[KDrama] Iljimae

Details
Title: 일지매 (一枝梅) / Iljimae
Genre: Historical Romance
Episodes: 20
Broadcast network: SBS


Synopsis
It all begins with the hero Iljimae fighting for an piece of artifact when the drama suddenly changes and goes back in time to show you the childhood of this hero, Lee Geom. You get to see that his family was killed when he was still young.
After days of walking down empty streets and stealing food to keep himself alive he arrives at Swe Dol and Dani’s place who raise him like their own son. They soon discover that Lee Geom has lost his memories and decide to call him Yong.

Yong is the gangster in town, and refuses to listen to his adoptive parents, and gets in trouble all the time. But day by day he recollects his memory because of the nightmares he’s having, and when he finally finds out who he really is he calls in some help from a real gangster with connections. From this point on the emotional battle begins.

He puts on his mask and steals some important papers with his family history on it and finds out it’s all connected with some kind of symbol. From this on Iljimae is born. The poor citizens only know him as Iljimae and worship him as a hero. He steals from the rich and give it to the poor to discover more about his past and the reason why his family got killed.


Review
Somehow I wasn’t so sure to watch this drama, because I don’t like the historical genre. But people insisted me it was worth watching so I gave it a try, and I must say I wasn’t disappointed.

The story immediately caught my attention and you really got sucked into it. You wanted to know why everything was happening. There were some points where the drama became a bit slow, but the humorous Yong knew how to get rid of this feeling. Even though this drama was very emotional it also had some great humor parts in it, I laughed a lot about the ‘ruined image’ comments, I think if you counted them it would’ve been a 100 times that Yong was worrying about his image.

Next to emotional and humor there were also some great action scene’s in it. Don’t get too excited though, because I was. We all know Lee Jun Ki masters the martial arts. But somehow they didn’t show much of his skills in this drama, it has enough opportunities to show them but somehow, they didn’t take them.


Cast
Lee Jun Ki as Lee Geom/ Yong
Many people compare his acting skills with ‘Time Between Dog and Wolf’, but I think you can’t compare these kinds of acting, so I don’t compare it with anything. I think he did an excellent job. He really rebelled with his Yong character and as soon as his memories returned you were struggling with him, you felt what he was going through and wanted him to succeed! There are some points that it gets really hard for him and that he’s crying and you can cry along with him.

Lee Young Ah as Bong Soon
This was probably one of my favorite characters. I never like girls that much in drama, but Bong Soon was a strong girl, who knows about martial arts. Bong Soon and Geom know each other since their childhood but don’t recognize each other when they meet again. She swindles Geom’s money twice which creates some funny scene’s. The chemistry between the two of them is cute and funny. They form a really cute couple.


Han Hyo Joo as Eun Chae
The perfect girl who does everything to help people. I never liked characters like this so it’s no surprise that Eun Chae was my less favorite character of this drama. She is the government daughter.
She didn’t impressed me much, and you couldn’t feel nor see the chemistry between her and Iljimae, I think she did a better job in the scene’s with Jah Dol.

Park Shi Hoo as Shi Hoo / Ja Dol
Ja Dol is an imperial guard, he is a very talented guy when it comes to school and martial arts. When Iljimae commits theft cases, he is instructed to seek him out.
I don’t understand his character, he is such a cute guy to Eun Chae and Bong Soon but his soft nature doesn’t show much in this serie. You get to know everything about all the characters but from Ja Dol you only get to see his unfriendly side.



Stars:
★ ★ ★ ★ ★