Hymn of Death (2018)
Review of Hymn of Death / 사의 찬미(2018)
I stumbled upon Hymn of Death on my Netflix one day, and thought it was interesting because of the setting. This drama is set in late 1920s Japan and Korea, where both of our main characters meet in Tokyo.
This is based off of a real historical couple, and so the events set in the drama actually happened. That’s important context you need to know going into this, since this is a really short drama. I had no idea when I started this show that it was only three episodes long, which came as a major shock when the end just blasted down on us. Only three hours of content???
More to come in this review. Keep reading if you want to see my thoughts.
Content
This show starts off with a suicide pact in the very first scene. The camera solemnly pans to two pairs of shoes, a woman’s and a man’s, and a naval officer walking out onto the deck of the ship to discover them. His eyes go wide, then he runs to the starboard side of the ship, looking frantically into the waters for the occupants of the shoes. They are nowhere to be found.
The show then dives into the story of the owners of the shoes. The woman is Yun Sim-deok, the first person from South Korea to become a professional soprano. We get all of these shots of her singing (it’s not actually the actress, it’s poorly dubbed) in performances and whatnot, and she has gone to Tokyo to study at a music school there. In the 1920s, Korea is fully occupied and oppressed by Japan, so this is pretty normal.
More on that later. It’s at the music school where she meets Kim Woo-jin, an English literature student and a budding playwright. In real life, the two had an affair, but this fact is glossed over in the show. They fall in love in Tokyo, getting Korean noodles in town and taking grand walks around.
But this is the late 1920s and these two are Koreans, people seen as inferior during this era. Kim Woo-jin goes back to Korea to be with his family, where his father has forbidden him to write, and, upon completing her education, Sim-deok goes back too and is being pressured by the Japanese colonial government to sing for them, much to the chagrin of her younger siblings.
This is a show about longing, about wanting to be with the one that you love, and even know we already know the tragic ending to this story, we continue to watch the beauty that is a blossoming love.
I genuinely think this show should’ve been longer though. There’s so much territory to explore, such as being a writer or singer in a society oppressed.
We touch upon this at times throughout the short length of these episodes, but then it’s never fully explored. I think for viewers unfamiliar with the history and with these two people, we don’t get enough connection to know who they are as people.
They are just two doomed lovers buckling under the pressure of the world and the society they live in.
It would’ve also been nice to include Yun’s 1926 song “In Praise of Death,” the one that became famous immediately after her death. This is considered to be the first Korean trot (or pop) song and is a significant marker in contemporary Korean music’s history, so it would’ve been a nice touch.
Alas. I did enjoy the inclusion of very literary and poetic elements to the drama itself, that was a nice touch that was actually included. The cinematography was also very nice and visually appealing, although I really questioned the authenticity of the women’s costumes at times.
Overall Thoughts
A very Shakespearean tale—somewhat fitting for the tale of a playwright’s end. The soprano is more interesting to me though because she was a woman carving a big name for herself, while the guy was just existing in space at that moment. If you have time, it’s only three long episodes (1 hour each) or six thirty-five minute episodes.
You won’t be missing much by watching this. I do wish it was longer personally, because then we can explore the oppression and colonial setting on this love, as well as the impact of their creativity. But, alas, we only focus on the romance. That’s the tragedy in this.
