Yes, Mr Queen, this of the campy rom-com fantasy sageuk that apparently had many viewers very invested in the fate of the main characters, debating on who exactly King Cheoljong fell in love with.
I hadn't planned on watching Mr Queen, as it would be a pain to watch 2 new episodes on the weekends before waiting for another 2 new episodes the next weekend, the way the series was broadcasted on TvN.
However, I had almost finished watching the Zombie Detective starring Choi Jin-hyuk and saw trailers of Mr Queen (about to be broadcasted the following weekend) with Choi Jin-hyuk in them. Choi Jin-hyuk had quite a funny outing in the Zombie Detective and it appeared from the trailers that he would have a funny outing in Mr Queen too, which I won't mind watching.
Also, I was concurrently watching The Crowned Clown - a drama rework of the 2012 Masquerade. It was dark and heavy and Mr Queen seemed like a nice distraction then, plus I wasn't familiar with the cast of Mr Queen, so I thought it might be a good idea to step away from all that heavy seriousness that was The Crowned Clown for a while.
Indeed it was a pain to wait a week for the next 2 episodes, so after like 12 episodes, I waited a for month to accumulate more episodes before continuing with Mr Queen.
Mr Queen was a Korean adaption of a Chinese web drama Go Princess Go which was itself adapted from a novel of the same name. Like Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo, which was adapted from the Chinese drama 步步惊心 and adapted to the Goryeo Dynasty，the scriptwriters for Mr Queen situated the adaption in the Joseon Dynasty, selecting King Cheoljong and his Queen Cheorin as main characters of this rom-com fantasy sageuk.
Mr Queen started off with Jang Bong-hwan - a chef (played by Choi Jin-hyuk without copious amount of BB Cream unlike in the Zombie Detective, I hope) somehow waking up in the body of the Queen-designate Kim So-yong after he jumped into a swimming pool from height (there must be something about the magical properties of water that quite a few fantasy sageuk that I watched previously involved time-travel or the swapping of souls after characters jumped or fell into water) to escape from detectives after he was framed. Understandably shocked and nonplussed about his situation, Jang continuously shocked people around Kim So-yong with odd behaviour.
After watching 10 episodes of the hijinks of "Queen" Cheorin, I was like argh! where is this heading to? It can't be 20 episodes of watching a fish trying to survive out of water. As the drama was still been broadcasted on TvN every weekend, I couldn't google for the ending like what I usually do for other dramas to decide if it was worth the effort finishing the dramas.
When Mr Queen ended its run (finally), I realized that there were plenty of viewers who were quite emotionally invested in the series and felt that Kim So-yong had benefitted unfairly when Jang Bong-hwan was the "person" that made it possible for King Cheoljong to love her eventually. Kim So-yong got to bask in King Cheoljong's affection for her in ancient Joseon while Jang Bong-hwan only had King Cheoljong's crossed-eye portrait to comfort himself with in modern Korea.
And quite a few noted the sly references to a gay romance between King Cheoljong and Jang Bong-hwan when he inhabited the body of Kim So-yong.
I wasn't too taken with or bothered with the theories of who King Cheoljoing actually loved.
Soul-swap dramas typically depict soul swaps of the same gender, much like that in Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo. BUT, I watched Kimi no Na wa, which depicted soul-swaps cross genders and across time which was neither chronological nor parallel. I also watched Kill Me, Heal Me, which depicted dissociative identity disorder. And there was The Miracle We Met, which tried to examine if a soul which inhabited another body retains its personality, takes on the personality of the original soul or developed a totally new personality. TvN also broadcasted a spin-off Mr Queen: Bamboo Forest which appeared to be short collections of scenes shot but not used in the main drama itself. The first episode "The Secrets of the First Meeting" helped sorted my interpretation of the relationship between King Cheoljong and Kim So-yong.
So now, I think I have some interpretations of the strange, unexplained gaps of Mr Queen too.
Here goes:
1. Was it a soul swap or just repressed personalities coming to fore?
Ignoring for a moment the story arc of Jang Bong-hwan, could Kim So-yong's seemingly bizarre behaviour after being rescued from her suicide attempt of jumping into the lake be a case of dissociative identity disorder manifesting itself post PTSD from her suicide attempt? Which meant that there was no soul swap and Kim So-yong was in her body all the time.
"The Secrets of the First Meeting" seemed to allude to that. Prior to being designated as the Queen, Kim So-yong had displayed behaviour that girls from noble families supposedly should not display. She tried ways and means to catch a glimpse of King Cheoljong's face, bribing a eunuch for information on the routes in the palace that King Cheoljong would walk by and even jumping up and down to see his face. This was witnessed by Choi sanggung who frowned upon the unlady-like behaviour.
Jang Bong-hwan might have already been part of Kim So-yong's repressed personality, as she fought guilt since young that her mother died giving birth to her and her father wanting her to be Queen. Being saved from her suicide attempt (perhaps her brain lacked oxygen during the attempt) could have released her repressed personality, and in turn repressed the dominant personality that she had displayed in public. Thus her seemingly eccentricity when she regained consciousness after her suicide attempt.
Kim So-yong's original dominant personality appeared to be released little by little after she woke up in her father's house. She also mentioned when she visited Kim Byeong-in's grave that her cousin found her once again, despite her hiding so deeply. That seemed to indicate that Kim So-yong's dominant personality was there all along and knew what was happening hence she wasn't shocked when Jang Bong-hwan's personality left. Ji Sung's character in Kill Me, Heal Me had 7 personalities who knew the ongoings even when they did not manifest themselves. As to why Jang Bong-hwan thought he couldn't feel another soul in Kim So-yong's body, perhaps the Kim So-yong's dominant personality had repressed itself very deeply.
Taking into account the story arc of Jang Bong-hwan, with reference to Kimi no Na wa, when the souls of Mitsuha and Taki swapped, they were not on the same timeline. Mitsuha was on hers while Taki on his and their respective timelines flowed separately. If a soul swap had indeed taken place, perhaps Jang Bong-hwan's soul travelled into Kim So-yong's body while their separate timelines were flowing and each were not the reincarnation of each other, as some viewers felt was the case.
2. Did King Cheoljong fall in love with Jang Bong-hwan or Kim So-yong?
Quite a number of viewers saw a gay romance in which King Cheoljong fell in love with Kim So-yong after Jang Bong-hwan inhibited her body. Initially I thought so too, until I saw "The Secrets of the First Meeting".
It was the missing link to why King Cheoljong's heart turned towards Kim So-yong. King Cheoljong and Kim So-yong had an unplanned encounter as they sheltered from the rain. Both did not know who the other was, and appeared to take to each other. King Cheoljong did not manage to get Kim So-yong's name before she was pulled away by Hong Yeon. While she had worked towards being selected as the Queen, Kim So-yong had second thoughts after being selected as the Queen after she realised she had fallen for someone she did not even know his name. King Cheoljong had kept the red slash from Kim So-yong when she used it to bandage his injured arm, close to him and looked at it before announcing to the arriving Kim So-yong that she had been chosen to be the Queen.
I thought this filled the gap as to who King Cheoljong fell in love with. Without knowing her identity, King Cheoljong had taken to Kim So-yong, and it was only after knowing who she was, his bias set in and caused him to turn away from her. Perhaps her suicide attempt and subsequently bizarre behaviour caused him to question if his bias was misplaced, and as the Jang Bong-hwan personality reminded him, "looks were not everything".
King Cheoljong had always kept in his heart the little girl who saved him in the well, and when he realized that Kim So-yong was the girl and not Jo Hwa-jin, I think he came to peace with his internal conflicts of actually liking Kim So-yong and detesting her clan.
So I didn't think that King Cheoljong fell in love with Kim So-yong the person because of Jang Bong-hwan the soul. He already felt a connection with her before Jang Bong-hwan came into the picture.
3. Was there gay romance depicted in Mr Queen?
I thought there was, but not between King Cheoljong and Kim So-yong. No matter how many times Jang Bong-hwan tried to tell him he was a man from the future, I think King Cheoljong always saw her as a female, albeit eccentric at most times.
The interactions between Byeolgam Hong and Kim Hwan on the other hand seems to smack of an odd kind of concern and indulgence that Byeolgam Hong had for Kim Hwan that the other male characters did not have for each other. When Kim Hwan arrived at Byeolgam Hong's office with a new friend, Byeolgam Hong appeared to chase both out due to jealousy and not wanting to share Kim Hwan's friendship with another male. That kind of concern and indulgence seemed to be mirrored in the concern and indulgence Kim Byeong-in displayed towards Kim So-yong.
While friends with King Cheoljong and Prince Yeongpyeong, Byeolgam Hong did not display the behaviour that he did with them when Kim Hwan was with him. I also didn't notice such similar behaviour when Kim Byeong-in interacted with the son of Kim Chang-hyuk, when they were supposedly friends.
And of the male characters that appeared more frequently, Byeolgam Hong was the only male character that did not have a female love interest.
Both King Cheoljong and Kim Byeong-in had Kim So-yong as their love interest, Prince Yeongpyeong liked Jo Jwa-jin, even Man-bok had feelings for Choi sanggung. But Byeolgam Hong?
So there, my interpretations of Mr Queen for it to make more sense for me, but then again, it was a rom-com primarily to lift spirits during these bizarre times so why am I quibbling about the illogicalities in what was a visually pleasant drama?
No comments:
Post a Comment