Queen Seon-deok’s incredible success has raised the popularity of the group of men who play the Hwarang, or elite Silla warriors, within the drama. Now they’ can be seen onstage, as they are featured in a musical of their own called Hwarang, which follows their growth in a “lively, touching” story.

In contrast to their roles in the drama, in which the Hwarang are involved in politically motivated storylines, the musical takes a look at each of the five Hwarang members’ respective origins and dreams as they mature into their warrior roles.

To be accurate, the musical is not a direct spinoff from the drama — it had been preparing quietly over the past year under the name “H” — but no doubt its production is aided by the raised profile from Seon-deok’s success. Interest is also high because the musical comes from producer Choi Mu-yeol, who produced Maria Maria, which was the first small-theater production to win a musical Daesang.

Hwarang opened this weekend with its first performance on October 30, and will run through January 3.

Via TV Report

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The Queen Seon-deok largesse, she continues. And here I thought co-star Go Hyun-jung’s gifts to the crew (worth $16,000) were pricey.

Lee Yo-won, who plays the titular queen, and her co-star Uhm Tae-woong have teamed up to present their cast with expensive padded jackets — a total value of 160 million won, or $136,000. Each item costs between 500,000 and 600,000 won ($400 to $500), and they gave them out to 300 staff members. Lee said, “I’m not feeling well either as I film, but the staff can’t even admit that they’re feeling sick as they work. I was thinking of how to show my gratitude, and came upon the jackets.” Hearing about her intention, Uhm joined his colleague in making the gift.

Queen Seon-deok continues to rule Monday and Tuesday nights in the ratings, bringing in numbers in the upper 30s and lower 40s.

Via Segye

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You often hear of actors giving out presents to crew members, but it’s usually something small — T-shirts, jackets, or cosmetics that they endorse — and there’s no shame in small gifts. Go Hyun-jung, star of the MBC drama series Queen Seon-deok, however, has given 150 portable game players (Nintendo DS Lite) to her staff as a thank-you and Chuseok present. The gift set her back a cool 20 million won (or $16K total — yowsa!); each player retails at $130 here in the States.

I know, Go Hyun-jung is a huge star and it’s likely she’s making tons of money off the super-hit series, which has been extended an additional 12 episodes, but she sure didn’t have to shell out for 150 Nintendo players. Definitely a nice gesture to the hardworking crew for the upcoming holiday weekend.

Via BNT News

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Filed under: Drama Casting & News by javabeans - 29 Comments →

Queen Seon-deok

Yep, we as drama-lovers tend to have a love-hate (mostly hate, I think) relationship with drama extensions and, even worse, unexpected cuts. Even a good drama can be ruined in the end by unnecessary extensions — a long-running epic series may suffer less from adding episodes than a short drama whose story was never meant to go beyond 16 or 20 installments. I know that this trend stems from that pernicious habit of broadcast stations’ knee-jerk reactions to ratings, but as much as we hate that, I think we all kind of understand why a station places so much importance on ratings. Here’s an article that discusses the trend.

[Read more →]

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Ooh, interesting. Producers have announced that Queen Seon-deok, MBC’s successful historical epic series, will be re-edited down to movie format, just in time for the approaching holiday weekend.

This version will not be a mere rehash of highlights and clips, but will actually tell a complete story. Its focus will not be on the drama’s current state of events, where the battle for the throne is heating up between Mi-shil (Go Hyun-jung) and Princess Deok-man (Lee Yo-won), but on the first half with the characters’ childhoods and development.

MBC’s 2007 fusion historical series Legend is similarly planning a re-edited movie version — but unlike Legend, the Seon-deok movie isn’t getting a cinema release. Instead, it will broadcast as a TV movie as part of the station’s special Chuseok programming. (Chuseok is one of the biggest holidays in Korea and falls this year on the first weekend of October.)

The TV movie will air in two 90-minute parts, and its specific timeslot has not yet been fixed.

Aside from satisfying viewer demands, this is probably a really shrewd move on MBC’s part to play up its big cash cow, produce two likely-to-be-watched Chuseok broadcasts, and ensnare additional viewers who haven’t been watching and would like a quick recap on the story so far — just in time to start watching as the drama heads into its second half. Hey, I’ll probably be watching.

Via DongA

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• And the Seon-deok juggernaut rolls on

Filed under: Drama Casting & News by javabeans - 20 Comments →