Kim wants in return. Just take the girl inside, Choe tells him, and don't worry about that tonight.
At Myeongbok Palace: A bit of sister-talk about what kind of man Su and Seol each want to marry, which only emphasizes that Seol has completely fallen for Gyeongjuwon. They go to sleep.
Back at the river: The empress dowager, along with Seo Hui and Yi Jibaek, have come to see the king. But Foreman Jo (who works for Wonsoong, remember) and what apparently are Kim’s private guards won't let her see him--the king is not to be disturbed. Seo and Yi raise a ruckus about resisting the empress dowager. This all goes on within earshot of the king, who's now on dry land, so he goes and asks his grandmother what she's doing there at such a late hour.
Some of the Shillan plotters are meeting. This whole staging with Wonsoong's daughter was their plot, and now they're beyond concerned about the empress dowager showing up and throwing a wrench into the works.
The empress dowager knows what's going on and tells Gyeongjong that the girl is "the rootless daughter of a merchant." But he doesn't care. Then she goes so far as to ask, "What's wrong with you?” You used to be so "sharp and astute;" what's hurting you now? It's you, he says. "Your greedy desire to put your son on the throne killed my mother!" She's shocked at the very idea of it, but he's completely serious. She swears to him that he's wrong; She was my daughter too; my heart is broken too. But he doesn't buy it: "You'd do anything and everything for power and for your clan." By now he's throwing things around and having a temper tantrum. The Shillans are bringing in a new empress and you don't want them to have more power than you do, he says. Then he calms down. So what are you going to do, he asks her--give me your granddaughters? If you want power, why don’t you give me both of them.
At Myeongbok palace, the next morning: The empress dowager is back, and is sitting outside by herself. Her attendant Yu Jujeong is surprised to see her back and to find her sitting alone. She calmly asks that Su and Seol be brought to her chambers. Inside, she asks her granddaughters, for clan and country, to marry the king. Both of them. And she ain't joking this time. "You have to do this," she tells them. "It's for our survival." They're horrified. She orders them to do it; they refuse. Your brother could die, she tells them (why?), but they storm out.
The king announces to his ministers that he's decided to marry again. And that his new empresses "are likely to be the two princesses of Hwangju." Choe Sum and Han Ungong object (Is Han part of this Shilla thing too?). First they argue against it because Su and Seol are his maternal cousins. Even the idiot king can shoot that one down; intra-family marriage has been the preference here in Goryeo, he reminds them, and besides that, it was that way in your own Shilla royal house too! So they try another tack: that the empress already has someone else in mind. "I'm the one getting married, not her!" Don't I get to pick? So all Choe and Han can do is grovel and offer their congratulations.
"How could this happen!" Kim Wonsoong is whining to Choe Sum about the time and money he's invested trying to acquire power through this latest plan. So Choe tells him he'll have to spend more, this time buying off the military. Kim asks, And then what--who do we put on the throne? Kim wonders, Who am I spending all this money for? Am I just being used? Choe tries to calm him down; then Choe’s son-in-law Kim Shimun enters and tells them that Prince Gyeongjuwon is now staying nearby, which they find an intriguing development.
An angry Wang Chi tells his grandmother that he married a woman he has no feelings for because of her, "because you said it would get me closer to the throne." (So that explains it.) And now I'm supposed to give up the throne for my sisters? WHAP! She slaps him. Shillans are trying to destroy our clan, she tells him, "so I'm sending your sisters to the demented king to protect you. And all you can think about is yourself? Despicable fool!" And she walks away, having dropped quite a guilt trip on the kid. (Aside comment: You could see steam on people's breath in this scene; give them credit for actually filming outside in cool weather. In a lot of supposedly winter scenes in these dramas, you don’t see any steam.)
We hear the empress dowager explaining to Su: "It all started with a fallacious letter. The former emperor believed the treasonous plot that the letter alleged, and brutally murdered the heirs, merit subjects and lords." As she speaks, we see a historical flashback of King Gwangjong with a bloody sword, menacingly approaching his young son--the future Gyeongjong. He raises the sword to strike the boy, but his wife Empress Daemok, who has been trying to protect the boy, takes the blow instead and falls dead. Then we see Dae Jonguk--father to Su, Seol and Chi--executed by poisoning, and we see other men in the family being wiped out left and right...Flashback ending, "In those nightmarish nine years, I lost my sons, my daughters and my brothers. I lost them all." But I have survived, she says, because "I couldn't leave you children here alone and die." Now, she says, the same people who were responsible for that letter are trying to bring in a new empress and kill your brother Chi. And I can't let that happen. "So you must marry the emperor and turn him around." Gyeongjong, she tells Su, believes that she's the cause of alleged past treason. You have the strength to turn him around and maybe even make him a benevolent ruler again. He sees his mother in you, she believes, and we see a brief flashback from the beginning of Ep3 of Su stepping in front of the little girl to take the blow from Gyeongjong’s sword--just like he saw his mother do as a young boy.
A brief narration explains to us that according to the Chronicles of Goryeo, the years from 960 to 975 were marked by treachery throughout the palace and court, and that Gwangjong “mercilessly liquidated veteran ministers and illustrious generals” and even royal relatives. Gwangjong also “harbored jealousy and distruct for his only son, and as a result, Gyeongjong lived his life with irrational fear.” (Very revealing.)
"I'll do it," Su tells her grandmother. But leave Seol out of it, she says; Seol is still too young. Her grandmother refuses. "You can't win his heart," she tells Su, because you love archery, horseback riding and martial arts and lack "womanly virtues." (In other words, she isn’t sexy enough for him. But a too-young-to-marry Seol is? ewwwwww....) Gyeongjong is "a capricious man" and "to get a firm grip on him, you alone will not be enough."
By a riverbank: Su has gone riding with Gang Jo. She's upset that she doesn't like weaving like most women do. "I wish I had been born a man," she says. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) "Why do I like riding and shooting arrows like men do?" Gang tells her he knew a woman like that once--and thought she was wonderful. It was probably his fiancee, but he says no more. Then Su makes up her mind not to feel sad about her fate; "It's too late anyway."
Wang Chi enters a room where Su has prepared some tea for him. She's speaking happily, trying to put a brave face on things for her brother's sake. But he can't even look at her, and is devastated that "You're forced to marry a maniac because of me." I know what I'm doing, she says cheerfully; I'm going to bring him around. He tells her she'll have to be very careful because "There are invisible blades hiding around every corner" in the palace. She says with a smile that she's not worried--because her brother will protect her like he always has. He's crying now and hugs her. She's still trying to put up a brave front, but as they hug, tears start to fall from her eyes too.
As a mournful, beautiful song plays, we see the wedding take place in a large palace courtyard. The king is drunk, tottering and barely upright. He can't be sober even for this. We see the two girls process, utterly miserable looks on their faces. (Maybe they can hear the beautiful song now being ruined by a rock-ballad backbeat. AUGHH) As they approach the steps, the girls bow to the king....