The Great Queen Seondeok Vol. 1 (Episodes 1-20)

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Product Description

The Great Queen Seondeok is the story of a charismatic queen who gives up her love to become the ruler of Silla and her people. With historical battle scenes, a star-studded cast and writer Kim Young-hyeon (Jewel in the Palace) helming the project, it is MBC's follow-up historical drama to Yi San: Wind of the Palace (2008) and Ju-mong: Prince of Legend (2006). During the Three Kingdoms period of Korea, Deokman (Queen Seondeok's childhood name) was born as the younger twin to King Jinpyeong. However, due to a longstanding ominous prophecy regarding twins being born in the royal family, she was smuggled out and raised with no knowledge of her royal status. Years later, still oblivious to the truth of her birth , she fatefully ends up back in the Silla palace where she joins forces with Princess Cheonmyeong, her older sister, and Hwarang Kim Yushin to oppose Misil, a sly and conniving woman who holds substantial power in the court and wants the throne for herself.

The Great Queen Seondeok Vol. 1 (Episodes 1-20) Review

The above reviewer put bad review out of ignorance, which is bad ethics on the marketplace.

In reality, this is volume 1 of a 3 volume dvd set of the TV series airing in 2009-2010 in the US. This is a top quality south korean tv drama which is receiving rave reviews globally.

Note that this volume one seems to have two amazon pages - with different sellers. One webpage at amazon lists it for $35, a very good deal, sold by videocity. The other webpage at amazon currently lists 5 different sellers - it ranges from $50 to the more average price of $69. For the other page for the Vol 1 listed at around $50, where I'll post this review as well, go to /Great-Queen-Seondeok-Vol/dp/B002PFER0C/ref=pd_cp_d_0 at amazon.

This month (dec '09), Volume 2 of this set has just come out; if amazon doesn't yet have it, look at hanbooks. As soon as Vol 3 comes out I'm getting it!

This story is extremely addictive! - I warn you it will make you stay up till the wee hours if you are not extremely disciplined. At time of this writing the US broadcast of the weekly series is probably somewhere in the 2nd or 3rd volume. I bought the 1st volume because I missed the earlier episodes, and because it's well worth owning and sharing with your family. As with other MBC, KBS or SBS historical korean dramas of this decade, this video set is clearly and expertly translated with english subtitling (including all idioms and colloquialisms to english equivalents). Compared to american tv historical dramas, this as with similar kdramas is more addicting, higher production quality, more accurate historical period recreation, and MUCH longer lasting enjoyment. Plenty of eye candy of all types, characters with depth, intelligent script, interwoven plot lines, cliffhangers, martial arts fights and wars (not gross), political intrigue (not dry), family and romance themes, country and individual economic struggles, etc.

In this particular drama, the character of Misil (a key opponent) is amazingly well played - her body language, subtleties of face and voice, the script lines, etc. - what an amazing persona and intelligence the actress, script, and director created together! Kudos, I hope she wins awards. Wonder what other kinds of roles she can play? And I say that of a drama where everyone else is a good actor, too.

My only story criticism so far is minor: I do wish they'd done a better job with the character of Kim Yusin - I am up to episode 50 on TV. I read online that he was one heck of a great general, so in real history, he must have been even a smarter and more dynamic and involved character than he is being portrayed in this drama (probably to make the heroine look smarter?). But even so, in this story, he's a likable character and good hero.

Yes, as with american dramas, these script writers take many liberties with the historical true story in order to flesh out historical gaps and to make a riveting plot line - and they succeed - it's such a great story we really don't care - we just enjoy the story... and then many non-korean viewers get very interested to learn about the actual history behind the fictional drama! So we learn the real history one way or the other.) It has overall excellent production, costuming, historical period re-creation, video quality (not HD or blu-ray but with excellent quality flat panel tv, dvd player and a monster ultra hdmi cable (yes, brand DOES make a difference - you get what you pay for in signal quality), this dvd set is equivalent in video clarity, color depth, etc., to my blu-ray discs).

Postscripts to my comments on this video set:
1). I noticed that there seems to be two versions of this product. This one is listed as put out by Insta Entertainment, and has a blue background cover. The other one is listed as put out by MBC, and has a green background cover. I actually bought the green background cover version of Vol 1, so far. So my review in terms of video/disc quality is for that version and Vol 1 set only; I cannot speak to whether or not this one is precisely the same. (But I would guess that this Insta Entertainment version is authorized by the original publisher MBC who created this drama, or it wouldn't be sold here on amazon (this ain't no ebay! :) This version is more competitively priced, so it's worth consideration.

2) One nit: One disc, one spot on my Volume 1 set (I have the green cover Vol 1 set by MBC - not this red cover Vol 1 set by Insta Entertainment), during episode 2 got stuck partway through, but it was fine at the next episode, and everything else played fine on this set of the first 20 episodes. This hangup happened at exactly the same spot on the disc on both my Pioneer and my Samsung excellent DVD players, so something was wrong with the disc burn there, I guess. But I'm so happy with the entire set of DVD's and these are not always easy to get (since not everyone sells them and they go out of print after a year or so, with english subtitling), that I will overlook it just this once (if it happened more, I'd send the set back for a swap copy). I didn't miss out on key parts of the story, and if I was curious I'd go online to see the tidbit I missed... but it wasn't in a key part anyway.

3). WOW I've watched the entire Queen Seondeok Volume 1 dvd set (green cover) now, and it's a very high quality video, visually, when you watch it using high quality equipment. WOW it really pops!! - seems like the filmmakers really made this a high-quality film, technically. I'm wowed by it, can't say it enough. The video and sound quality of these discs, using my multi region Pioneer DV-610AV- player is really fantastic! Surprisingly, it's equal to the visual and sound quality played with blu-ray discs, using my high-quality top chip blu-ray (or upconverting for regular DVD's) player, displayed over quality monster HDMI cable to my Kuro Elite plasma tv. I watched same Queen Seondeok discs on both, to check. All the eye candy costumes, indoor and outdoor scenery (day and night) etc. really pop in color richness and visual detail, down to hair, sweat, whiskers, various skin tones, various textures, and all the costume and set details. So in terms of visual & sound quality, using a quality upconverting 1080 DVD player, quality HDMI cable and fine TV, this DVD set really really delivers!

Comments on kdramas generally, relevant for this Queen Seondeok set and others, for US & western audiences:

I find that the good kdramas are well worth watching - and worth owning, too. And others who would ordinarily not be interested in foreign video and not have any desire to watch subtitled foreign dramas find themselves hooked after 1 or 2 episodes... what's more, people find that typically women, men and kids all enjoy these - especially the historical dramas, which are very relevant human stories... These are not "chick flicks", they are designed as intelligent family entertainment.

Other historical drama greats are Dae Jang Geum (the one most people new to kdramas start on), Hae Shin ('Emperor of the Sea' about Jang Bo Go), Admiral Yi Sun Shin (famous humane leader and military strategist that saved Korea from two samurai invasions in the late 1500's; military historians study his activities today, many judge him as better than Lord Nelson), Sangdo (The Way of Trade), Hur Jun (famous historical doctor), Damo (female policewoman), etc. Many of these are available in Region 1 for the US market. You can often get them at amazon... if not, then hanbooks or yesasia.

This addiction got me to get a second dvd player for playing all region dvd's, and it was well worth it - besides, it's good to have a backup. The one I have I got at amazon (search "multi region dvd player") - it's fabulous and does everything - and more - see my review on it ("Pioneer Dv610av-s Silver Multi Region Code Free HDMI 1080p Upconverting DVD Player with SACD and DVD-Audio Playback")... right now, there are actually a few amazon pages of this Pioneer Dv610AV player, with same specs. Has various type output connectors. Plays my european and asian movie DVD's just fine, and of course all american DVD's as well. Also plays CD's and has other neat features. Bookmarks the location of where I stopped at, too.

Many of the kdramas can be found online for free if you can stand low picture quality and watching an hour at a time on a pc, which I hate. Top-rated kdrama stories such as this one are so well made that it's really really worth watching them on your nice big TV at home. Try it - it's amazing how dim and flat and awful the online version is compared to getting it on broadcast TV or on DVDs. If you get them on disc, be sure to avoid formats that are not actually DVD - the other formats are not fine video quality, but cheap recordings of originals... you may save money but for non dvd quality you might as well watch on the pc... i.e., don't bother. You can usually purchase them new from amazon, amazon marketplace (e.g. videocity), or hanbooks or yesasia; note many of the english-subtitled ones (except for Dae Jang Geum) go out of print after a year or so and become hard or impossible to find.

Kdramas are done both as historical dramas, and as modern dramas and soaps. But even the soaps are better than american soaps - even people who hate american soaps can enjoy kdrama soaps. (Look up kdrama or korean drama on wikipedia for more information and reference links on the genre and individual dramas.)

Hopefully the american makers will eventually learn something from this.

Why the local or national nonprofit stations in the US haven't glommed onto these videos is a mystery... Not everyone in the US has access to the broadcast channels that play the historical or modern kdramas.

Why South Korea on the whole doesn't market these products more actively, effectively and widely to western audiences, we don't know either. Electronics and cars are not the only quality export products of South Korea. These video dramas are an export market in themselves that have growth potential; as they are popular globally, they have already generated an increase in world tourism to korea and its historical sites. The US has a number of k-drama fan clubs (chicago, philadelphia, california, hawaii) and scattered fans around the rest of the country, and you can find their websites online. The korean tv networks have on occasion attempted to tap into the US interest (contacted some fan clubs), but not really in any effective way to get the wider market's awareness, nor with any effective followup even for fans who wrote to them afterwards... Guess they think we are at heart ignorant barbarians. But, all that does is perpetuate the non-awareness on both sides!.

Yet, these shows are a great way to stimulate an interest or at least awareness of korean culture, both modern and historical (even if the historical dramas are heavily fictionalized versions)... Pre-western Korean history is not usually taught as part of world history in the US school system, in spite of the rich melting pot that makes up the US population... Most americans are woefully ignorant of non-european, non-american world history. This is a rich lode to tap for great story-making, at the very least, if not also cross-cultural interest.

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