unsubbed Jumong airing on 24.6!

[ajk]

This was a real shocker. The people who run Chicago's MBC outlet on channel 24.5 also run a Korean religious channel (unsubbed) on 24.6. I've never seen anything but religious programming on that channel...but today I was flipping channels and found a historical drama airing. Didn't recognize it...but the first person I saw was the guy who played Lee Sanhae in Jingbirok. So from there I figured out it's Jumong. Looks like it's airing at about 4:30 p.m. weekdays (although the station doesn't have any schedule info in English on its website).

Have to say, from watching this one episode I'm less interested than I was in watching the full subbed series. For a series about events 2000 years ago, it looked like it could have been set 1500 years later. I expected something much more primitive looking, but the sets, wardrobe etc. all looked like any other historical from much later. Very disappointing because I wanted to see how they handled the challenge of such an old story.

[excelsior]

Not that it was ever great, but the show falls apart half way through.

[sageuk]

I remember this one. The first time I saw it was from a Korean video rental store and I got by the first seven episodes, and didn't care for it. Whenever I told Korean-American classmates that I didn't get into this one, they thought I was crazy. Especially the girls. Not that any relationships were soured or anything but it just goes to show how overhyped this one was at the time.

Some years later (my last year of high school I blieve), I decided to give it another chance on Crunchyroll. Now that it was subbed and had a better idea of what was going on, I liked it better than my initial viewing, but I still didn't get into the hype. TheBo said it before: first part when Jumong was a Buyeo prince was pretty good, but as time on, the pacing dragged and became a pain to watch, no doubt a consequence of extensions.

I didn't mind the fantasy armors and colorful clothing all that much, because the story of Jumong was a myth to begin with, a fantastical story from the start; though I can understand if primitive aesthetics were preferred if only to give you the sense this was ancient times. That being said, the drama sometimes flip-flops between being a fantasy or a down to earth historical, since superstitions and divinations frequently occur (being a superstitious time period, it's probably not the most legitimate criticism).

What they tried to do with the Jumong story reminded me of an attempt to make a myth more grounded. Tvtropes calls it "demythication." The Troy film starring Brad Pitt is a good example. Another comic series about the Trojan War called Age of Bronze does something similar.