News is starting to leak that SBS’s Ja Myung Go [자명고] is hurrying to wrap up and will very likely end early, falling short of its initial 50-episode plan to sign off at Episode 39.
Ouch. I actually feel sorry for the drama production, because it’s like they’ve essentially given up on their grand historical series.
Ja Myung Go got off to a weak start, and was soundly beaten by Queen of Housewives, unable to pull itself out of single-digit ratings. It was banking on improving once the adult characters replaced the children about 12 episodes in. After all, the series was heavily promoted with its pretty lead stars, Jung Ryeo-won (My Name Is Kim Sam-soon) and Park Min-young (I Am Sam), playing rival sisters.
However, ratings didn’t pick up much, and now, with 19 episodes broadcast, the drama is pretty much toast.
And I ask that as a real question, not in sarcasm, because it seems the large-scale extravaganza is meeting with all sorts of “disheartening” setbacks and “embarrassments,” as several articles point out.
SBS’s current Monday-Tuesday drama Ja Myung Go [자명고] was hyped up as a big action historical series starring Jung Ryeo-won and was expected to do much better than the single-digit ratings it’s pulling in.
On top of that, the drama recently had an on-set accident: On April 21, a torch apparatus exploded at the filming location in Goyang, Kyeonggi province, and set off a fire. The accident injured one staff member and sent that person to the hospital with burns.
So, who caught the premiere of Jung Ryeo-won’s new grand historical series Ja Myung Go [자명고]? (It has apparently dropped the “Princess” from its title.)
…Nobody? Well, you’re not alone — ratings were abysmal (4.1%), considering the months of hype leading up to it.
After trying to maneuver its premiere to evade ratings behemoths East of Eden and Boys Before Flowers, Ja Myung Go’s Monday “special” broadcast pulled in a weak 5.8%. But that wasn’t too upsetting, since specials that air before a drama’s premiere tend to draw low numbers.
But its first episode on Tuesday aired at probably the worst time ever — it had to contend with the ever-increasing numbers for BBF and the grand exit for Eden.
Apparently the folks at MBC had been looking to revisit their hit family sitcom from 2006-07, Unstoppable High Kick, according to some reports. However, an MBC rep stated on the 16th that a Season 2 is looking unlikely. My question is: Was anybody expecting one?
The show had pulled in high ratings, and though it was built around three generations of one family, the new faces made it particularly popular with the young set. I had heard they were considering making it into a High Kick movie, but that didn’t work out.
The rep explained that while they’d like to make a Season 2, the greatest difficulty would be in reassembling its cast. The older actors would probably be easier to get back (Lee Soon-jae, Na Mun-hee, Jung Jun-ha, Park Hae-mi), but one crucial leg of the love triangle in the middle generation (and youngest generation), Seo Min-jung, got married, had a baby, and moved to the States.
And then there are the youngsters, who were all unknowns back then and now all budding stars in their own right. (By the way, if you’re a new fan of Kim Bum, you’ve gotta see how adorable he is in High Kick, particularly because he and Kim Hye-sung love each other — they’re best friends — so unabashedly it’s a scream. The characters are both straight, but their bro-love is played up for laughs.) For instance:
(I took this fanmade vid from youtube; credits and thanks to shykiwi1132.)
A quick rundown of the young stars now: Jung Il-woo is headlining his own drama, Return of Iljimae. Kim Bum is experiencing a fresh wave of popularity for Boys Before Flowers. Park Min-young is about to kick off her new drama, Princess Ja-myung. And Kim Hye-sung has been busy with film work and a role in Kingdom of the Wind.
It’s possible that PD Kim Byung-wook will helm a new sitcom instead, though the MBC rep didn’t completely rule out the possibility of a High Kick 2. But really, two years after it shot to popularity, is anybody thinking about the show anymore?
SBS’s upcoming sageuk series Princess Ja-myung, described as a “heroine fantasy sageuk,” has just begun shooting. In the stills shown here, Jung Ryeo-won (top) and Park Min-young show some of their newly developed fighting skills, with Jung playing Princess Ja-myung, and Park as her younger sister, Princess Nak-rang.
In folklore, the story of Nak-rang typically centers around her love story with Prince Ho-dong, with the “ja-myung-go” being a drum that alerted her to invaders. Let’s say this drama takes a bit of creative license in re-creating Ja-myung also as a person. (The drum, it appears, still figures in the story.)
