Grade: A-
Category
Supernatural
fusion sageuk
What it’s about
In the Joseon era, a memory-less ghost
and wayward young nobleman cope with a host of supernatural beings
while working together to solve the mysteries that are key in each of
their lives.
First impression
Bright,
beautiful, and crisply written, Arang and the Magistrate
might just be the sageuk I’ve
been dreaming of—one that’s serious without being boring, and
lighthearted without being stupid. Let’s see how long the charm of
its pretty sets and prettier cast will last.
Final
verdict
I’ve been burned by fusion sageuks a
lot more than I’ve been satisfied by them. For every carnival of
delights like Sungkyunkwan Scandal, there
seem to be a football stadium’s worth of over-the-top train wrecks.
Two of these duds almost convinced me to give up on the genre
altogether: the shallow still-life that was The Moon that
Embraces the Sun, and
the low-rent Iljimae, a
drama characterized by
cartoony characters doing cartoony things, like occasionally bursting
into fits of Hong-Kong style violence.
And then there’s Arang and the
Magistrate, a gorgeous,
lavishly imagined piece of worldbuilding with only one major flaw: it
slightly overstays its welcome. Had this show been compressed into 16
episodes, it would have benefited from jettisoning some useless
characters and repetitive plot twists. But Arang still
has a lot to offer—it’s a charming love story, a spooky murder mystery, and a silly comedy all rolled into one. Its
expansive world ranges from the gates of Hell to the misty flowerbeds
of Heaven, and everywhere in between.
Most impressive is the show’s ability to balance the emotional heft of traditional sageuks and the cheerful impossibilities of the fusion genre. It manages tonal shift after tonal shift with aplomb, somehow making flower-growing goats, death angels, killer fairies, and earth-bound courtly intrigues all coexist in one diverting world.
As far as I’m concerned, the story’s one real weak spot is its development of the character of Arang. As the series progressed, the plot’s focus moved away from Arang to the male lead. In the meanwhile, she changed from the spunky, take-no-prisoners ghost of the first few episodes to a passive MacGuffin with little to offer as a human being. Even at her most sketchily drawn, though, Arang’s emotions ring true, in spite of the fantastical improbability of the things that inspire them.
Although they travel through fantasy landscapes that are part myth and part magic, Arang’s leads still deal with issues of life and afterlife in a compellingly earnest, believable way. A perfect, goose-bumpy fit for the Halloween season, this show is just what I wanted it to be: a transporting sageuk that never commits the crime of taking itself too seriously.
Random
thoughts
• While it’s certainly possible to enjoy
Arang as a Westerner without a lot of knowledge about Asian culture and history, I suspect that its multi-layered world is full of in-jokes that I didn’t really get. I can’t quite find the dividing line between whole-cloth invention and things that might based in long-standing tradition: The Jade King is certainly a “real” mythological figure, and those beans that ghosts are so afraid of bring to mind the Japanese holiday of
Setsubun. But the blooming goat? The peach-blossom injuries? I’m not so sure.
• Episode 1.
The most unbelievably supernatural thing in this drama so far? Lee
Joon Ki’s bone structure.
• Episode 3. The
Christian view of the afterlife is certainly not all puppies and
rainbows, but this concept of hungry ghosts is really upsetting.
Especially when it’s happening to cute-as-a-button Shin Min Ah in
what’s supposed to be a romantic comedy. With foundations like
this, no wonder Asian cultures seem to be having a harder time
accepting homosexuality. If you die without children, your afterlife
is a horror show.
• Episode 4.
The theology in this show is fascinating—from this episode’s
creation myth to the duality it establishes between creation and
destruction. That’s not really an understanding we have in the
West: if you’re a religious person, there’s pretty much one God
and you need to believe that he’s responsible for everything that
seems good and everything that seems evil. Of course, you might argue
that a lot of that evil is a result of the free will we treasure so
much. I wonder how Asian tradition deals with the concept of fate
versus self-determination?
• Episode 11.
Props to this show for making Arang a ballsy character, but guess
what’s not at all hot? Kissing someone who’s unconscious on the
lips.
• Episode 14. I’m
always amused by how they style characters in these fusion sageuks.
When historical accuracy is barely even on a show’s radar, they
feel free to do things like leave bright red dye-jobs peeking out
from under period wigs, cast actors with obviously pierced ears, and
slather on the ivory-toned makeup. Now that Drama Fever has high-def
options, this stuff is all the more obvious: Every time Shin Min Ah
is shown from the back, you can see that her ears and neck are about
four shades darker than the foundation they’ve used on her face.
• Episode 19. In
the Drama Fever subs, they keep referencing the Styx River and the
word Abracadabra, both
of which are associated with Greco-Roman traditions, not Eastern
ones. Is this a case of Drama Fever overcompensating by targeting
their translations toward North American viewers, or does the show
really use these words? It is fusion, after all—anything goes.
• Episode 20. Finally,
Kdrama zombies! Huzzah!
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