This point I'm about to make is probably
neither here nor there, all things considered, in regards to
director Dae-seung Kim's sprawling, beautiful, confusing epic
'The Concubine', but it didn't get past me. There's
quite a bit of nudity and sex in 'The Concubine', no issue
there, but… some of the nude women had surgically enhanced
breasts and while I hear Korea's Joseon Dynasty was quite
advanced, I don't think they weren't that advanced. Just
saying it kind of brings one out of the time period of the
drama when on sees these kinds of things. That's all.
Prince Sung Won (Kim Dong Wook) is a little wimpy, kind of
whiny and not much of man but then he sees her, a vision of
beautiful perfection in Hwa Yeon (Jo Yeo Jeong), the daughter
of a nobleman. He would like to have this woman as his
own, and as a prince you would think he'd have the inside
track but there are a couple of things which will keep this
from happening for the poor prince. First is that Hwa
Yeon loves hardass commoner Kwon Yoo (Kim Min Joon) and
secondly, and most importantly, the prince's mom (Park Ji
Young) won't allow it. The Queen Mother, as they call
her, is like a modern, oppressive stage mother the likes few
have ever seen, and she has a plan for her son.
Hwa Yeon's love for Kwon Yoo cannot be either, as she has been
slated to be the consort for the current king, as orchestrated
by the Queen Mother, and while Kwon Yoo did everything in his
limited power to keep this woman in his possession, he failed
at this, and paid a steep price for his hubris.
A few years pass, Hwa Yeon has born
the king a son, but the king falls suddenly ill. He
seems like a young enough and healthy guy, so why is he so
sick? Oh that Queen Mother, I tell you. Now here's
where things start to get a little convoluted. The
prince is elevated to King, as his mother
apparently has the right to name the king,
but he is king in name only as mom is completely running
things. This turn of events puts Hwa Yeon and her young
son in grave danger, danger she thinks she might be able to
avoid because her former lover Kwon Yoo has returned to the
royal court… as a eunuch… but he's not a happy guy, as you
might imagine, and he's looking to make some people pay for
his missing penis. It should also be in Hwa Yeon's favor
that the new king is still sick in love with her, but he's
still not much of a man and will be of little
help. Thus it is going to be up to Hwa Yeon to
save herself. While all of that sounds pretty straight
forward, it's anything of the sort. There are characters
floating in and out of the scene, back stabbing, double
crosses, double dealing, and all kinds of other plot elements
which don't do a narrative that wasn't all that lucid to begin
with, any favors.
You have to admire Kim's 'The Concubine' because no matter
what I might say after this point, it was an entertaining
ride. And to call 'The Concubine' a ride is an apt
description as the director relentlessly drives his movie
forward with intrigue and sex and action and violence and you
can either stay on the ride, as bumpy as it might be, or
jump off early because it's just way too convoluted.
On the positive side, 'The Concubine' is a feast for the eyes
as a visual masterpiece. The cinematography is
outstanding, the costuming and settings are exemplary, the
pacing for this two hour period piece is about as quick as a
movie of this type can be and the acting, for the most part,
is very good.
Oh, but it is busy and confusing. While the core of the
movie is pretty clear, this being the Queen Mother's ambition
and Hwa Yeon's quest for survival, there's so much going on in
the periphery, not much of which is all that well developed or
fleshed out, these side bars ultimately served the only
purpose to confuse.
We mentioned before that acting was largely very good,
particularly Ji-Young Park who was mesmerizing as the Queen
Mother, but Jo Yeo-jeong was a curious one, particularly how
the character was written. Now Ms. Jeong is so lovely
that the director could possibly get away with filming her
walking in circles for 90 minutes and that movie would still
be marginally entertaining, but how her character in this
movie traveled the distance from wide-eyed ingénue to
chess playing mastermind was a bit conspicuous. And the
ending was completely confusing to me.
This is a SPOILER but at the end, when it looks like the
Prince who was manufactured into becoming King finally became
the man he needed to be, he was killed. The only good
for thing for the King is that he was murdered in the middle
of doing something he's wanted to do for the majority of his
life, but still, I didn't understand it.
But as I mentioned before, 'The Concubine' despite its
narrative gaps, is still an entertaining ride and one of the
better historical dramas we've seen in a while. Despite
the fake breasts.
