Dramabeans » Kim Tae-hee

Jang Ok-jung, Live By Love: Episode 1

HeadsNo2 — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 03:34:44 +0000

Jang Ok-Jung, Live By Love is well into its second week (and approaching its third), but nonetheless we’re taking a late peek into SBS’ newest history-rewriting sageuk, which promises to give a fresh take on the old story of one of history’s favorite scheming concubines and turn it into a rollicking tale of fashion and love. Maybe. Even if I’m not sure of the endgame, this first episode does prove intriguing, *if* you can swallow the alternaversion of history the show is presenting.

More than anything, I’m not really sure which side of the show I want to see more of and which side we’ll actually get more of, because when the pendulum swings from a runway walk-off to a harrowing suicide, my guess is that anything goes and everything’s game. Which could be really fun OR really terrible, depending on how you look at it.

This is just a one-time recap, and though premiere week has come and gone it’s worth noting that Jang Ok-jung was neck and neck with fellow competitor Gu Family Book for its first episode. It dropped in the second, and Episodes 3 and 4 have since dropped into single digits.

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Post tags: featured, first episodes, Hong Soo-hyun, Kim Tae-hee, Yoo Ah-in

New posters for SBS’s Jang Ok-jung

javabeans — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 12:05:07 +0000

A week out from the drama’s premiere, we’ve got new posters out for SBS’s Jang Ok-jung, Live By Love — which, by the way, has had two name changes since it was announced. You probably haven’t heard about them, though, since the show merely dropped its second half of the title, then decided their heroine should live by love after all. Fickle producers, always changing their minds.

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Read the rest of New posters for SBS’s Jang Ok-jung (272 words)

Stills galore for upcoming spring dramas

girlfriday — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 22:03:49 +0000

There are so many dramas set to premiere this spring (Seriously. So. Many.) that it’s been as hard to keep up with the output of stills as it is to keep all the shows straight in my head. So here’s a collection as random as they come, because when it rains it pours, and every drama and its mother is gearing up for a premiere next month. First up: Yoo Ah-in and Kim Tae-hee in their fusion we-play-loose-with-facts historical reimagining Jang Ok-jung, Live For Love, due out April 8 on SBS.

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Read the rest of Stills galore for upcoming spring dramas (567 words)

© girlfriday for Dramabeans, 2013. | Permalink | 54 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Gu Family Book, Han Chae-ah, Jung Yumi (2), Kim Ji-suk, Kim Tae-hee, Lee Seung-gi, Shin Ha-kyun, Yoo Ah-in

First teaser for SBS’s reimagining of Jang Ok-jung

javabeans — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 12:07:03 +0000

The first teaser has been released for Jang Ok-jung, and gives us a peek into Kim Tae-hee’s take on the iconic historical figure and oft-dramatized villainess. As you can see from the photo compilation below, she’s been brought to life onscreen numerous times by many a well-known actress, the most recent examples being Lee So-yeon and Kim Hye-soo.

The teaser is of the sort that tends to drive me nuts, because it’s really all style and no substance. Do we get any idea of plot, or conflict, or character? Nope, just a tantalizing bit of grandiose music and pretty visuals to pique our interest but not really satisfy curiosity. There’s a quote that kicks off the preview, which comes from the Annals of King Sukjong, which describes the concubine-turned-queen consort thusly: “Jang heebin is a woman reincarnated from the beast that Sukjong struck dead in a former life.”

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Read the rest of First teaser for SBS’s reimagining of Jang Ok-jung (235 words)

The ladies of Jang Ok-jung get into character

girlfriday — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:02:58 +0000

We’ve got our first promo shots from the new fusion reinterpretation sageuk Jang Ok-jung, Live By Love, starring Kim Tae-hee as the titular Jang Ok-jung, better known as the royal concubine Jang heebin, one of the most infamous femme fatales in Joseon history. Here she’s the heroine though, in a drama that takes a different (and far more factually-liberal) approach to telling her side of the story.

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Read the rest of The ladies of Jang Ok-jung get into character (308 words)

Script readings galore for spring’s upcoming dramas

javabeans — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:05:29 +0000

Lots and lots of dramas are gearing up for production in the upcoming wave, which means we’ve got lots and lots of casting announcements and table reads. We’re just swimming in casting news these days, with some rumors falling through or others changing their minds and jumping productions, which means it’s all I can do to keep my head on straight about who’s doing what and when.

Let’s start off with one of our highly anticipated upcoming dramas (though I wouldn’t say any of these aren’t anticipated): Gu Family Book. The MBC fusion fantasy sageuk about a half-gumiho hero boasts a solid cast and crew, from its Secret Garden and Gentleman’s Dignity director to its Baker King Kim Tak-gu writer to its lead stars to its supporting lineup.

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© javabeans for Dramabeans, 2013. | Permalink | 76 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Eom Ki-joon, IU, Jung Hye-young, Kim Tae-hee, Lee Seung-gi, Park Min-woo, Suzy, Yoo Ah-in

Hong Soo-hyun up for Queen In-hyun role

javabeans — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 13:02:26 +0000

Casting continues on SBS’s upcoming Jang Ok-jung, Live For Love, the drama reimagining the life of notorious royal concubine Jang heebin that has cast Kim Tae-hee in the title role. With the traditional villain role being made the protagonist of the story, perhaps there’ll be a twist on the usual heroine in the tale, the good-natured Queen In-hyun who fell victim to Jang heebin’s ambition. That’s the role being offered to Hong Soo-hyun (History of the Salaryman), which would be her second time playing real-life royalty after her turn as Princess Kyung-hye in The Princess’s Man revitalized her career.

According to Hong’s representation, she is currently considering the role favorably. I have no idea whether this drama will give Queen In-hyun a different dimension, though I don’t doubt Hong is up for it. The show will depict Jang as a Joseon-era fashion designer, a descriptor I find pretty inadequate: Will she be a sweet fashion designer or a murderous, power-hungry one? The scant descriptions about this drama are driving me a little crazy, because they promise a lot yet tell you nothing. The well-known story is plenty dramatic as it is and has been explored in lots of dramas and films already, so I expect this Jang Ok-jung to do something different. The producers just aren’t telling us how. Not yet, at least.

In any case, Hong Soo-hyun should be pretty fantastic as Queen In-hyun; she’s proven she can play commanding, vulnerable, haughty, sweet, and scheming. Any or all of those qualities should make for an interesting queen who gets tossed to the side by her king (Yoo Ah-in’s still considering that role) and is eventually reinstated. I’d say the only problem would be that she’d totally blow Kim Tae-hee out of the water. And while I find Kim Tae-hee totally endearing as a celebrity, she doesn’t really need any help from dynamic co-stars to make her own acting look dispassionate.

Jang Ok-jung will air on Mondays and Tuesdays after Yawang ends in March.

Via Osen

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News bites: January 4, 2013

javabeans — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 21:18:21 +0000

This could practically be News Bites: The ♥Romance♥ Edition, with all the star hooking up and breaking up we’ve had lately. Seriously, is something in the water over there in Yeoeuido? Or did all the celebs decide to out themselves while people’s attentions were diverted with all the other star romances, thinking they could avoid a bigger hullaballoo down the line? Quick, bury the lede! Preferably while they’re still preoccupied with Rain!

Let’s take a look at all the love in the air from the past week:

First, gossip leaked over the weekend about a possible dating relationship between Park Ha-sun (High Kick 3) and Ryu Deok-hwan (King Gongmin from Faith)… which seems like kind of an offbeat pairing, no? Both sides leapt into damage control mode and issued denials, saying they were “just friends.” (They worked together last year filming the movie The World’s Saddest Goodbye—playing siblings, ha. Go to town with that, gossip network.) [Source: Star News]
…and so they did. Especially when, the next thing you know, up crops a photo of the two frolicking poolside at a Singapore hotel, looking suspiciously cozy. And all the netizens went, “Is this what just friends do, hmmm?” *arched eyebrow* [Source: Newsway]

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Read the rest of News bites: January 4, 2013 (1,018 words)

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Post tags: Choi Jin-hyuk, Daniel Choi, Gong Hyo-jin, Im Soo-jung, Jang Nara, Jo Jung-seok, Kim Nam-gil, Kim Tae-hee, Lee Jang-woo, news bites, Oh Yeon-seo, Park Ha-sun, Rain, Ryu Deok-hwan, Sohn Eun-seok, star romances

Yoo Ah-in up for king role in new drama

javabeans — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 13:01:47 +0000

If you wanna see Yoo Ah-in (~~Fashion King~~, Sungkyunkwan Scandal, The Man Who Can’t Marry, Antique Bakery) back on your television screens (or, let’s be real, computer monitors), start the rain-dancing and bargaining-with-gods now: He’s in talks to take the role of Kim Tae-hee’s leading man in the SBS drama Jang Ok-jung. This comes with the usual caveats—it’s not final, he’s still just considering, he hasn’t committed yet, blah blah blah.

If you don’t immediately recognize the name Jang Ok-jung, perhaps you’ll know the infamous concubine-turned-queen’s other moniker: Jang heebin, aka the scheming temptress oft-portrayed as a murderous villainess for usurping Queen In-hyun’s place, only to be usurped right back after King Sukjong regretted dethroning his first wife.

Only, this drama purports to take a twist on the usual telling of the tale. It’ll reinterpret the familiar story and characters by incorporating a “modern flair”—it’ll still be sageuk, but Kim Tae-hee’s version of Jang heebin has previously been described as a Joseon fashion designer. And since she’s the heroine, who knows how they’ll reimagine Queen In-hyun, always portrayed as kind-hearted and meek to a fault. Will she be the villain?

The role Yoo Ah-in has been offered is of King Sukjong and he is the main lead, so we’re definitely going to be taking some liberties with history as we know it. (SPOILER ALERT? It IS history, but in case you don’t wanna know…) After Queen In-hyun died, Sukjong suspected Jang heebin of having a hand in it, and she was executed by poisoning. So… maybe we can expect just a little bit of melo here.

On the upside: Welcome back, Sageuk Hair. Rawr. On the downside: We’ll just have to imagine the mane’s glory from our glimpses of neat royal topknot. Aw man. Can the king at least get a shower scene? Maybe a fight sequence where a sword slices open his robes and his hair tie, juuuust as a jug of water flies overhead, overturning to douse him?

It’s a drama. Drama is fiction. IT COULD HAPPEN.

Jang Ok-jung will follow Yawang, which puts its premiere in the vicinity of March.

Via Herald, Review Star

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Kim Tae-hee tackles sageuk as famous villain

javabeans — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 17:14:59 +0000

Kim Tae-hee has her next drama lined up, and she’s getting ambitious: It’s a sageuk for SBS, and it’s all about the life of a famous (notorious, rather) femme fatale in history who has been oft-portrayed in dramas before. The title is Jang Ok-jung, Living By Love, where Jang Ok-jung is the given name of the woman who would become concubine Jang heebin.

That name may sound familiar; she was the villain of Dong Yi (played by Lee So-yeon) and Queen In-hyun’s Man, among other projects, as the woman behind the deposition of Sukjong’s wife Queen In-hyun, allowing her to ascend to the throne. She was herself demoted when the former queen was restored to her position and is popularly believed to have then poisoned In-hyun. She was reportedly found by the king to be plotting more crimes, and executed via poison.

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Read the rest of Kim Tae-hee tackles sageuk as famous villain (283 words)