Recently, the MBC drama 'The Red Sleeve' drew a lot of criticism from South Korean netizens. Check out the issue and the full response in the news below.
MBC drama "The Red Sleeve" managed to steal the hearts of fans because the storyline is very interesting. This drama is even touted as an MBC revival project because it managed to score high ratings of more than 10 percent.
Unfortunately, the drama starring Lee Se Young and 2PM's Junho suddenly became a target of hatred. The main reason is the reduced proportion of romance between Crown Prince Yi San (Junho) and Seong Deok Im (Lee Se Young) as well as the appearance of Gwanghan Palace which was not even in the original novel.
As is known, "The Red Sleeve" is based on a novel of the same name which tells the love story of King Jeongjo and Concubine Seong Ui Bin. Their romance is even considered the best love story of the Joseon Dynasty because it is filled with sincerity.
The plot of "The Red Sleeve" becomes even more interesting because it presents the question, "The king loves palace women, but do palace women also love the king?". This is because Concubine Seong Ui Bin was known as the "court lady who rejected the King's proposal twice".
However, the romance between Yi San and Seong Deok Im began to wane as "The Red Sleeve" entered the second half of the drama. Now, the production team is more focused on the political element by presenting a secret organization of palace women called Gwanghan Palace which intends to bring down Yi San.
Although not in the original novel, the conspiracy of the members of Gwanghan Palace has continued to appear since episode 8. However, this drama needs a fast development of how Yi San became King Jeongjo, the process of Seong Deok Im becoming a concubine until her death while pregnant with her third child.
Of course, the right elements of conflict will increase the tension in the drama as well as deepen the relationship between the main characters. However, because the roles of the main and supporting characters seemed to be turned around, loyal fans of "The Red Sleeve" began to doubt the author's abilities.
Fans are disappointed that the writer put more emphasis on political events instead of the romance between Yi San and Seong Deok Im. As a result, the audience bulletin board "The Red Sleeve" was flooded with protests.
"I want to stop watching the story of Chief Justice Lady Jo (Chairman of Gwanghan Palace)," said a netizen. "Please just focus on Jeongjo and Deok Im," added another netizen.
"I'm sick of Gwanghan Palace," said another. "Even the main character Yi San only appears for 17 minutes ..." concluded another netizen.
Meanwhile, "The Red Sleeve" will add one more episode to repay viewers' support and deliver a more complete story. However details about Gwanghan Palace raise suspicions that the episode extension was not to increase the "completeness of the story" but because of the "success of the drama". (wk/eval)
