Beleaguered princes appear to be the secret in sageuks nowadays. We’ve gone from a prince emotionally haunted by the recollections of his misplaced love in “The Forbidden Marriage” to a prince who believes he’s been cursed by a ghost in “Our Blooming Youth.” However that’s the one similarity between the 2 exhibits. Prepared your self, Park Hyung Sik followers, as a result of he’s lastly again onscreen in full princely kind, and he’s picked one heck of a brooding position to return in! This present is a slow-burn homicide thriller, a love story, and an ode to friendship and household multi functional. Right here’s what we beloved concerning the premiere episodes!
Warning: spoilers for episodes 1-2 under.
1. The prince’s curse
The central premise here’s a distinctive one: a letter that couldn’t probably have been despatched by a human hyperlinks each the crown prince of Joseon and a girl newly-accused of homicide. Crown Prince Lee Hwan (Park Hyung Sik) has been suffering from rumors since his ascension to the place some three years in the past. The rationale? The extremely uncommon loss of life of his brother, the earlier Crown Prince: homicide by peaches. Apparently the fruit interfered along with his brother’s drugs, but somebody slipped it to him, which resulted in his loss of life. Consensus within the royal court docket is that the “somebody” was Lee Hwan. However is that actually the case?
From the transient glimpse we get of the aftermath, Lee Hwan is straight away appointed Crown Prince and moved to the Jap Palace the place his brother used to dwell. However on his very first night time there, an odd letter falls from the ceiling, the transient rustle awaking Hwan. And when he reads what’s inside, his complete life warps instantly. The letter is a curse and a prophecy, dooming him to paralysis, then the loss of life of these round him, and promising that everybody will betray him. Why? As a result of the letter says he murdered his brother. Hwan is aware of it isn’t true however is totally rattled, since no human may probably have delivered the letter with so many individuals stationed exterior his room. However he can’t inform anybody both as a result of it might imply that his brother’s loss of life wasn’t simply an accident and that there might be a assassin on the free. So Hwan modifications as an alternative, rising crueler and distrusting of everybody, together with Han Sung Oh (Yoon Jong Seok), his finest pal since childhood.
Two years go, and Hwan believes that the letter might need misplaced its enamel. However when a poisoned arrow almost paralyses his arm throughout a routine looking expedition, Hwan is aware of that the unearthly being that cursed him remains to be on the market, able to make good on its promise to destroy him. Add to {that a} divided court docket and a faction headed by the Proper State Councillor Jo Received Bo (Jung Woong In), and it’s no surprise that Hwan is dangerously near snapping. Particularly when he learns that an accused murderess someway is aware of his secret.
2. The mysterious poisoning
Min Jae Yi (Jeon So Nee) was proper on the cusp of happiness. Betrothed to Sung Oh, the 2 had been as a result of be married in a day. Her father, Hwan’s mentor, receives a mysterious letter from Hwan detailing his curse and the way he’s at an utter loss on what to do when a drive that isn’t of this world appears to be threatening his life. Hwan requests Jae Yi’s brother’s assist, as Jae Yi’s brother was reputed to have solved lots of the metropolis’s instances. Solely Hwan has it mistaken. It was Jae Yi, not her brother, who solved these instances. Her father saved it below wraps for her sake as ladies having careers or being clever was extremely frowned upon. Jae Yi tells her father that she’ll assist Hwan, however that very same day, her complete household is poisoned to loss of life. And instantly, she turns into the prime suspect.
Shim Yeong (Kim Woo Seok), a longtime pal of the household, testifies to the Justice of the Peace that he was Jae Yi’s secret lover and that Jae Yi did it to keep away from marrying Sung Oh. Naturally, everybody’s extra inclined to consider the person. Reasonably than wait to listen to Jae Yi’s aspect of the story, they got down to arrest her. To her credit score, Jae Yi fends them off with none assist, which is a rarity in dramas. Even when she falls off a cliff into the water, she doesn’t even fall unconscious. As a substitute, she resolutely swims to shore, treats her wounds, attire as a person and returns to the capital to the one individual with solutions on why her household was murdered: the prince who despatched the letter that began all of it.
However she doesn’t depend on how a lot Hwan’s modified. They’d met briefly as youngsters, the place she shortly outsmarted him and younger Sung Oh. However the Hwan of the current is a caged tiger, trying to find somebody to pounce on. So when he’s at one other hunt, preventing off a silent coup within the making and but one other arrow almost kills him, he’s livid upon discovering Jae Yi subsequent to the bow that shot the arrow. She denies that it was her however this prince isn’t ready to hear.
3. A one-sided friendship
The years have warped Hwan into a person who doubts first and has little to present in the way in which of belief. Nowhere is that this higher exemplified than his relationship with Sung Oh. The 2 have identified one another for years, and Hwan was effectively conscious of Sung Oh ‘s impending marriage ceremony to Jae Yi. However once they’re within the forest on a royal looking expedition, Hwan freezes upon seeing Sung Oh’s bow aimed in his path. He doesn’t even pause to contemplate that Sung Oh can be capturing at one thing behind him – which might be the plain conclusion. As a substitute, Hwan instantly believes that Sung Oh is about to shoot him. He thinks again to the letter which prophecied that his finest pal would activate him, and he’s completely constructive that Sung Oh is about to do this.
It’s a pivotal scene that exhibits simply how a lot that letter and worry guidelines Hwan’s life. If something, a part of this curse appears to be of his personal making as a result of he’s permitting himself to be dominated by the phrases of an unknown being. And it’s turning him right into a callous, bitter man. Even the way in which his arm trembles appears to be extra psychosomatic than the results of a curse.
For his half, Sung On evidently trusts Hwan and considers him his finest pal. He thinks that Hwan might be too harsh at instances, however there’s nothing in his demeanor to this point to point any malice in him in direction of Hwan. The friendship appears extraordinarily one-sided. So it ought to be attention-grabbing to see the place this goes as a result of it’s a full 180 levels from Jae Yi’s relationship together with her finest pal.
4. An unbelievable sisterly bond
The ladies listed here are fortunately fantastic and able to sacrifice themselves for one another in a heartbeat. Ga Ram (Pyo Ye Jin) is Jae Yi’s maid and her finest pal. Jae Yi evidently considers her an equal and would do something to guard her, simply as Ga Ram would die for her. Each ladies danger every thing within the aftermath of the homicide of Jae Yi’s household. Ga Ram protects her as finest she will be able to and urges her to flee, whereas Jae Yi refuses to let Ga Ram be part of her in her quest for solutions, figuring out that the opposite girl would solely be in danger within the capital.
However that doesn’t cease Ga Ram one bit. More and more involved about Jae Yi, she attire as a person herself and apprentices herself to Kim Myung Jin (Lee Tae Solar), the very eccentric herbalist/scientist son of the Left State Councillor. He’s additionally in love with Jae Yi someway, which makes her heat as much as him even when she thinks he’s bizarre. To date, Myung Jin and Ga Ram’s paths haven’t intersected with Hwan and Jae Yi’s. However on the velocity we’re going at, they only may meet earlier than lengthy!
5. A mercurial king and household secrets and techniques
It is a 20-episode drama, so we’ve the area to completely flesh out characters. The drama definitely appears to be placing it to good use to this point, as a result of there appears to be extra to Hwan’s father than we all know. The King (Lee Jong Hyuk) appears to be a sort father at first look. He helps Hwan, exhibiting the royal court docket that there’s nothing mistaken along with his arm after the arrow to his shoulder. He permits Hwan to kick out the palace servants that gossip about his psychological state or the state of his arm.
But, there’s somebody within the palace intent on making Hwan appear cursed. Take the looking expedition the place Hwan meets Jae Yi. He refuses to consider that she’s harmless (of her household’s loss of life and of the second arrow that was shot at him) and has her dragged to his tent for questioning. It’s there that Jae Yi witnesses that somebody actually is out to get Hwan.
As a part of a spiritual ceremony put up the looking expedition, Hwan washes his palms earlier than all current and prepares to write down a prayer when blood instantly begins to drip down his palms. And there’s no wound. The assembled ministers see this as an ominous, cursed signal, and Hwan roars at everybody current out of sheer panic. However solely Jae Yi is aware of what’s actually occurred right here. After being towed again to the capital and locked in Hwan’s dungeons, she tries to persuade Hwan to consider her by telling him concerning the letter he despatched her father. Solely, he hasn’t despatched one.
But as she speaks, the contents of the letter she and her father acquired are precisely the identical as the numerous letters he wrote her father over time and destroyed. He grows increasingly unnerved as she speaks and refuses to consider her out of sheer worry. However she additionally reveals that whoever is haunting him isn’t a ghost however an individual. And she or he is aware of how they made him “bleed” on the looking grounds with out inflicting a wound. Whoever it was sprinkled bryophytes (a kind of moss that accumulates iron) on the writing brush and alum (a transparent powder) within the water that Hwan washed his palms in. When the 2 combine, the alum leeches the iron from the bryophytes, which ends up in a purple liquid (the iron dissolved in water) that appears like blood.
Hwan demonstrates Jae Yi’s technique earlier than the assembled ministers the following day, believing that maybe one in all them was behind the trick. However even Hwan’s enemy, the Proper State Councillor, Jo Received Bo, wasn’t accountable. And the most certainly suspect in Jo Received Bo’s eyes is Hwan’s personal father. In spite of everything, the King has yet one more son: Hwan’s youngest half-brother, Prince Myung Han (Im Han Bin). And we nonetheless don’t understand how the previous Crown Prince died. Added to that is Hwan’s stepmother, the Queen (Hong Soo Hyun), who additionally occurs to be Jo Received Bo’s niece. She’s fortunately not a kind of evil, scheming stepmothers, whew. Hwan has sufficient on his plate as is. However there’s no telling what path she may take sooner or later.
All of which is to say that we’ve fairly the set-up on our palms. The present actually packed in a hefty quantity of backstory within the first two episodes, establishing every character, their pasts, and their collision course with one another. It’s value noting that Hwan is exceedingly tough with Jae Yi regardless of figuring out her gender, which may be taken fairly poorly. But there’s extra to him than what’s on the floor. Regardless of figuring out who Jae Yi is, he doesn’t flip her in instantly. He’s curious sufficient to listen to her out, regardless of additionally being incognizant of the injustices she faces as a girl in Joseon. Jae Yi is an unbelievable girl, expert in swordplay, energy, and is tremendous sensible as well. It was extremely satisfying to see her taking Hwan down when he dared inform her that the regulation would determine if she was harmless.
She was heartbroken sufficient to throw every thing away and put together to give up herself to the police, but additionally sensible sufficient to threaten Hwan on the similar time whereas yelling his secret to any who may hear. He’s in over his head together with her as a result of she’s sharp and has nothing to lose. Reasonably than have her change him (she shouldn’t should be his instructor!), hopefully Hwan will sensible up and be taught to be a greater individual to be worthy of her. Regardless, their journey guarantees to be an unbelievable trip!
Take a look at the drama under!
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Shalini_A is a very long time Asian-drama addict. When not watching dramas, she works as a lawyer, fangirls over Ji Sung, and makes an attempt to write the best fantasy romance of all time. Observe her on Twitter and Instagram, and be happy to ask her something!
Presently Watching: “Island,” “The Curiosity of Love,” “Company,” and “Payback.”
Trying Ahead to: “The Heavenly Idol,” “Gyeonseong Creature,” “Ask the Stars,” “The Woman Downstairs,” The Worst Evil,” “Black Knight,” “Queen of Tears,” “Vigilante,” “Demon,” “Dr. Romantic 3,” “Each day Dose of Sunshine,” and Ji Sung’s subsequent drama.
