It's almost the mid-point of the 20-episode Mouse on TvN and yet curveballs continues to be thrown at the fourth wall in gleeful abundance. Soon, I won't be surprised if Go Moo-chi has a dissociative disorder and is a psychopath murderer himself due to his childhood trauma.
The real world continues to be full of curveballs with rising nationalism and even the madcap drama Mr Queen continues to face backlash in its country of origin. I'm honestly not familiar with Korean history, so I won't know if the drama screenplay distorted history. However, never once was I under the illusion that Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter wasn't merely fantasy and made-for-entertainment.
I don't usually write about a drama twice, but Mr Queen is one of the rare ones where the cast is new to me. So I was able to watch the drama and enjoy the entertainment it brought, and not keep having thoughts popping up in my head like, hey Sung Yohan had a huge crush on Boon-Yi in the Zombie Detective! or the female coach in Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo feels so one-dimensional as the Queen Dowager in The Crowned Clown.
So I'd just like to reminisce about the cast, sets and jewelry In Mr Queen while waiting for more curveballs from Mouse.
The Mr Queen Cast
Shin Hye-sun as Kim So-yong
Essentially Shin Hye-sun had to portray 3 personalities as Kim So-yong: the pre-suicidal Kim So-yong, the Kim So-yong with her repressed personality coming to the fore and the Kim So-yong who had come to terms with and embraced her repressed personality. While there wasn't much screentime allocated to the first and third personalities, the "Secrets of the First Meeting" allowed Shin Hye-sun to portray the first personality to more depth, and I was quite surprised by the contrast.
I enjoyed Shin Hye-sun's acting here, and I hope the controversy over Mr Queen's screenplay doesn't hinder the actress from another interesting project.
Shin Hye-sun's pairing with Kim Jung-hyun is also interesting in that it feels that while the characters are written such that the female lead is younger than the male lead, it also come across as such through the fourth wall. (In the Crowned Clown and The Moon Embracing the Sun, it feels that the queens are a lot older than the kings - and in real life, the actresses acting as the queens are indeed much older than the actors portraying the kings - and certainly have much better acting chops than the actors, which somehow keeps distracting me from the screenplay.) In real life, while Shin Hye-sun is noona to Kim Jung-hyun, the age gap is considerably smaller.
Kim Jung-hyun as King Cheoljong
So Kim Jung-hyun was in the wildly popular Crash Landing on You which I have not watched. My initial impression of his portrayal of King Cheoljing was that his eyelids are soooo heavy. I'm not sure if this is his portrayal of King Cheoljong, but what I did find a little jarring was that he was too pale. It appears that in real life King Cheoljong was a farmer before he was crowned king, so the paleness of his skin became a distraction, especially when the screenplay also alluded that he grew up in hardship.
Otherwise, the onscreen chemistry with Shin Hye-sun came through the fourth wall and was a good source of entertainment.
Chae Seo-eun as Hong Yeon
It seems this actress debuted with Mr Queen, and the character she portrayed provides the back story to the real personality and character of Kim So-yong. As the maid who grew up with Kim So-yong, Hong Yeon would have been privy to the behavior of Kim So-yong when no outsiders were around. For Hong Yeon to continue to be so indulgent towards the shenanigans of Kim So-yong must point towards a very well-bred Kim So-yong pre-nuptials.
Yoon Jin-ho as Head Eunuch
It's great to see another actor other than Jang Gwang portraying the head eunuch and providing comic relief too.
The Mr Queen sets
Behind-the-scenes videos released by TvN comfirmed that non-outdoor scenes were shot in constructed sets. In contrast to the dark and gloomy King's room portrayed in The Crowned Clown, the lighting of the sets in Mr Queen tended to be warm and comforting, even in Queen Suwon's chambers. I guess for a comedy, there was the thoughtfulness of making the lighting warmer and more light-hearted. I just wonder, since I haven't been inside a korean palace before, are the ceilings in the palace rooms rather low as depicted in Mr Queen?
The Mr Queen costume
I read somewhere before that colour coordination as we know it today didn't exist during the Joseon dynasty, so what the queens and princesses wore would not have conformed to the colour coordination of any kind. I suppose the costume designers of Mr Queen wanted a visual feast for the eyes, so Queen Cheorin's outfits seemed to be colour coordinated, and not the green-pink combination that I've seen in posters of old Sageuks.
Fitting for King Cheoljong seemed to be better too, compared to other sageuks, so it didn't look alike Kim Jung-hyun suddenly bulked in size when he was not in his official king's robes.
The sanggung's costumes were thankfully matt and not shiny like those in other sagueks too.
The Mr Queen jewelry
There was an article earlier this month in the Korean Times of an interview with the creator of the jewelry in Mr Queen, and that was when I realised that that huge hairpin that the queen uses to secure her braid is called a binyeo. The jewelry in Mr Queen is certainly more elaborate and fanciful compared to those in The Crowned Clown, and certainly contributes to the visual feast that is the Joseon court depicted in Mr Queen.
I just wonder why Kim So-yong was not seen in the halo braid hairstyle where the fluttering butterflies pins are attached to the braids. Perhaps there might be a website or book out there explaining these?
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