[Drama 2011] Gwanggaeto, The Great Conqueror 광개토태왕

[daunte29]

KBSW ep 84 .... when Damdeok allows Fengba to assassinate him

Actually Ep84's key plot is the cornering of Damju by Fengba & Murong Xi, and she puts a dagger to her own neck. Since I've already made my opinions known in previous posts, I won't belabor the point.

Suffice to say that the writers this time did quite a good job building the 'double' chase scene with one laughable scene - upon discovering that Houyan soldiers had gotten wind of their escape and were in hot pursuit, Gen Hwang split his group into two: Seol Ji & Danbi (the lowly bodyguard who was soon killed by Fengba;s men) would lead Damju & her child into the forest (where the Houyan's pursuers on horseback can't follow) while Gen Hwang would try to lure the pursuers.

Unfortunately for Gen Hwang, his immediate pursuers happen to be Fengba & his men who were all on foot and after chasing Gen Hwang for a few metres, jumbo-ears Fengba sensed Hwang was only luring them away and that Damju must have taken the forest path towards the Goguryeo border.

So Fengba abruptly stops, turns around and went the opposite direction from Gen Hwang, who upon realising no one was chasing them also turned around and now started chasing Fengba instead - a case of the hunted becoming the hunter.

See how much humor our two writers can churn up out of the blue?

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You've gotta hand it to the man called Fengba - he's everywhere in this episode. First he & his men shot 3 arrows into Damdeok's chest as part of an assassination plot he conspired with a 'rebellious' Gorguryeo prime minister which turned out to be another failed mission in Fengba's long list of failures since Ep 1 - it was all a ploy by Goguryeo to expose Houyan';s true intentions.

As for Damdeok's 3 arrows sticking out from his chest, he was supposedly wearing a silvery 'arrow-proof vest" underneath his armor.

As I've lamented in my previous post, why the writers allowed Damdeok to allow Fengba, an enemy general from an enemy state, to move freely around his palace when he should have placed Fengba & his envoy delegation under arrest and then negotiate for Damju's release using a hostage exchange?

When Fengba realised he was played out, he started running for his life together with his men and guess what .... the Gorguryeo's pursers failed to catch him. Which explains why we soon saw him safely across the border and was now in the thick of chasing down Damju.

Never mind the fact that the writers keep making Fengba fail everytime, but you cannot help but notice Fengba is a very busy man, either conniving some dastardly plot with his beady eyes, or running through the forest like a hungry deer.

[daunte29]

@Daunte29:

Episode 79 just aired, guess KBS World is a little behind in SoCal. Questions:

Why do the people in Wae (Japan, right?) speak Korean?

Why, after being stabbed, sliced, punctured, and rammed-through, do the victims say, "How could this happen?" If you play with sharp things, you will get cut, this is something every grade school child knows.

Why, do the ones on whom a 'trick' or deceit is perpetrated say to the perpetrator, "How could you trick us like this?" All is fair in war, n'est-ce pas?

Hehe, the bilingual fluency is just the drama's way of telling us to use our imagination & suspension of disbelief. To employ native actors speaking in their native tongue would necessitate subtitling the dialogue, thereby increasing production costs and time.

It's also occasionally seen in historical dramas produced in China, Hong Kong where scenes involving non-Chinese are not played by native actors in order to maintain the language consistency.

It extends to Hollywood as well, the originator one might say, of inventing the genre of native speakers not speaking their native language. For example, the real Alexander The Great (Colin Farrell) wouldn't have spoken English nor Achilles (Brad Pitt) in Troy.

There are only a few gutsy directors who'd insist on language authenticity as in Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ and Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List. In these two aforementioned, some of the actors had to learn to speak an entirely new language and do it as if they were native speakers, imbuing the right diction, articulation and intonation.

Then of course there are a few films who adopt the 'half English-half native language" as in Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai. The only Japanese character who actually spoke English with Tom Cruise's character in feudal Japan was the one played by Ken Watanabe. Mind you, TC's character was employed by the Meiji govt to train their Japanese troops in western style tactics and weapons especially in the usage of muskets, cannons and the machine gun.

Hollywood has also created another variant of non-English speaking characters speaking English - I can remember a time when any Hollywood-produced TV series and sometimes even films set in World War 2 made the actors playing Germans or Italians or French be able to speak in heavily-accented English.

The most impressive of non-English characters being able to speak perfect North American-accented English was the Star Trek TV series and movies. Alien beings from other worlds have no problem chatting with Starship Enterprise Captain James T Kirk - earlier on in the series, we are told that the Starship has this nifty computer software called Universal Translator which has the ability to simultaneously translate almost all the known galactic languages.

So when an alien being appear on the Starship's main screen, and starts speaking in "its native language", what we & the Starships crew will hear will only be English - never mind the fact the alien being was in fact speaking English all the while. Suspension of disbelief, remember?

Indeed I think the Houyan shouldn't be speaking Korean but Chinese, although it's not too hard to imagine that perhaps bilingualism or even multilingualism was more common in their time than now.

And some Korean scholars believe that Goguryeo, Baekje & Silla people may have spoken an earlier dialect-form of the Korean language, based on the written script they used in their wall carvings & artifacts.

But the fact remains that the Gwanggaeto Stele, built by Damdeok's son Jangsu, was written exclusively in classical Chinese.

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As for those cliched parochial expressions found across many historical dramas, past & present, I think it's a by-product of theatrical acting. There is no 'originality' in historical dramas when it comes to using cliched situations and expressions partly because the drama scriptwriters themselves play safe by sticking to what's tried and tested.

For example, dying heroes/heroines are given lots of time to deliver a speech before they pretend to stop breathing whereas the minnow characters just get slashed and drop dead speechless.

The same goes for every death scene involving smearing concentrated tomato sauce around the mouth and when swords are drawn/unsheathed from the scabbard, there's always the same metallic clang - the reality is most scabbards (for Asian-made swords) are actually made from non-metallic coverings, so that when a sword is unsheathed, there's actually no metallic sound.

Those parochial expressions they utter upon being stabbed or discovering the traitor, are also included for solely 'dramatic' effect - just imagine the same scene where nothing is spoken or said and the actors merely wear a big-eyes I AM VERY SHOCKED/SURPRISED facial expression. Not quite so drama-tick isn't it?

Of course there are a few other cliched 'actions' used only in K-dramas that always make me chuckle - the one where a senior citizen receives bad/unhappy news and then she/he starts to sway and buckle as if to faint? And there's always, always-always, someone to grab hold of the about-to-faint senior citizen from falling down like a tree and crashing to the floor.

And how about the one in k-dramas where upon hearing upsetting news, the man/woman suddenly clutches the back of the head around the upper neck region, tilts head backwards and the eyes will close as if experiencing a sharp pain caused by the upsetting news.

And every k-drama must have at least one or two drunk scene where some important information or secret is 'accidentally' divulged and by the time the news has been tweeted all over the internet, the drunk person cannot remember ever spilling the beans by the next morning. A k-drama without a single drunken scene is by definition not a k-drama.

The other hilarious cliche scene that happens in bars is when two female 'rivals' meet and then when the argument gets heated, one will throw a glass of water at the other's face. Not beer, not soju, not soft drink, not hot coffee, but always a glass of water which by the way is always placed there just for such temper tantrums.

For variety why not put a big jug of iced water, with floating ice cubes, and then having the entire contents unloaded on the face of the victim? Refreshing, wouldn't you agree?

[Guest DJG]

daunte29 you slay me about the kdrama cliches, as I read your posts scenes from past dramas flashed before my eyes

I have some questions for you, if you don't mind answering

how much do Korean dramas usually get sold for per episode, per series in Japan? To other countries? Do you know which Kdrama was the highest priced drama, ever sold to Japan, thanks.

[daunte29]

daunte29 you slay me about the kdrama cliches, as I read your posts scenes from past dramas flashed before my eyes

I have some questions for you, if you don't mind answering

how much do Korean dramas usually get sold for per episode, per series in Japan? To other countries? Do you know which Kdrama was the highest priced drama, ever sold to Japan, thanks.

Dramas are sold in its entire series and also broadcasting rights for the same drama vary from country to country depending on the estimated size of expected viewership. For example, it does not mean that if it's sold to a Chinese TV station, then it's gonna be the most expensive (due to China's urban population size and affluence) because market surveys will tell the Korean drama marketing departments the estimated viewership/fanbase of Korean dramas in each of China's major cities and which Chinese city has the largest korean drama fanbase.

On the other hand, that same drama sold to a Chinese TV station may cost much more when sold to a Southeast Asian country, Japan or the US (usually the cable channels) due to the immense popularity of certain Korean stars in those places. It's not an even playing field.

Similarly there is no fixed price for broadcasting rights. Some foreign stations state their price and bid for it while others simply are willing to pay whatever price the Korean broadcasters are asking. The more popular dramas with popular Hallyu stars would fetch higher prices.

The current record holder for most expensive broadcasting rights for a korean drama sold to Japan is the KBS drama IRIS which TBS (a major terrestrial channel in Japan) bought for ¥ 400,000,000 / ₩ 5,300,000,000 ($4.3 million USD).

By comparison in 2011 SBS Secret Garden was sold to 13 countries (including Japan & China) with a combined total of only US$3.5M. Why so low?

As mentioned above, many Hallyu stars are treated like bleh-bleh by most Japanese (usually the females, including married women and grandmas) while a certain few reach godlike status, for example Lee Byung Hun, Bae Yong Jun, JYJ's Yoochun, Park Yong Ha, Song Seung Heon, Won Bin, just to name a few - so any drama featuring these guys would certainly fetch insane prices among the Japanese broadcasters.

For example Yoochun's "Sungkyungkwan Scandal” hit a sales mark of 3 billion won (approximately $2.79 million USD), while his “Ripley” was reportedly sold for around 2.5 million won (approximately $2.32 million USD). I cannot remember exactly which Japanese broadcasters bought the above two drama series though.

[Guest DJG]

^Daunte29, once again thanks for the info.

[Guest flydolesqueue]

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[daunte29]

Breaking News.... if you look at the screencaps above for ep 91, you'll see Murong Xi with red tomato sauce on his lips. By now you'll know that's a historical drama trademark telling you another major character has been killed off by the writers as we now approach the end point.

I won't bother with the spoiler box so let's cut to the chase .... Murong Xi is overthrown for his ineptness in handling state affairs and you don't have to guess who're the usurpers, right? Do you wanna guess how MX was killed off by our writers? Hint: recall the recent past major characters who were retired from the series?

While our poor Damju took 3 arrows in her back and with the 3 feathery things still sticking out from her back, she was piggybacked to another location, where she gave a short speech before dying.

No such luck for Murong Xi ... jumbo-ears Fengba shot one arrow dead-center into his chest and he gave a short speech before flopping to the ground.

Yup, Murong Un is the new boss of Houyan and together with my man-of-the-drama Fengba, they will perhaps launch Houyan's final effort at sending Damdeok to the heavens. Or vice-versa.

I salute Fengba for having been given the privilege by our two writers to serve so many Houyan kings since this drama began, and he doesn't even look a day older than when we first saw Fengba in ep1.

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On the flipside, Damdeok's other female posse member, Ari & one young elite commander were caught in a skirmish with Houyan and the Goguryeo soldiers were dropping like flies, when the wounded commander ordered Ari to run, which she wisely did. Female warriors, of which there remains two, are becoming more endangered as we approach the end.

The good thing is this episode again gave lots of airtime to Seol Ji who of late since Damju died, is now usually again seen at the long table or standing just behind DD.

Remember that when Damju was about to die, she took both Seol Ji's hand and her son Huwang, and made Seol Ji promise to take care of him.

Maybe it's still too early to say this but we may never know what in blazes happened to Yakyeon and her supposed pregnancy but as of now, DD does have a Houyan prince Huwang who has Damju's bloodline, and if the writer finally kills off Damdeok, who will they use as his successor? A name change from Huwang to Jangsu is not impossible.

Here's another stretch of my imagination: since Seol Ji is now the closest female to Damdeok, don't be surprised one day, Seol Ji starts developing morning sickness, eh? Or is that too cheesy and far-fetched?

Dang! If my bodyguard looks like Seol Ji, I'd rather protect her & keep her safe beside me all the time 24/7. I might even abdicate my throne and gladly spend the rest of my life with Seol Ji without having to sit endlessly at the long table and wait for PEYHA WE'RE IN TROUBLE news.

[daunte29]

As far back as I can recall, Dammang (Damdeok's brother) still has the dubious distinction of being the only person in this drama so far who was felled by more than 10, less than 20 arrows.

Back in those early days, Damdeok was the target of assassination by his own palace factions, and when you rewind back to Ep23 when Dammang (pretending to be Damdeok) was cut down by a hail of arrows, and I do mean at least 30 or more steel-tipped beauties, among those foreign conspirators who killed Dammang, thinking he was Damdeok, was jumbo-ears Fengba, Seol Doan & tada! .... Seol Ji.

Of course we now know Seol Ji later became a turncoat against her own brother's wishes but when you look back at ep23, you'll see how close Seol Ji was in terminating the same man whom she'll later serve as his bodyguard.

Dammang was hit front and back by uncountable arrows and even after he collapsed on his back, (thereby squashing those arrows embedded in his back), the scriptwriters still gave him a few more lines to speak before he finally croaked.

And even then, his body was left to lie there in the forest, in pouring rain, until his daddy-king could come and see for himself the extra wooden antennas sticking out from his eldest son's chest and abdomen.

That's why I'm suddenly thinking ... did Damdeok later ever find out Seol Ji was one of his brother's assassins? Not that it matters because I'm sure our great king has tons of forgiving DNA within his blood ... just see how fast he got over the deaths of all those closest to him.

In those early days, the young teenaged Damdeok wore guyliner and if you ARE watching the current raw episodes on KBS, it does seem that Damdeok is back to wearing his guyliner once more. Why? I don't know.

(additional screencaps from ep91)

... now you know why the PD likes giving us so many boring shots of DD at his long table - dats becos Mr Lee Tae Gon is so blardy tall, he really looks like a tree when standing around his posse. Poor Seol Ji must sometimes be thinking - how on earth am I supposed to protect PeyHa when I can barely see past his towering shoulders?

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[daunte29]

The rumors proved true after all...Ep 92 was the finale.

It ended with Murong Un kowtowing to you-know-who and becoming a vassal state.

So with that, we are told peace 'finally' ruled over the realm, the citizens love their king, and though there were still much to be done, with the great leadership of yada, yada, blah, blah.... get the picture?

No Yakyeon, No Jangsu, No Asin, No Shilla, No Wae .... our KBS writers didn't rewrite history but they didn't give even a three-quarters picture, and that ends up distorting the real achievements of the real Gwanggaeto.

Pity those international viewers globally when they buy the DVD boxset of this drama expecting a mega-production of a historical legend and instead what they get are long tables and senseless battles and then more long tables.

[viktoria]

The rumors proved true after all...Ep 92 was the finale.

It ended with Murong Un kowtowing to you-know-who and becoming a vassal state.

So with that, we are told peace 'finally' ruled over the realm, the citizens love their king, and though there were still much to be done, with the great leadership of yada, yada, blah, blah.... get the picture?

No Yakyeon, No Jangsu, No Asin, No Shilla, No Wae .... our KBS writers didn't rewrite history but they didn't give even a three-quarters picture, and that ends up distorting the real achievements of the real Gwanggaeto.

Pity those international viewers globally when they buy the DVD boxset of this drama expecting a mega-production of a historical legend and instead what they get are long tables and senseless battles and then more long tables.

what??? it really ended at episode 92 and there was no glimpse of Yakyeon and the future King, Jangsu? that's really sad. i guess the writers really ran out of ideas on how to write the storylines of the drama for the extension. thank you again daunte29 for giving us the summaries of the weekly episodes. i'm going to miss your posts.

[Moosegender]

lol. Terrible. Horrible. One of THE worst Korean historical KBS dramas ever.

I utterly failed to see what made this guy "great". By comparison, at the end of King Sejong, you actually comprehended the arduous journey that King went through and the achievements he fostered that made him ever reverent.

[watchumlots]

WHAT??  THE END???  Ya gotta be kidding me!!!  

Lee Taegon is 185 cm tall, converts to ~6 ft. 1 in.(72.8 in)/English system.  That isn't so tall.  Average height for American male is 70 inches (5 ft. 10 in.) Why does he look as though he is towering/hulking over cast members?  Are the other cast members so much shorter?  

Moving on to a new series, this one was a major dud, but I had great fun with followers here.  

[daunte29]

what??? it really ended at episode 92 and there was no glimpse of Yakyeon and the future King, Jangsu? that's really sad. i guess the writers really ran out of ideas on how to write the storylines of the drama for the extension. thank you again daunte29 for giving us the summaries of the weekly episodes. i'm going to miss your posts.

Haha viktoria, the series may have ended in Korea but it's still running on KBS World, which I'm still watching. So I'll definitely de-stress myself by commenting on the episodes being shown on KBSW. Cheers!

[daunte29]

Here're screencaps of the ending shot from ep 92 finale.

If picture doesn't autoload, place cursor over it then right click, select view picture.

Now tell me why Damdeok wants to be the Korean version of Mr Zorro?

[viktoria]

Haha viktoria, the series may have ended in Korea but it's still running on KBS World, which I'm still watching. So I'll definitely de-stress myself by commenting on the episodes being shown on KBSW. Cheers!

haha, you're right. i totally forgot about KBS World. i've not checked our DVR if it still recording the drama, haha. my young niece might have been deleting them so there's space for her shows. definitely will still be reading your posts daunte29.

[Guest DJG]

What a totally craptastic project by KBS. Of all the dramas and kings to screw up, they chose one of their most lauded national heroes.

Grade:

Writing: D - started off well, then derailed and crashed. Nothing depicts the image and aura of the Gwanggaeto mentioned in history. What we saw was an ineffective king, who never learned from past mistakes. We saw nothing about his brilliance or military acumen. The female characters were just fillers and served no real purpose.

Cast: C - not their fault per say, because they had to work with what was given to them. But as a watcher of several historical dramas, the acting here was below average. There was ridiculous over acting by all the characters i.e. yelling, snarling, grimacing, voice cracks, it was just so ridiculous.

Costumes/Set: D- - The costumes were cheaply made, sets were so obviously and flagrantly reused, it seemed the entire filming was done on the same set. There were hardly any grand outside shots, views of palaces. Variances in the costumes; everything just looked paltry. Maybe it is because I have been watching historical Chinese dramas lately, but comparing the grand sets in those drama to this, just made this drama look like a cheap, poor, fake imitation.

Filming - F - Was this even shot in HD. The director pretty much relied on head shots throughout the drama and several scenes of people talking and talking and talking. We never got to see them as people. Did any of the other men even have families, did they even eat, sleep, no romance scenes. Just repeated scenes of table plotting.

The fight sequences were just terrible. After watching the Japanese Taigas and seeing the battle scenes in those, the producers and directors of this drama should be ashamed. Even the extras didn't take it seriously, and you could see people just going through the motions.

The lighting was also bad. Scenes went from dark to bright, as if someone was fiddling with the camera settings: scenes would suddenly get bright, and you would see all the flaws in the costumes, all the glue marks on the hair pieces etc. Talking about hair pieces, this drama took a year to film, are you telling me, none of the lead male actors, couldn't grow a real beard in that time. Why the fake mustaches and beards?

All in all, I was expecting something grand, especially from a drama about "a Great Conqueror" and I was disappointed. I guess KBS has a built in audience for these sageuk dramas, so they don't even bother to try as hard as they used to. However, if they plan on exporting these weak and poorly done dramas to other countries, they do a great disservice to their national history.

[Guest whodat]

Considering the way Damdeok kept reminding Houyan and Beiwei about soldiers from Shilla, Baekje, Malgal and Biryeo I was expecting that those nations would at least feature in the final conquest of Houyan. Asin and that other guy from Shilla must really feel cheated. Damdeok told them, "After I conquer Wae, I will unite Baekje and Shilla armies to attack Houyan". I guess Damdeok didn't feel like sharing the booty.

Considering the pace the show had been taking up to last weekend, EP 91 & 92 were in ffwd. Actually the writers should have done this from the start. There was a lot of stuff going on at the same time which made the plot kind of enjoyable. There were also less long table meetings and more outside (non-battle) scenes.

But I guess it's now too late. Every week from around episode 70 when it seemed that the writers were having a mental block of some kind, I kept hoping that it was a temporary thing and that the show would switch back to the right track. Even when it got to episode 90, I was hoping that they were saving the best for last, what a let down that was.

At least we finally got to see the famous 50000 cavalry though they did not feature in any battle .

Thanks daunte29 and other forum members who made this drama fun to watch.

[mekeo117]

phew finally this is over ! Any idea what drama is taking over this ? Another Saguek ? Pray it's better than this one

KBS use to produce some top notch saguek before I wonder what went wrong . Can't wait to watch some nice ones

[Guest xChrisx]

 Any idea what drama is taking over this ? Another Saguek ?

I had heard that documentaries will replace it.  There won't be a drama for four months since KBS has had some financial issues that cut this short down to 92 and the next one King's Dream was supposed to start after but now delayed until the end of August for the same reason. King's Dream will star the great, Choi Soo Jong.