The Making of Dae Jang Geum: Best Korean Historical Dramas
Director Lee Byung-hoon became a household name in Korea after directing the mega-hit historical drama Heojun (MBC 2000). Heojun is one of the most successful Korean dramas of all time. After this, Jewel in the Palace became an international hit. In his book, Build a Kingdom of Dreams, (Korean) the director talks about his career. Here I pick up 7 interesting facts about the making of Dae Jang Geum (Jewel in the Palace MBC 2003).
In this post, Director Lee Byung-hoon on:
- Collaborating with WRITERS
- Choosing the SUBJECT MATTER
- Casting the LEAD ACTORS
- Working with colours: A NEW WARDROBE
- Finding the right CHILD ACTOR
- Anecdotes from FILMING
- Searching for LOCATIONS
The Making of Dae Jang Geum
1. COLLABORATING WITH WRITERS
According to his book, the first step to making a drama is to find a suitable writer to work with.
So far, he had worked with writer Choi Wan Kyu for his first two historical dramas: Heojun and Sangdo (the Merchant). So how did he come to work with writer Kim Young-hyun on his next project?
He explains that Sangdo was only scheduled to run for 40 episodes and was extended by 10 episodes. This caused a problem for writer Choi Wan Kyu as he was contracted to work with SBS on the drama All In (starring Lee Byung Hun). So he asked fellow writer Kim Young-hyun to write episodes 41 and 42 for him.
Director Lee didn’t find out about this until later! But he was satisfied with her work.
Kim Young-hyun graduated from Yonsei University with a degree in economics. And then she worked as a economics journalist before moving to MBC. Here she worked on several dramas and TV shows, but was still a young and unknown writer.
So at first, MBC wasn’t keen to give her the big job of writing a long sageuk! But Lee Byung-hoon wanted to work with her. However, this new project still had no name…
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other posts on dramas directed by Lee Byung-hoon
Heojun (MBC 2000)
Dong Yi (MBC 2010)
Horse Doctor (MBC 2012)
The Making of Dae Jang Geum
2. CHOOSING THE SUBJECT MATTER
Now the director and writer set about choosing a character for a story. The theme of food came later.
Director Lee prefers using commoners as the main characters in his dramas. This allows for more creativity since there is little information about them in the history books.
So eventually the writer and director thought of Dae Jang Geum, the first female doctor to a Joseon king. (there are about 10 references to Dae Jang Geum in the Sillok, Annals of Joseon). But the story could be too similar to Heojun which is about the king’s doctor!
So they searched for other ideas, but after several months came back to Dae Jang Geum.
Still, they needed to make it different, so Kim Young-hyun suggested the theme of food and the royal kitchen. The idea was that food is medicine. There had already been a couple of popular dramas based on food. And in Japan, food dramas and mangas were popular, but MBC were concerned about basing a drama around royal cuisine.
Firstly, getting the ingredients to make all the court food would add to expenses. Then there were concerns that the viewers wouldn’t be interested in palace food which they couldn’t cook or eat themselves. But Director Lee persuaded MBC that the idea would work.
Ironically, it was no picnic filming the drama. Filming took a long time, meanwhile the food would get cold or go off. Also, the director says that palace food looks good but is pretty bland!
The Making of Dae Jang Geum
3. CASTING THE LEAD ACTORS
Lee Young-ae was the 7th actress to be invited to play the role!
Casting for historical drama is harder than for modern drama, because the acting is more demanding. Also, lots of the filming is done outdoors in extreme weather during summer or winter. Read more about that here in general notes from Lee Byung-hoon’s book.
The director admits that he had an obsession with casting Song Yun-ah as his leading actor. But she had already turned him down twice, first for Heojun and then for Sangdo. Still he didn’t give up and thought she would make a perfect Dae Jang Geum. But she turned him down again! So he had to have a rethink…
Lee Young-ae was the 7th actress to be invited to play the role. This was not because they didn’t want her to do it. It was because she was already a big star in Korea and Lee Byung-hoon hadn’t thought to ask her. He assumed that someone in her position would not consider doing sageuk. And at first she too said no, but then later to everyone’s surprise she changed her mind.
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The Making of Dae Jang Geum
4. A NEW WARDROBE
The Wardrobe palette was chosen based around Lee Young-ae
Up to this point in sageuk dramas, the colour palette for palace maids was pink or jade hanbok tops (chogori) and navy skirts. But these colour schemes were all changed in this drama to suit Lee Young-ae.
The director spent several hours with her in the MBC grounds while she tried on many different hanboks to decide which colours suited her best. The colours worn by supporting and minor characters would now also have to change. And if the colours didn’t suit the minor actors, then that was just too bad!
A shade of green suited her best, followed by ‘twilight’ and ‘sunset’ and ivory. So in the drama, she wears various colour combinations including a green chogori top and navy skirt, and a pumpkin top and navy skirt. And when she becomes a doctor, she wears an ivory top and navy skirt.
The Making of Dae Jang Geum
5. CHOOSING THE CHILD ACTOR
To make this drama even more different from Heojun, Jang Geum’s story started from her childhood.
So they needed to find a child actor around 8 years old. Someone who resembled the adult actor and, ideally, could also act.
Inevitably it’s difficult to meet both of these requirements. The child actor who was finally chosen – Jo Chong Un – didn’t resemble the elegant Lee Young-ae and so there were concerns that viewers would not accept her as the younger version of Lee Young-ae. Another child actor was being considered too, but her acting and her attitude weren’t great. So in the end they went with Jo Chong Un.
The director was impressed by her acting and professionalism. She always knew her lines and didn’t make mistakes. Just once during a late night shoot the director had to call ‘cut’ because he could hear snoring. But it wasn’t the child who was snoring, it was her mum who always came with her to the set.
Unfortunately, as predicted, netizens took to the online message boards to complain about the young Dae Jang Geum. But gradually (also as predicted) the young actor’s charm and acting skills won the viewers over. Ratings went up and so the child character’s storyline, which was only scheduled to run until episode 4, was extended to episode 5.
The Making of Dae Jang Geum
6. FILMING Jewel in the Palace
It takes round 8 months to film a historical drama
And as there are a lot of outdoor scenes, the actors either have to suffer in the heat or in the cold. Lee Young-ae was always professional on set. She was never late and never complained.
As the series progressed, ratings rose. But even though the ratings were over 50% the director would make writer Kim Young Hyun rewrite scripts up to 6 times to the point where she became ill with stress. Filming took its toll on everyone…
There is always a shortage of time when filming sageuk especially since the outdoor scenes take a long time to shoot. (read more notes about shooting sageuk)
So as filming went on late into the night, the crew would gather in the canteen to eat ramyeon. Eventually, with the long working hours and late nights, Lee Young-ae started to put weight on. So the director got around this by making sure the wardrobe department dressed her in more slimming colours and he filmed her from flattering angles.
Tiredness even got the better of the director one evening. It was the scene when Jang Geum and Lord Min leave the palace, where they have to walk down a snowy mountain path. They walked and walked, but the director never said ‘cut’. Finally someone realised that the director had fallen asleep!
The Making of Dae Jang Geum
7. CHOOSING LOCATIONS: The Funeral of Court Lady Jeong
Location, Location, Location: Luck filming on Mount Jiri
There are various mountains in Korea which create a different atmosphere to a scene. Small mountains in the city convey a different mood to the high mountains like Jirisan and Soraksan. One of the most important scenes in Jewel in the Palace is the funeral scene of Court Lady Jeong (episode 22).
Her death is particularly sad as she was a good and fair character and the viewers also loved her. So the director wanted to find a mountain with enough mystique to give the scene the impact it deserved.
Finally he decided on Jirisan, in Gyeongsando in the south of Korea.
The scene is only 2 or 3 minutes long, but the making of it took 10 hours. First the crew had to travel down to Gyeongsando. It took 5 hours to walk up and down the mountain. And filming at the top took 1 hour. But it was worth it.
The weather on Jirisan is famously changeable. So when they were going up the mountain it was clear and bright and the director was worried that they would not be able to capture the atmospheric sombre mood. Luckily, when they got to the location it was already misty.
However, 2 minutes after the filming was complete the weather changed again to a thick fog. It would have been impossible to film in this condition as the fog. So if they had set off ten minutes later, they may not have been able to film the scene at all!
DEATH OF COURT LADY CHOI
The small, local mountain where Jang Geum’s mother was killed was also the location for Court Lady Choi’s death (episode 48).
There’s a funny story about the filming of this scene:
The director said he knew how to get there, so he led the way up the mountain. The crew followed carrying all equipment.
But as he was walking, he began to doubt that this was the right place. So he started to speed up since he didn’t want to make the crew carry everything to the wrong place. He thought if he hurried on ahead then he could come back down if it was the wrong place.
But as he sped up, the others sped up behind him too.
In the end, they were all hurrying up the mountain together! Everyone was tired and sweaty and then shocked when the director had to admit that he couldn’t find the location he was looking for. So they went back down and looked around somewhere else.
Why do the mountains in Korea look so similar, he wonders! By the end of that day, everyone was exhausted!
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