TV Drama: Gung/Princess' Hours

Korean title: Gung English title: Palace/Princess Hours
Casts: Ju Ji Hoon, Yun Eun Hae (Baby V.O.X.), Kim Jung Hun MBC TV Series; 24 episodes

I absolutely loveeeeed this derama. I’ll give it a five star. At first I was less optimistic, I mean, what more can a teen TV drama offer us? The story was undoubtedly predictable (come on, an-average-no-way-gonna-be-popular type of girl hit the jackpot and get to marry a handsome prince?), the casts was no more than another pretty faces, and… we had encountered this formula for about… hmmm, I don’t know, a thousand times maybe—not counting in our previous life ;-p. What else there is to it?!?! But if the question was did I count this derama to be one of my guilty pleasure? Well, I’ll have to admit that “yes” was the answer.

Shin Chae Kyeong (Yun Eun Hae) was never one of the girls who went googoo-and-gaga every time Prince Lee Shin (Ju Ji Hun) walk by. That was why she was really more surprised than happy when her family found out that her grandfather was the late king’s best friend and had promised the king to marry his granddaughter with the king’s grandson (the next heir to the throne). But since Chae Kyeong’s family was poor and in serious need of financial support, she “sacrificed” herself to the agreement, married the prince in the traditional way (not religious way), and beginning her new life in the palace.

Her life as a princess didn’t go as glamorous as she thought. While excited about getting her own new beautiful room and gorgeous clothes, Chae Kyeong had to accept the royalty’s responsibilities that followed. Including, studying a vast collection of general knowledge and traditional Korean culture. Just remember the desperation of Lady Di or any new member of British court said in may tabloids, and you’ll get the picture. In one of the episode, our heroine even had the chance to meet Prince William from England when he visited Korea!! They chose a blond guy with a wide smile to play his part (nice try! Hehe).

That was so great about Gung, it dwelled on the questions: “What if Korea had a constitutional monarchy? Had a king, queen and royal family? And what if they were living today, in contemporary Korean society? What kind of issues, dilemmas and romantic entanglements would the younger members of the family experience?” And this, was the potential story the writer/s had deftly captured. Bravo, indeed!

And now about the love affairs, at first—of course—Chae Kyeong was agitated by Shin-Gung, but after a while find herself in love. Shin-Gung spent quite a lot of episodes contemplated his feeling for his first love, before he realized that things had changed. The love rival for Shin-Gung was Yui-Gung, his cousin the true heir of the kingdom. Yui came back from London (and said that at that time he was befriended with Prince William) at his mom order. There was a political thing going on at this Yui-Gung and his mother part, and sadly the subtitle most of the time didn’t gave me a fair explanation of what’s-it and why-is. If I summarized it correctly, Yui and his mother was banished from the kingdom after the late crown prince (Yui’s father, his mom’s husband) died in an accident. Why she was banished with her seven years old son was maybe because of some old love affair.

Anyway, at first Yui didn’t care about his mom’s plan for vendetta. But when he fell for Chae Kyeong and realized that she should’ve been meant for him if he stayed as the crown prince, he changed his mind and helped his mother through all of her schemes. I must say that Kim Jung Hun did his part nicely as a jealous cousin. But the praises deserves to go to Ji Hoon and Eun Hae, their chemistry was awesome!!! You could not have not noticed the sparks! Big SPARKS like fireworks at a deep-black night sky. My favorite scene was when they were forced to sleep together to produce an heir—a scheme the elders used to bring the two together. It was soooo funny! I’m not gonna tell you the details, you’ll have to watch it yourself! Oh, and the soundtrack was catchy, memorable, especially “Na Nen Pabo Imnida”.

Well… need I say more? Whaddaya waiting for? Go! Watch it… and after that post your comment in this blog ;-p. Enjoy!