The Crowned Clown (2019)
A review of the drama The Crowned Clown / 왕이 된 남자 (2019)
I’m an absolutely sucker for Yeo Jin-gu, but here’s the catch when it came to picking this drama: ironically, I hate saeguks. I cannot watch a saeguk usually to save my life, which is fascinating considering I’m out here trying to get a social science PhD and have a particular knack for history.
But here I am watching a Joseon-era saeguk in the name of devotion to Yeo Jin-gu’s acting chops. The last thing I watched from him was Beyond Evil and that blew my socks off.
And while this is from two years before, right from the get-go we see the extent of Yeo’s acting. He switches from the clown character to the maniacal king in an instant, letting out a chilling cackle as the clown counterpart quivers in fear on the floor. While the plot itself is highly unrealistic at times, it was pretty entertaining. Let’s dig deeper into this review, shall we?
Content
I usually am afraid of saeguks out of fear that I’ll get bored in the nuances, but the pacing on this drama was insanely good. I wasn’t skipping any points out of boredom, and I was actually paying attention.
My eyes were glued to the screen because of the amount of twists and turns the drama took. By episode three alone I felt like so much had already happened: assassinations! Plotting! Sworn vengeance!
I do wish that the drama strayed off of the traditional K-drama path and turned the main character bad in little ways. As seen throughout history, the path to victory as a royal isn’t always as clean-cut as it’s depicted in the drama. Sure, there are some difficult issues, but he never actually handles them himself.
The people setting him up to be on this path are making the decisions for him. Still, the drama is quite good, but it was moments like these where I wondered if he was truly capable of leading Joseon completely on his own.
The relationships between the characters really made this drama for me. Not much of a spoiler because this is revealed fairly early on, but Ha-seon, the clown who takes the king’s place, chooses the path of vengeance and destroying enemies because someone in the court had a son who ended up raping his sister.
Insane twist from the get-go, since it’s where Ha-seon loses his naivety and he begins to become more fit for the position he has been thrown in. It also earns him the respect of the man who threw him into that position, the real mastermind behind this operation, and he slowly earns the respect of the Queen.
I mentioned Yeo Jin-gu’s acting earlier, but I have to admit, the acting all round was insanely good for this drama. Yeo definitely takes the cake, that’s for sure, because he has to play two completely different characters that have differing sets of mannerisms and attitudes towards life. But the acting for every single character was solid and well-done, I really felt immersed in the world because they brought the characters to life.
Overall Thoughts
The costumes! The court life! The relationships between the characters! This is an insanely good drama, and the acting just is the cherry on top of this cake. It’s not a perfect drama but it has its merits.
I only got a little bored when we focused a bit more on the romance between the clown and the queen, but, to be honest, around the 10-13 episode mark is where I tend to start losing attention in a drama. It says a lot if the drama is capable of capturing my attention this long, to the point where I didn’t drop it. Worth a watch at the end of the day.
