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Post by ajk on Jan 1, 2022 14:14:59 GMT -5
...should be up on Kocowa later today. Remember you have 24 hours to watch each episode as a non-paying member before it gets locked.
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Post by 𝔰𝔢𝔞𝔫𝔪𝔞𝔠𝔩𝔞𝔦𝔯 on Jan 2, 2022 0:13:51 GMT -5
Seonjuk Bridge during the day...
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Post by ajk on Jan 2, 2022 0:36:29 GMT -5
This was the best episode yet. The least amount of silliness, and several scenes that were really good.
Once again a dumb opening. Between Bangwon tipping off his murderous feelings towards Mongju already, and artificially sticking him into the two kings' executions earlier, they’re taking a lot of the shock and impact out of what he does later. That’s a mistake and it isn’t necessary at all, as we’ll see. And where did Mongju get pen and paper to write a goodbye note, and do so without Bangwon seeing what he was writing? And why didn’t Mongju immediately have himself placed under heavy guard immediately upon returning home, now that he knows a king-killer has murderous thoughts towards him? Booooo...This is why the writers shouldn’t be trying to force drama into a story that doesn’t need it. It plants flaws that blow up later.
LSG and his people go out to welcome the crown prince, and you can clearly see that LSG drinks from a cup that has red liquid in it. How about that! You can also see for sure that the other two generals and the crown prince are using empty cups. I wonder why. Did Kim Yeongcheol ask for wine in the cup so it would look real? Good for him if he did. And later on when LSG was taking medicine after his injury, we saw him drinking clumsily and sloppily from a bowl and liquid dripping all over. Small things but they make so much of a difference.
The hunting accident scene reminded me that LSG isn’t being portrayed as a drinker in this series. In the Jeong Dojeon series he was hitting the adult beverages hard and often.
Another small detail that worked: when LSG is put into bed in that tavern, there’s a white cloth under his head that has blood on it. Too many historicals, someone is sick or injured and pretty quickly you don’t see evidence of it any more.
What ISN”T working any more is all of the thundering suspenseful music with the rumbling bass and the pounding drums for every last little thing. It’s starting to get really irritating. If everything is hyper-dramatic then nothing is. Stop trying to manufacture intensity.
Well at least Bangwon’s got the hang of splitting wood now. So we know he won’t freeze to death before daddy becomes the king. Killed the suspense, didn’t it? Ugh.
“We must show them he is still alive. If not they will go even further.” OK here’s where things start to really turn in a good direction. An excellent scene for Bangwon, in the tavern convincing the family about what to do. It set him apart from his other brothers, and for the first time showed him being a leader in the family and an aggressive thinker (not just being impulsive and rash like with the two kings’ executions). All of that previous silliness to try to raise his profile, none of that was necessary with a scene like this.
Bangwon pleading with his father: “The one who survives is the loyal subject. The one who is dead becomes the traitor. That is history.” Again Bangwon is starting to take the lead in trying to guide the family. To me this is what’s remarkable about the whole story, the youngest brother emerging and becoming so aggressive. Selling him so hard right from the beginning, it obscures that part of the story.
And then the sequence with Bangwon agonizing over what to do, interspersed with the images of allies being tortured, that was terrific. Best sequence in the series so far. Here you have the intensity of the story itself making the impact. Yeah it was a bit overdone—such as why is Jeong Dojeon bleeding from the mouth when they’re torturing his lower half—but we see this all the time, hey it’s TV. Excellent work, and now you really want to see what happens to Bangwon if and when he defies his father and rubs out Mongju. Let’s hope this is what we get a lot more of for the rest of the series.
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Post by truth on Jan 2, 2022 2:41:17 GMT -5
Once again a dumb opening. Between Bangwon tipping off his murderous feelings towards Mongju already, and artificially sticking him into the two king’s executions earlier, they’re taking a lot of the shock and impact out of what he does later. That’s a mistake and it isn’t necessary at all, as we’ll see. I mentioned this on last episode post as well, but I think this scene was most likely inspired by Cao Cao trying to stab Dong Zhuo while asleep in the Chinese novel Romance of Three Kingdoms. Romance of Three Kingdoms is a Ming dynasty novel based on historical events in late 2nd century to mid-3rd century China. Cao Cao is the founder of Chinese Wei Dynasty and Dong Zhuo is basically the Lee In Yim of Han Dynasty. What happens after Dong Zhuo wakes up is different from interactions between Jeong Mongju and Lee Bangwon in this drama though. Cao Cao immediately says he brought the sword as a gift for him and Dong Zhuo believes him. He then gets on a horse and runs away as far as possible. Dong Zhuo only realizes that Cao Cao was trying to kill him after his right hench-man Lu Bu(who later ends up killing Dong Zhuo) basically tells him, "He brought a sword as a gift while you were asleep? Dude, he was trying to kill you!" Dong Zhuo sends guards to arrest Cao Cao upon hearing this, but it was too late to arrest him at this point as Cao Cao had been long gone from then-Chinese capital Luoyang. This story is fiction made up by Romance of Three Kingdom author and did not actually happen in history. I highly doubt Dong Zhuo was this stupid. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdomsen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dong_Zhuoen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cao_CaoRe-enactment of this story in the Chinese historical Three Kingdoms
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Post by ajk on Jan 2, 2022 4:27:25 GMT -5
Yeah definitely similar...and we know there's a long tradition of borrowing from R3K. Thanks for posting the clip.
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Post by mugwump on Jan 2, 2022 8:07:44 GMT -5
Yes. When they first showed LSG's face in the nice white bed, I thought "Where's the blood?" But in a later scene, they showed the white cloth under his head with blood on it. Lady Kang starts to show more of her ambition. The young guy, Lee Choi, how is he related?
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Post by truth on Jan 2, 2022 10:30:42 GMT -5
The young guy, Lee Choi, how is he related? His name is actually Lee Jae or Lee Je, not Lee Choi. This is a subtitle error. I remember ajk saying Min Je's name was shown as Min Choi on one of the episodes and it seems like they made another mistake. Lee Jae was the husband of the eldest daughter of Lee Seonggye and Lady Kang. I'm not sure if this drama will mention this, but he was Lee In Yim's nephew.
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Post by sageuk on Jan 2, 2022 11:31:21 GMT -5
This was the best episode yet. The least amount of silliness, and several scenes that were really good. Once again a dumb opening. Between Bangwon tipping off his murderous feelings towards Mongju already, and artificially sticking him into the two king’s executions earlier, they’re taking a lot of the shock and impact out of what he does later. Those were my thoughts exactly. If someone in the writing team brought this up, I bet the concern was dismissed and told "that infamous event is well known by everyone anyway so it doesn't matter"
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Post by mugwump on Jan 2, 2022 16:18:41 GMT -5
The young guy, Lee Choi, how is he related? His name is actually Lee Jae or Lee Je, not Lee Choi. This is a subtitle error. I remember ajk saying Min Je's name was shown as Min Choi on one of the episodes and it seems like they made another mistake. Lee Jae was the husband of the eldest daughter of Lee Seonggye and Lady Kang. I'm not sure if this drama will mention this, but he was Lee In Yim's nephew. OK, thanks. I didn't think Lady Kang had a daughter old enough to be married (though I guess girls were married off pretty young). I went back to Episode 1 to count the kiddies with LSG's wives when they were fleeing - 2 girls and 2 younger boys, seemed about right. So was one of them the married daughter, or was she not shown because she lived with husband Lee Jae? These families were certainly fruitful! LSG has so many kids to keep track of.
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Post by sageuk on Jan 2, 2022 16:50:02 GMT -5
The young guy, Lee Choi, how is he related? His name is actually Lee Jae or Lee Je, not Lee Choi. This is a subtitle error. I remember ajk saying Min Je's name was shown as Min Choi on one of the episodes and it seems like they made another mistake. Lee Jae was the husband of the eldest daughter of Lee Seonggye and Lady Kang. I'm not sure if this drama will mention this, but he was Lee In Yim's nephew. I remember now. In JDJ, Yi Seonggye offered to become in-laws with Yi Inim at Sambong's suggestion.
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Post by truth on Jan 2, 2022 17:00:32 GMT -5
His name is actually Lee Jae or Lee Je, not Lee Choi. This is a subtitle error. I remember ajk saying Min Je's name was shown as Min Choi on one of the episodes and it seems like they made another mistake. Lee Jae was the husband of the eldest daughter of Lee Seonggye and Lady Kang. I'm not sure if this drama will mention this, but he was Lee In Yim's nephew. OK, thanks. I didn't think Lady Kang had a daughter old enough to be married (though I guess girls were married off pretty young). I went back to Episode 1 to count the kiddies with LSG's wives when they were fleeing - 2 girls and 2 younger boys, seemed about right. So was one of them the married daughter, or was she not shown because she lived with husband Lee Jae? These families were certainly fruitful! LSG has so many kids to keep track of. It weren't just girls. People were just married off early in general. Lee Bangseok, the youngest son of Lee Seonggye, was married off at just 10 years old for example. This drama cast a 20 year old actor to play him but he was actually only 10 in the year of this week's episodes. None of the girls from Episode 1 were Lady Kang's daughters. Both were daughters of Lee Bangwon. Both look like they are around kindergarten age, but they were actually only 3 and 1 at the time. 2 boys were Lady Kang's sons though. LSG had 8 sons and 5 daughters. 6 sons from his 1st wife. 2 sons and 3 daughters from Lady Kang. 1 daughter from Concubine Chu and 1 daughter from Concubine Kim.
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Post by sageuk on Jan 2, 2022 17:48:18 GMT -5
I don't know if this should be seen as a con or not, but in Jeong Dojeon, we don't see the ladies of Yi Seonggye's family excluding Lady Kang (Yi Seonggye's queen consort) and Lady Min (later Queen Wongyeong). His daughter is briefly seen in the wedding after Yi Seonggye offers to be in-laws with Yi In-im.
Lady Han, Yi Bangwon's mother, didn't even have an actress to portray her.
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Post by ajk on Jan 2, 2022 20:28:26 GMT -5
It may not be on the subtitler, it may be my fault. I'm using my Hangul chart to translate the names, and it certainly looks like the characters spell out Choi...and there are three characters so I don't know how you need three characters for Je...but whatever the reason, I appreciate the clarification and am updating the character roster to get it corrected.
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Post by truth on Jan 2, 2022 20:40:25 GMT -5
It may not be on the subtitler, it may be my fault. I'm using my Hangul chart to translate the names, and it certainly looks like the characters spell out Choi...and there are three characters so I don't know how you need three characters for Je...but whatever the reason, I appreciate the clarification and am updating the character roster to get it corrected. Choi is spelt 최. Lee Je's name is spelt 제. 제 doesn't have three characters. It only has two. ㅈ and ㅔ
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Post by ajk on Jan 3, 2022 1:21:47 GMT -5
OK then that's on me. I was looking at the second character as two characters. In my defense the font they're using is a little different from what I'm used to...but thanks that does clear it up.
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