Yi San

Infobox Television
show_name = Yi San - King Jeongjo (이산-정조대왕)


caption =
format = Drama
history
camera = Multi-camera
producer = Lee Byung Hoon
writer = Kim Yi Yeong (김이영)
picture_format =
runtime = Monday and Tuesdays, 9:55 P.M.
creator =
developer =
executive_producer =
starring = Lee Seo Jin
Han Ji Min
Park Eun Hye
Lee Jong Soo
narrated =
opentheme =
endtheme =
country = flagicon| South Korea South Korea
network = MBC
first_aired = September 17, 2007
last_aired = June 16, 2008
num_episodes = 77
website =
imdb_id =
tv_com_id =

Yi San is a South Korean Daeha/historical drama currently airing on MBC, Monday and Tuesdays on 9:55 P.M. Yi San had a big success and ending up in MBC Acting Awards with "Top Excellence Acting Award" for Lee Seo Jin and "Best Actress" for Han Ji-min, nominated for also MBC Best Drama but lost to Legend (Korean TV series) 태왕사신기. The drama has bit another historical drama, The King and I (TV series) for its ratings and performances and is reaching very high in ratings, keeping 2nd and 3rd and on some nights, getting 1st.

ynopsis

Yi San dramatizes the life of Korea's King Jeongjo, the 22nd ruler of the Joseon Dynasty. Jeongjo is remembered in Korean history for his sympathy with the plight of the common man, in spite of his own pampered upbringing as royalty.

The drama begins with the King's early years, during which he befriends two children working in the Palace who are later expelled. King Yeongjo (Jeongjo's grandfather) seals Jeongjo's father, Crown Prince Sado, in a rice storage chest with no food or water because he fears that the crown prince is planning a coup. Jeongjo wants to save his father, and with the help of his friends Song Yeon and Dae Su, begs Yeongjo to forgive the Crown Prince. The drama then skips forward to Jeongjo's adult years when he and his friends re-establish contact with each other. Throughout, Jeongjo's position as Crown Prince is threatened by palace intrigues.

While still the Crown Prince, Jeongjo begins to fall in love with one of his childhood friends, Sung Song Yeon, whose father, a palace artist, died when she was very young. The story then follows Yi San's rise to power, his assumption of the kingship, and the labyrinthine palace intrigues that he must constantly guard against. While the show does deviate from the historical record in a number of ways, it's representation of court life during the Joseon Dynasty appears to be based on contemporary sources.

Cast

*Lee Seo Jin as Yi San/King Jeongjo
*Han Ji Min as Sung Song-yeon (After become Lady Sung/Consort Ui of Sung Clan)
*Park Eun Hye as Queen Hyo-eui
*Lee Jong Soo as Park Dae-su

*Lee Soon Jae as King Yeong-jo
*Kyeon Mi-ri as Lady Hye-gyung
*Seong Hyeon-ah as Princess Hwa-wan
*Kim Yeo-jin as Queen Jung-soon

*Han Sang Jin as Hong Gook-yeong
*Cho Yeon Woo as Jeong Hu-gyum
*Lee Ip Sae as Yang Cho-bi (Damo, after become Lady Yang of Lady Seong)

Characters

*Yi San/ King Jeongjo(Lee Seo Jin)- the main protagonist in the series. He is the only son of Crown Prince Sado and Lady Hyeyeong. Extremely kind and generous, he makes frequent trips under disguise outside the palace to see how the people are doing. The series spans from San's childhood(when he's eleven), when Crown Prince Sado is being executed, to a few years after his death, about 40 years later. It was during the beginning of the series where San met Sung Song-yeon and Park Dae-su. In episode 1, he disguises himself as a junior eunuch and sneaks into the courtyard where his father was imprisoned in a rice chest. With the help of Dae-su and Song-yeon, he manages to see him and obey his father's last wish. The friendship that developed as a result would last the entire series. The plot then quickly fast forwards ten years, when San is an adult and Crown Prince of Korea. While he is still Crown Prince, he falls in love with Song-yeon, and when he becomes king, Song-yeon is made his concubine. San also likes fighting martial arts with the Royal Guards. San dies of tumors at the end of the series.

*Sung Song-yeon(Han Ji Min)- King Jeongjo's love interest. She is the daughter of a skilled palace artist, and thus she has a fondness for art. Orphaned at a young age, and with a baby brother to take care of, she was taken in by a relative who helped her become a palace maid so that she, too, could gain a standing in the palace. When she was eleven, she entered the palace, and her relative sent her baby brother, Sung Song Wook, to the family a local physician, who was kind enough to adopt him. It was on her first night in the palace that Song-yeon met San, who was trying to get to the rice chest, and Dae-su, who was trying to escape the palace, while she was obtaining food for the older palace maids. Sadly, she and Dae-su were caught and kicked out of the palace. Angry at her, the relative that helped her enter the palace refused to take her in, so Dae-su's uncle, senior eunuch Park Dal-ho, took her in and raised her along with Dae-su. However, enemies of the prince forced them all to flee the Capital. The three fled promising that they would return to the palace to keep their friendship. This they do, and Song-yeon enters the Bureau of Painting, which keeps records of events by painting them, as a Damo(Female Police Investigator). The promise of returning to the palace is not fulfilled until Song-yeon paints a Kiron for an ambassador from Qing China. Curious to learn more about her, San inquires about her at the Bureau and realized it was Song-yeon. He quickly visits her home where he finds Dae-su and his uncle. From there on out, the three stay together. Song-yeon is portrayed in the series as a beautiful, kind, and intelligent young woman. She manages to rise from a lowly Damo, which is more like a painting assistant, to a real Bureau artist. Her good character and beauty make San fall in love with her, and when he is king, she becomes his concubine. Sadly, few people accept her due to her low status(Damos have peasant status) and the fact that she's an orphan, until she gives birth to a boy, when she is made a real concubine. Song-yeon dies in childbirth from liver cancer at the end of the series, but returns to San one time in a dream just before his death.

*Park Dae-su(Lee Jong Soo)- King Jeongjo's favorite military officer. Dae-su was originally a junior eunuch in the palace, but because he wasn't castred, he wanted to leave, so he tried to flee, when he met Song-yeon and San. Like, Song-yeon, he too got kicked out for helping San. Song-yeon and Dae-su know each other very well, as they practically grew up together. Both of them are orphans, but Dae-su's uncle raised them both. When Song-yeon entered the Bureau, Dae-su took the Military Exam and became a palace guard, and became a guard of the Crown Prince(San). From there, Dae-su was promoted over and over till he became Grand Commander of the Dragon Guard, the finest army in Korea and the king's personal guard. Dae-su started out very dumb and dependent, but when he took the military exam, his tutors helped him become a decent man, intelligent, independent, and calm. Without this change, he might have become a thug. Dae-su is one of the three military guards who always follow the king. Song-yeon is Dae-su's love interest, but he gave up trying to court her when she became concubine.

*Queen Hyo-eui(Park Eun-hye)- King Jeongjo's primary wife. She was betrothed to San at the age of ten and married him in her late teens(around nineteen). Hyo-eui is a very kind, filial, refined, and honest woman, a model wife of the Korean upper class. She has the respect of almost everyone in the palace, but she does not abuse this power. Unfortunately, the Queen is unable to bear children and thus results in Jeongjo's mother bringing in multiple concubines. Queen Hyo-eui favors Song-yeon, and it is with her help that Song-yeon became a concubine and gave birth to a son. Queen Hyo-eui dies soon after King Jeongjo dies.

*King Yeongjo(Lee Soon Jae)- Jeongjo's grandfather. He was the king of Korea before San took over. Yeongjo has one son, Crown Prince Sado, and a daughter, Princess Hwa-wan. King Yeongjo is a loving and experienced old man, but he is very firm on San so he can make him the next king. King Yeongjo always suspected his son of high treason, and throughout the series, that was shown. It was not till just before his death did King Yeongjo discover it had been a plot to frame his son. Yeongjo publicly made it known that it had been a flae accusation and had his son's grave repaired. Like San, Yeongjo loved the people and when he knew he would die, that day he sneaked out of the palace and went to his private residence so that he could die among the people, which he did. Yeongjo died in 1777 in his eighties of dementia.

*Queen Jung-soon(Kim Yeo-jin)- King Yeongjo's wife. She is the daughter of the extremely wealthy an powerful Kim family. Yeongjo fell in love with her when he was 66 and she was 15. Of all the characters in the series, Queen Jung-soon has the best split character. She is very caring and smart, but deep inside, she has a greed for power, and she holds a silent grudge against San, even though she is his grandmother and she cares about him. Queen Jung-soon is the master-mind behind a plot that was determined to destroy San, a plot that lasted decades. After those involved in the plot were punished, Queen Jung-soon was exiled and forced to lived alone in a detached palace far from home.

*Crown Prince Sado(Lee Chang Hun)- Jeongjo's father. He is skilled with the bow, in calligraphy, and in painting. He was accused of treason by his own father, King Yeongjo, and sentenced to death in a rice chest. San came to see him a few nights before he died in secret, and Sado told him to retrieve a painting he had painted of a scene King Yeongjo cherished. Sadly, Sado died before Yeongjo saw the painting. It was Song-yeon who discovered the meaning of the painting and brought it to Yeongjo, more than ten years after Sado's death. Yeongjo understood and that was how Sado's name was cleared.

*Lady Hye-gyung(Kyeon Mi-ri)- Jeongjo's mother. She is the daughter of high-ranking court official Hong Bong Han. Ever worrisome over the royal family and the people, she is a model mother of the Korean upper class. Lady Hye-gyung looks down on lower class people and she was the main obstacle that caused Song-yeon suffering as concubine. Yet she was also the first one to acknowledge her as a member of the royal family when she gave birth to a boy. Lady Hye-gyung is also responsible for the the multiple concubines brought in to bear an heir.

*Princess Hwa-wan(Seong Hyeon-ah)- King Yeongjo's daughter by a concubine. Yeongjo is very fond of her. Hwa-wan is a very beautiful and filial but impatient young woman. Because she is widowed and has no children, she adopted the orphan Jung Hu-gyum, who became a court official. Like Quuen Jung-soon, Princess Hwa-wan is also a master-mind in the plot to destroy King Jeongjo. This cost her her favor with her father. In the end, Princess Hwa-wan was stripped of her royalty and titles and exiled to a place far from the capital, where she lived in seclusion under house arrest with only her lady-in-waiting to accompany her.

*Jung Hu-gyum(Cho Yeon Woo)- Princess Hwa-wan's adoptive son. He is incredibly intelligent, and the youngest person ever to be part of the royal court; Jung is the Royal Secretary. He is very smart and filial to the princess. When he was a child, he was San's study partner at the Confucian Academy. In his teens he studied in Qing, and as an adult he was very successful. Like his adoptive mother, he was also part of the plot to destroy San. When the participants were punished, Hu-gyum was exiled and put to death by poison.

*Hong Gook-young(Han Sang Jin)- King Jeongjo's right hand man. He is a very loyal advisor to Jeongjo. He was alos the main tutor who helped Dae-su when he was training for the military exam. Throughout the series, he was promoted to Chief Inspector, Chief of the Royal Guard, and Chief Secretary. His younger sister also became one of Jeongjo's concubines. In the end, he was exiled for trying to kill the Queen.

*Yang Cho-bi(Lee Ip-sae)- a Damo at the Bureau of Painting. At first she was very rude to Song-yeon, but when she fell in love with Dae-su and discovered that Song-yeon was practically his sister, she became super nice to her. At first it was for Dae-su, but eventually she developed a real bond and friendship with Song-yeon. When Song-yeon became concubine to Jeongjo, Cho-bi was selected to be her lady-in-waiting, an attendant court lady of the sixth rank(in Korea, all royalty, palace servants, government employees, and government officials are ranked on a system of 1-9, with 1 being the highest rank and 9 being the lowest rank). After Song-yeon's death, Cho-bi becomes Queen Hyo-eui's second lady-in-waiting.

*Kim Gui-joo(Park Young Ji)- Queen Jung-soon's older brother. He is a high-ranking minister of the royal court and holds the title Lord Kim. Very aggressive, he can easily beat up anyone who makes him or his sister look bad. He has a very lively and straight forward personality and is highly loved by Queen Jung-soon. He also is very intelligent and loves travelling to the city of Pyongyang He plans plots to kill San alongside his sister and Princess Hwa-wan. After his extreme participation in the plots is discovered, Lord Kim is stripped of his titles and exiled.

*Nam Si-cho(Maeng Sang Hoon)- San's chief eunuch. He follows San everywhere he goes and is very supportive of him.

*Chae Je-gong(Han In Soo)- San's administrative assistant. Chae is also Minister of the Tribunal(in charge of national prisons). When San was a child, Sir Chae was also his tutor. Chae is always of help to San and very supportive of his commands. He is also a trusted adult source of advice to Dae-su, Song-yeon, Hong Gook-young, and San.

*Sir Yi Chun- a Royal Artist at the Bureau of Painting. He is by far the most supportive person of Song-yeon at the Bureau. He is great at painting erotica and drawing sketches but is otherwise a not-so-extraordinary artist. Yi Chun is very funny and bubbly and is always trying to keep is wife happy so she doesn't kill him.

*Artist Tak- another Royal Artist at the Bureau of Painting. He is by far much more skilled than Yi Chun and also is good friends with Song-yeon. In the last episode, Tak is promoted to a Senior Artist of the fifth rank.

Awards and Nominations

"Won"

*2007 MBC Awards: Top Excellence in Acting Award 최우수상 (Lee Seo Jin)
*2007 MBC Awards: Excellence in Acting Award 우수상 (Han Ji-min)
*2007 MBC Awards: Best Teen Actor Award 아역상 (Park Ji Bin)
*2007 MBC Awards: Best Writer (Kim Yi Yeong)

"Nominated"

*2007 MBC Awards: Best Drama
*2007 MBC Awards: Best Couple Awards (Lee Seo Jin and Han Ji-min)
*2007 MBC Awards: Popularity Award (Han Ji Min)
*2007 MBC Awards: Popularity Award (Lee Seo Jin)

References

*http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Yi_San