Korean Drama The Servant

[Ronna Bordelon]

TheServant (Korean: 방자전; RR: Bang-ja-jeon; lit. "The Story of Bang-ja" or "Bang-ja Chronicles", compare to Chunhyangjeon) is a 2010 South Korean historical romantic drama film starring Kim Joo-hyuk, Jo Yeo-jeong and Ryoo Seung-bum. It re-tells the origins of the famous Korean folktale Chunhyangjeon from the perspective of the male protagonist Lee Mong-ryong's servant.[3][4][5][6]

While a servant, Bangja shares his rooms with Mr. Ma, a notorious womanizer and self-stylized Lothario. Bangja escorts his master Mong-ryong to an evening out at the local pleasure house, where they are witness to a performance by the madam's daughter Chunhyang. While trying to arrange a meeting between Chunhyang and his rather clumsy and socially awkward master, Bangja defends Mong-ryong from a larger, disgruntled patron and inadvertently impresses both Chunhyang and her maidservant Hyangdan.

Mr. Ma begins to coach the simple, honest Bangja in the ways of seducing women, which Bang uses to secure a picnic outing for Mong-ryong with Chunhyang through Hyangdan. During the excursion, Bangja so astounds the ladies by cooking meat to perfection, recovering Chunhyang's slipper from the waterfall pool, and carrying her on his back after she injured her ankle, that a love triangle rapidly begins to form between the two women and Bangja, much to the consternation of Mong-ryong, though he boasts that he is slowly luring Chunhyang to him by playing hard to get.

While his master continues to study, Bangja attempts to court Chunhyang. Mr. Ma continues to provide instruction to Bangja, assuaging his concerns when he thinks his master may have slept with her, and pushing him to seize upon spending the night with her before his master can. Though Bangja's seduction is clumsy and his approach very tentative, Chunhyang begins to fall for him and makes love to him on several occasions. Due to his low social-standing, however, she seeks to marry Mong-ryong and enlists Bangja's help in order to make this plan a reality.

When Mong-ryong is called away to Seoul to finish studying and take his exam he asks Bangja to recover a written promise he gave Chunhyang about marrying her. She catches Bangja as he tries to steal the paper, and switches it for a confession letter she wrote and got him to sign the night the two of them first had sex. Mong-ryong reads the letter and dismisses Bangja from his service for having deceived him.

Three years pass, and Bangja and Chunhyang grow closer and continue to love each other while Bangja becomes the servant of Chunhyang's house and runs errands for a local strong man. However, Chunhyang begins to take after her mother and grows increasingly manipulative despite her burgeoning love for Bangja.

Mong-ryong finds Hyangdan has become the madam of her own house and runs a successful business. She sleeps with Mong-ryong and asks him if she is not more desirable and pleasing than Chunhyang, but expresses remorse that Bangja chose Chunhyang over her.

Mong-ryong discusses women with his magistrate and later returns to Chunhyang's house. Mong-ryong goes for a walk with Chunhyang, and though it is not revealed what the two discussed, Chunhyang returns with a pleased expression and an expectation of seeing Mong-ryong again.

The magistrate visits Chunhyang's house and after a confrontation with his own clerks and then Bangja, is greeted by a beautiful, but uncooperative Chunhyang who refuses to sit and pour his drinks because she is not a gisaeng. Enraged by her arrogance, the governor beats Bangja when he attempts to interfere, and has Chunhyang imprisoned. Bangja goes to Mong-ryong and implores his old master to help save her life.

Later, during a celebration, the magistrate is seen in a back room attempting to sexually excite Chunhyang because Mong-ryong had told him that she would only bow to his wishes and fulfill his desires if he were violent with her. Bangja causes a commotion to get the magistrate to release her, but is saved from being beaten by the guards when Mong-ryong arrives with a large contingent of guards. Mong-ryong arrests the magistrate and has Chunhyang whipped for her insolence until Bangja interferes, claiming that she has a husband whom she was remaining faithful to. Chunhyang stabs herself with a small blade, saying to Mong-ryong (whose face was hidden) that she wanted news of her death taken to Master Lee Mong-ryong.

Bangja is visited in his cell, first by Mr. Ma, who warns him to never beg a woman to stay, then by Chunhyang, who reveals that she and Mong-ryong planned the whole event after he returned from his exams. For the first time, Bangja confesses his love to Chunhyang. She then tells Mong-ryong that she will not leave without Bangja, and so the three of them depart the city together. When the trio stop at the waterfall where they had their first excursion years before, Mong-ryong pushes Chunhyang down the falls and she is seen face-down in the water. Bangja dives in to save her and runs away, carrying her on his back as he did when she injured her ankle.

The 'present' Bangja tells the writer that he ran from Mong-ryong and his agents for a long time after those events. The last thing he does to bring the story to close is bring the writer to the back of his warehouse to see Chunhyang who survived the fall, but was left with brain damage and has 'become a child'.

The writer declares that Bangja is an amazing man and will make him the hero of a wonderful story about a servant's love, but Bangja insists that the story be told with her fabricated fidelity being the truth, and Chunhyang living happily ever after with a Lee Mong-ryong who loved her and returned for her. When asked why, he says it was because it was something she never got to have, and he is happy with being the hero in his heart.

Bangja requests one scene be written to demonstrate the love between the two characters, which he demonstrates by carrying Chunhyang around the room on his back and singing a variation of the song Sarangga from the pansori Chunhyangga while she smiles lovingly and snowflakes slowly fall on them from the open roof.

Story: Bang-ja (Kim Joo-hyeok) is hired as a servant for the aristocrat Mong-ryeong (Ryoo Seung-beom). At a party the daughter of a gisaeng, Chun-hyang (Jo Yeo-jeong), gives a dancing performance and not only Bang-ja instantly succumbs to her charms. Mong-ryeong wants to get to know her better as well and sends his servant to arrange it. However, she is boorishly approached by another aristocrat and Bang-ja gives him a lesson for that. The servant has achieved his aim and could impress Chun-hyang and her servant Dan-hyang (Ryoo Hyeon-kyeong) with his actions. Bang-ja may be of a lower status but he still doesn't want to give up on Chun-hyang and asks Mr. Ma (Oh Dal-soo) for advice. Ma teaches him a few tricks how to win over a woman. But Mong-ryeong is also interested in the girl and being an aristocrat he also has a far better chance to get her, especially since Chun-hyang's mother wants to marry her daughter to a rich person. Despite all that Bang-ja still succeeds in conquering Chun-hyang's heart. He has to promise her to help arrange more meetings with Mong-ryeong, though. Nervertheless, the way it is the love triangle can't work out for long...

Review: Surprisingly "The Servant" became a box-office hit in Korea and this even though the film got the Category III rating, which somewhat equals a NC-17 rating, because of some more naked skin shown than usual. This is a bit strange since this is a period drama that gets by without any action and works exclusively because of its story and the dialogues. Maybe that's because the film takes a well-known story in Korea, which is that of the gisaeng daughter Chun-hyang, and puts the focus on one of the side characters and by doing so illuminates new aspects of the story. Most probably the movie's success, not only the commercial one, is based on director Kim Dae-woo's golden hand when it comes to such plots. Kim was also responsible for "The Forbidden Quest" and he also wrote the script to "The Scandal" and "An Affair". Kim is fond of stories that take place during the Joseon dynasty and make fun of the lives of aristocrats as well as highlight the drama that results from power games. This time he once again proves his skills in this respect.

With his former works Kim Dae-woo already managed to achieve what so many other directors before him didn't: They aroused my interest in the Joseon dynasty. While other works taking place in this epoch lack the necessary colors and brilliancy Kim can get all of this into his movies with a cleverly crafted screenplay. However, there is one problem right from the start. The way the director sheds light on the aristocrats, their attempts to sexual conquest and dangerous intrigues imbued with a bitter tone of sarcasm creates a certain distance to the events on screen and so there is no individual in "The Servant" that we can root for until the end. The story also toys with the fact that none of the protagonists is a really likeable character at any point in time. For that they show too many flaws. Chun-hyang is interested in her financial well-being, but she is also arrogant and almost simply for the sole purpose of self-affirmation she wants to know if she can win Mong-ryeong's heart as well.

Bang-ja poses a problem, too. He fights for his love but then there are moments when he surrenders before the boundaries his social status bestows on him. Moreover, there is always something inscrutable about him. But that's even the more the case with Mong-ryeong whose interest in the daughter of a gisaeng has to be questioned until the very end. Thus, even though it might not be easy to have full sympathy for the characters they are still a lot more complex than in your usual flick and therefore manage to keep us interested in them. "The Servant" works just because of the changing relationships of the different individuals after all. Furthermore, even the supporting characters are well drawn. Mr. Ma gives Bang-ja some lessons about how to conquer a woman and by doing so he is also responsible for some of the funniest scenes in the movie while Dan-hyang's love interest in Bang-ja also gets a few minutes of space in the film.

Despite the praise the story deserves for its complexity and the many twists it also has to be criticized that "The Servant" lacks a certain coherence concerning its tone. Apart from the at no point intrusive humor there is also a political power struggle added to the love story. This might already have worked out in Shakespeare's hands but "The Servant" somewhere throughout loses its focus. This especially catches the eye when it comes to the ending which doesn't manage to emotionally involve the viewer as it might have been intended. However, the bed scenes are surprisingly enough very well implemented into the movie. They always remain within the boundaries of what has to be called "erotic", main actress Jo Yeo-jeong cuts a fine figure (figuratively as well), but most importantly the actors can score on a dramatic level, of course. Even more important than that, though, is that director Kim never loses sight of what's aesthetic and this especially applies to the bed scenes.

The story around Chun-hyang is one of love and virtue. Director Kim Dae-woo gives the well-known story not only a new direction by shifting the focus from Chun-hyang to Bang-ja and therefore making it his story (just as the Korean original title suggests), but he also questions the role of virtue in the story with a keen eye on aristocracy and a good portion of cynism. None of the characters behaves virtuous all throughout. That's also what makes us keep an emotional distance to the drama, but on the other side this also was Kim's intention. So even if the drama's impact might be quite shallow there are still enough fascinating things to find in "The Servant". The excellent sets and great costumes make the story come to life as does the well-written script that only lacks a bit of coherence. At the end, "The Servant" is one of those well done historical dramas of Korea, however, and there aren't that many of them to be exactly...

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