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Post by ajk on Jul 15, 2023 3:29:28 GMT -5
Just an advance word on this episode: I went to the YouTube playlist of episodes and clicked on the fifth one and got Episode 6. Episode 5 is below it, in the sixth slot. So the two episodes just got switched in the ordering. To watch Episode 5, clock on the sixth one in the playlist.
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Post by 𝔰𝔢𝔞𝔫𝔪𝔞𝔠𝔩𝔞𝔦𝔯 on Jul 15, 2023 14:31:50 GMT -5
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Post by ajk on Jul 15, 2023 17:53:11 GMT -5
A few confusing things in this one, or at least they confused my simple mind...starting at the beginning. Apparently the young court lady Moon did spread the rumor after all. I didn’t follow the chain of events—there was that one quick video clip in the previous episode of her whispering something to someone else—and I’m not sure if it was just my error or it wasn’t presented clearly. Or if something was snipped out of the episode when Arirang showed it (which they’re known to do, unfortunately.)
But the significant thing, as we saw when Princess Hwapyeong died, is that the rumor turned out to be absolutely correct. Obviously the gossiping part of it was taken extremely seriously, but nobody ever acknowledged that the rumor was correct. Not that they should have, but I wondered if anyone would bring it up because in the end it wasn’t just malicious slander, it was the truth.
Sado: “I’ve seen babies born in 8 months, but I’ve never heard of babies born in 9 months.” Something must have gone wrong there in the translation. Maybe it was supposed to be 7 instead of 9? Lady Hyegyeong’s memoirs do mention that Princess Hwapyeong died in childbirth, but gives no numbers.
While I was looking in Lady Hyegyeong’s memoirs for clarification about that, I found a passage saying that King Youngjo did always change his clothes when he went to visit Princess Hwapyeong. It wasn’t a frantic compulsion like we saw earlier but more of a routine ritual he did to remove his official robes when he visited her (but not his other kids). So what we’re seeing is correct. But it does suggest a fault in the scene in this episode where he goes to visit her, because the attendants had no change of clothes ready for him and you have to think that they absolutely in real life would have been ready with the clothes right then and there. Not a big deal either way, just pointing that out.
Why was that attendant dancing behind the king’s back during Sado’s music lesson? Could he not resist the beat? Was that supposed to be funny? It almost was...but with the king sitting there heartbroken, not quite.
So those little kids around the Moon family restaurant, now we know they’re the sleazy guy’s kids. Where is their mother, or where are their mothers? Maybe we’re supposed to get the idea he slept around a lot, which clearly he does. Would the father’s family just take the baby in this kind of situation?
Sado: “I would like to see the lives of the people. I want to see life outside the palace.” LOL! BRAVO!!!!
A royal parade to honor a previous king--we’ve never seen such a thing before in a historical before. Would like to have learned a little more about that. Too bad there was no narrated text.
OK so now the tumbling nanny can flat-out defy gravity. UGH. This needs to go away ASAP.
The scene with Sado and Lady Hyegyeong, that was really good. The two of them are very good together.
One minor complaint, maybe it didn’t bother anybody else. If they’re going to do a scene about making a sound from a leaf, teach the actors how to do it. It was so obviously dubbed that it felt phony. Either teach them how to do it, or edit carefully and show someone else doing it and make it look like it’s them, which is what they did with the music lesson scene. We never got a full shot of Sado himself playing his instrument, just close-ups of the arms someone wearing his robe doing the playing. But it worked well enough. Whenever they try to dub in musical sounds, it comes off poorly.
Having kind of a hard time with the Lady Moon story by the end. She’s lucky to be alive, and now she’s actually sassing the big boss about how she’ll endure anything thrown at her? Feels like this is pushing it too much. A low-level attendant like her would be summarily tossed out like yesterday’s garbage. And then why did she lie to her boss about why the big boss called her in? You have to think her immediate supervisor is going to find out eventually. That was weird too.
So yeah overall there were several things in this one that could have been written with more clarity. But it’s still good enough to keep watching. Some really good casting so far—everybody is believable for the character they’re playing; nobody seems like a bad fit.
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Post by ajk on Jul 15, 2023 17:56:59 GMT -5
Thank you for that link Sean! It had never even occurred to me to go looking for a longer version of the opening. I'll put a sticky thread for it like I did for the EWG openings.
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Post by 𝔰𝔢𝔞𝔫𝔪𝔞𝔠𝔩𝔞𝔦𝔯 on Jul 15, 2023 21:00:33 GMT -5
Sado: “I’ve seen babies born in 8 months, but I’ve never heard of babies born in 9 months.” Something must have gone wrong there in the translation. Maybe it was supposed to be 7 instead of 9? Lady Hyegyeong’s memoirs do mention that Princess Hwapyeong died in childbirth, but gives no numbers. The line goes the same in Korean but I think it's supposed to be wordplay because there's a word for premature babies called 팔삭동이 palsakdong-i (born in 8 (7 internationally) months), but no word for babies born in 9 (8) months like 구삭동이 gusakdong-i. More research on 팔삭동이 reveals that it's also a derogatory word for idiot, but i don't know if that has any bearing on the line. Could he be saying that if a baby's going to be born prematurely that it would be done in 7 months, not 8?
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Post by ajk on Jul 22, 2023 2:36:19 GMT -5
Yeah it makes sense that there would be some subtlety or wordplay going on. Thanks for digging into it!
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