Hwang Jini

 

Hwang Jini is a Korean drama broadcast on KBS2 in 2006. The series was based on the tumultuous life of Hwang Jini, who lived in 16th-century Joseon and became the most famous gisaeng in Korean history. Lead actress Ha Ji-won won the Grand Prize (Daesang) at the 2006 KBS Drama Awards for her performance.

The series was popular in the ratings, giving rise to a boom in gisaeng-themed entertainment—musicals, TV dramas, films, even cartoons.

Plot

Hwang Jini is the illegitimate child of a nobleman and Hyun Geum, a blind gisaeng. A gisaeng is a singer, dancer and hostess who lives a life catering to the whims of the yangban elite. Fearing that her young daughter will follow in her footsteps and determined that she should become more than a mere plaything for men, Hyun Geum sends Jini to a remote mountain temple to be cared for by an old monk. But one day, the seven-year-old Jini slips away from the temple and comes across a gisaeng performance, and is drawn to her destiny. Enraptured by the beauty of their singing and dancing, Jini runs away and enters the gibang, or gisaeng house, where she meets her mother for the first time. They discover that she displays an outstanding talent for dancing and playing the geomungo. From that day on, Jini trains to become Joseon's top gisaeng. She studies under Im Baek-moo, one of the best court dancers in the kingdom and a harsh and manipulative teacher.

Jini then falls in love with Kim Eun-ho, son of a powerful nobleman, but his parents refuse to accept the relationship due to the difference in their social status. Jini's first love ends in tragedy when in a futile attempt to elope with her, Eun-ho catches pneumonia and dies.

Unable to forget Eun-ho, Jini no longer has any desire to dance; for the next five years, she spends her days making music and conversation with the middle class (becoming enormously wealthy in the process) and her nights drowning herself in misery and alcohol. While drunk, she decides to kill herself, but the poet Kim Jung-han saves her. Thus, Jini begins a troubled love affair with Jung-han. Meanwhile, she continually rejects Byuk Kye-soo, a royal relative who is obsessed with her, and faces off against Bu-yong, her rival in dancing and love. At Jini's side in times of need is her devoted bodyguard Yi-saeng. Jini later finds out that Baek-moo's scheming had a hand in Eun-ho's death, and jealousy and bitterness build between the two as they prepare for what turns out to be a fateful performance of the crane dance.

In an age when women were treated as if they were invisible, Hwang Jini becomes a celebrated gisaeng-singer-dancer-poet of the 16th century. Her beauty, wit and intellect propels her from obscurity into the company of Joseon's most powerful aristocrats, eventually winning the acclaim of King Jungjong and his court. In a relentlessly class-based society, Hwang Jini was a woman ahead of her time, who pursued art relentlessly and saw life in beautiful colors. She was both revered and reviled in her lifetime, and left her mark in history.

Main Cast

Ha Ji-won as Hwang Jini

Shim Eun-kyung as young Hwang Jini

Kim Young-ae as Im Baek-moo

Wang Bit-na as Bu-yong

Kim Jaewon as Kim Jung-han

Ryu Tae-joon as Byuk Kye-soo

Jang Keun-suk as Kim Eun-ho

Jeon Mi-seon as Jin Hyun-geum, Hwang Jini's mother

Lee Shi-hwan as Yi-saeng

Kim Bo-yeon as Mae-hyang

Production

The shooting schedule for Hwang Jini was particularly arduous for a television series, sometimes going on for seven days without a break. In addition to such popular younger actors as Ha Ji-won, Wang Bit-na, Kim Jaewon and Jang Keun-suk, the series featured many noted veteran Korean actors, including Kim Young-ae and Kim Bo-yeon. The costumes (designed by Kim Hye-sun), dances and music in the series were noted for their flamboyance and sensuality.