Jung Ryeo-won says goodbye to Ja Myung Go
SBS’s sageuk Ja Myung Go was supposed to be a 50-episode fusion historical extravaganza, but, as we know, it’s had its share of troubles. The drama took too long to introduce its adult stars (six weeks), including headliner Jung Ryeo-won, and never really caught on. Once the storyline got going in earnest, competitor Queen Seon-deok was kicking its butt in the Monday-Tuesday ratings and Ja Myung Go’s episode order was cut to 39.
Now that the drama has ended (it aired its last episode today, Tuesday the 21st), its star Jung Ryeo-won expressed her disappointment with her sageuk debut upon its wrap-up. She posted on her mini-homepage, “Farewell, my Ja-myung. I’m sorry, Ja-myung.”
Jung’s message was titled “Like a sponge full of water” and continued, “Like standing in one place for a long time, about to drip down one by one… so to move around busily… it becomes exceedingly heavy… Farewell… my Ja-myung.”
The finale numbers weren’t abysmal; certainly low with a 7.2%, but there have been worse performances. However, given the hype and the scope of the drama, it’s quite a disappointment, particularly next to fellow large-scale sageuk Queen Seon-deok. The two dramas drew a lot of comparisons prior to broadcast, and Jung was often discussed next to Seon-deok’s Go Hyun-jung. Once both dramas got going, however, Ja Myung Go pretty much got left in the dust. (Meanwhile, concurrent with Ja Myung Go’s finale were KBS’s The Man Who Can’t Get Married, which pulled in an 8%, while MBC’s Queen Seon-deok was far and away the winner of the night with a 32.8%.)
In Ja Myung Go’s vacated time slot is the new drama Dream.
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Tags: Ja Myung Go, Jung Ryeo-won
aww
Pity about it being chopped. I didn’t watch it but it’s kinda sad a story/drama gets the short shrift. The actors/actresses involved must have felt awful, I feel bad for them.
honestly, i watched this drama straight through and i just finished the last episode today….the thing is, they kind of put goguryeo and king muhyul is a negative light, and that’s doesn’t mesh well with the audience. daemushin and muhyul along with goguryeo are all looked at as a historically proud time for korea, so putting them in a negative light and making nanglang the “virtuous country” doesn’t bode well.
i wish jung ryeo won could’ve chosen a better drama as her first sageuk
i mean, she’s really talented as an actress. i hope she stars in another drama soon!
Well, it can’t be helped… the ridiculously long prologue phase pretty much doomed it…
And yeah I agree with Sophia, making out goguryeo and king Muhyul to be the bad guys and so corrupted probably didn’t sit well with the audience who loved Jumong and the young Muhyul in Kingdom of Winds (something like that).
Oh dear… 8% for The Man Who Can’t Get Married is rather low for a drama that got me laughing like a loon. It’s really quirky fun. Guess rating really isn’t an accurate indication of whether a drama is good. Yet to watch Ja Myung Go though. The initial 50-ep length deterred me. Now that it’s ended at ep 39, I might watch it.
So glad this has ended. At least now both JRW & PMY are free to work on their next project and hopefully it’ll be something modern this time around since both of them do not suit in period costumes and setting at all.
this drama was great. but rating was just….
writer Jung, Sung-Hee wrote seoul 1945, fashion 70 and Gukhee.
i think she is one of the best drama writer in korea.
this year i saw almost every kdrama(queen sunduk, triple, story of a man, bof, cityhall, sol pharmacy, who can’t get married,,,) and i’m pretty satisfied with this year. but to me, Ja Myung Go was the best.
too bad, i planned on watching it but i decided to wait a few episodes to see people’s input on it, then i noticed that it was going very slow to introduce the lead cast, and then when they did introduce the main cast i was already watching something else and didn’t feel up to it, but i kept an eye on it and kept observing other people’s take on it, then towards the end i sort of started skimming through it like i had been doing before except near the end it really got exciting, like REALLY exciting. surprisingly. i think they should have kept it exciting from beginning to end. guess it was just a result of bad writing which is a shame because i think it was great storyline and they could have done wonders with it.
Well, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. She’ll have other dramas in the future…
It’s a shame the finale had low ratings. Once the story got to the adult characters, it got really good and exciting. I thought the finale was rushed but still bittersweet. I’m glad I stuck with it through prologue…
i personally loved it. but yea it was just a little slow paced in the beginning.
I skimmed through the last episode because I couldn’t resist and I’ll watch it again when the subs come out. I have to say that I enjoyed the show, not every bit of it of course, but I loved railing at the characters I hated and cheering for those I liked. Like all dramas it had its pros and cons and I’m glad I had started watching it.
I was a little sad Ja Myung Go did so poorly in the ratings too. I watched the last episode today and although it was a bit rushed, the overall quality of the actual series was good. The beginning was bogged down with too much time spent on the child actors but the veterans were all amazing. And both Jung Ryeo Won and Park Min Young were pretty good with their own roles for actresses who’ve never done sageuks before. Also historically speaking this drama’s interpretation, while it may not be popular, has a point to it. For Daemusin to conquer so much land in one lifetime, he probably had to be ruthless and politically astute.
I did not watch this drama from the beginning but caught two episodes last week and thought it was an interesting drama. It has a strong storyline and some good acting. I might try to catch it later.
aww… DREAM will make it up for sure…. cos of the cute guy… tranformed from the cute rich guy to the badass cute boy….
I like sageuks and wanted to like this drama, but the actors and the storyline just didn’t do it for me.
Maybe it was too much expectations and poor choices which led to its demise. Not all sageuks are created equal.
I sensed everything was wrong in the beginning. The cast was wrong, Jung Ryu Won and Jung Kyung Ho don’t have the charisma for sageuk. After you saw Song Il-Gook as Muhyul in Kingdom of the Wind, Moon Sung Geun becomes a total weirdo. The story could be good, but everything else is a catastrophe.
I’ll try watching a couple episodes just to see Jung Ryeo Won.
I agree with all4movies; I like sageuks and I really wanted to enjoy this, but the directing was all over the place. I was excited when the first episode came out, and certainly looked forward to it more than Empress Cheon Chu and Queen Seondeok.
The first episode was terrible, though, and discouraged me from watching anymore of it; it was like an insane fantasy epic with really bad CG and a laughable opening score. The long explanations of the background and text popping up on the screen was actually kind of reminescent of Star Wars. Then they did a confusing “present” scene before jumping back, and at that point, my excitement went from 100% to zilch.
I *had* wondered whether I should’ve given this another go, so I followed the commentary on the Soompi thread closely, and from what I saw, I’m glad I gave up after the first ep.
Athough rating of drama “Ja Myung Go ” is low, I watch for this drama on internet. I love Jung ryeo Won ( Ja Myung )…..She is very beautiful with costumes of princess .
I watched ja myung go and i pretty much loved this drama
i even helped segment it on viikii.net
its a shame others didnt like it
because i know i got so into jamyung go
well, Queen Seon Deok truly deserves to be the winner, and the man who can’t get married is a very fun story, no wonder it beat out Ja Myung Go. Too bad now, I hope Seon Deok keeps on delivering good episodes!
I love Ja Myung Go. The story is good, and all the acting is fine. Jung Ryeo Won did a very good job portraying Ja Myung. People in Korea do have DVR and VCR’s. I sure they first watched Queen Seon Deok and then go back to watch Ja Myung. At least that it what I am doing with MBC America and SBS-Int. Both series are very good.
That is sad. It was one drama i really liked.
This drama was good…well Jung Ryeo-won and Jung Kyung-ho have chemistry…the last episode made me cry
I wish that the rating companies figure out a way to incorporate DVR use into their ratings.
There isn’t a single show that I watch live anymore. Even if I am planning on watching it the same night, I’m not going to watch it live because I can’t be bothered by commercials anymore. And even if there are no commercials, I still want it fully recorded so that I can fast-forward blips at a time to skip over uncomfortable or boring scenes. Often, I’ll build up a pool of 3 or more episodes before watching on DVR, so that I don’t get the one and done feeling after watching a single episode. How is ANY of that incorporated into the ratings system?
And, if I were choosing between Queen Seondeok and Ja Myung Go, I might consider the former just because of ratings, even though that could be very misleading. And, because of that, it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Then again, we have to be realistic. Even despite all of that, it is still the most likely case (based on the ratings annihilation that was propagated by QS over JMG) that Queen Seondeok was / is just a better drama to watch than Ja Myung Go. That big of a diference, and there is clearly something there.
I just hope that whatever it is that JMG did wrong, they figure it out and correct it for the next sageuk. A good sageuk can be thrilling to watch.
I agree with the overwhelming majority about the slow-paced painfully dragged out “introduction” of the main characters, but the side-character women in this drama were intriguing and worth notice! They are the ones that kept me watching. The second queen in particular! Ruthless and cruel and ambitious but utterly human. Still, it would have been painful to have stretched this to 50 episodes. Cutting it shorter helped the later parts exemplify what the early episodes should have been like–faster, eventful, and exciting!
Ok move on, there’s “Dream” waiting to air !
I love it! I love it! I wish it could have shown until Ep 50! I was crying at the end! I REALLY like it! GO JA MYUNG GO!
I think the story had potential, but too bad they dragged it in “children phase”. The ending is beautiful, i like how they end it. I`m so gonna miss this drama.
And I love Jung Kyung Ho`s performance, i think he did a good job potraying Prince Ho Dong, because it`s not an easy character, despite all the wrong doing, he`s essentially a kind-hearted man…so there`s love and hate with this character. I`m looking forward for his next project.
Loved this drama.