Literature was not born the day when a boy crying “wolf, wolf” came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf at his heels; literature was born on the day when a boy came crying “wolf, wolf” and there was no wolf behind him.
Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature
Whenever I like a show enough to binge-watch it, I like to find out why. Sometimes, I get lucky and find something interesting enough to write about it; like in case of Better Call Saul or Game of Thrones. Most of the times though, I love the show but cannot find anything interesting to say, something that you may not find in most reviews. I loved The Sopranos or Ozark but if you ask me why, I got nothing interesting to say. So when I binged on Empress Ki, I tried to find out why.
Narrator (Morgan Freeman voiceover) : To find out why, we must uncover the dark and sinister past of the author. If you are looking for a quick review, go seek your infotainment elsewhere, O weary internet traveller, visiting this blog from lands and seas afar.1
When I was a kid, there was no possibility of us getting addicted to TV simply because there was only one channel that showed two movies per week, and Star Trek and Sherlock Holmes on Sundays. There was not enough of it to get addicted. That left us kids with plenty of spare time.
A major part of my childhood was spent just wondering around the nearby area that was full of trees, insects, birds, and animals.2 It was exciting to see the changes in nature in each season came and went – mild winters, scorching summers followed by torrential monsoon downpours. There used to be frequent power cuts during summer nights and the sky would be lit with beautiful stars – Sirius A, the Orion, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury – and our very own Milky Way galaxy.
As a result, I developed such a deep bond with nature, that if I were to be stranded on an island like in the movie Cast Away, I would not be too keen on seeking help if there were no survival problems. (What an amazing performance by Tom Hanks, one of my favourites!)
The remaining time was spent reading a children’s magazine called Chandamama, perhaps the only magazine in India that was published simulteneously in 13 languages, including English. A typical page of the magazine looked like this.
As you can guess, it was full of fantastic stories about lands with strange creatures, magical spells, and brave warriors. To say that I was hooked is an understatement.
When I binge-watched Empress Ki, I felt like a kid again, reading Chandamama.
Empress Ki (1315 – 1369) was one of the Mongolian empresses of the Yuan Dynasty. The show portrays her remarkable journey from a lower aristocratic family to the empress who was practically the unofficial monarch of China. While the characters are based on real persons, historians have criticised the portrayals as lacking authenticity.
What makes this series engrossing is the story. It’s an astonishing tale based on reality but mixed with enough cinematic liberties that manages to keep the viewer enthralled. It’s a tale that has sword fights – oh-so many sword fights, dungeons, magical curses, brave warriors, beautiful empresses, and twists and turns and more twists and more turns. Usually, critics lament even a single deus ex machina. Empress Ki devours deus ex machinas for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. That’s why it reminded me of the stories I read in my childhood as opposed to say, Game of Thrones that is a gritty, violent tale leaning on the realistic side.
If you are wondering why South Korea made a TV series on a Mongolian empress, it’s because Empress Ki was born in Goryeo. Goryeo was a Korean kingdom founded in 918 that ruled the Korean Peninsula until 1392.
The rise of South Korea as an entertainment power house in the last two decades has been nothing short of remarkable, from crazy BTS fan clubs to amazing South Korean filmmakers making wonderful movies. It’s immensely interesting to me to study this phenomenon and try to find out what triggered it.
Empress Ki is conventional in every way. The story follows all norms of a fairy tale, the good guys and the bad guys are clearly separated except for a few gray characters3, and the plot uses every available tool to keep you hooked. Many times, you recognise the tricks employed in the plot but that does not stop you from watching it till the end. Having said that, the plot does get a bit sluggish in the last couple of episodes.
The other thing that keeps you rooted is the acting and above everyone else, Ha Ji-won as Empress Ki is simply amazing. The character of the Empress has many shades – brave warrior, gritty prisoner trying to survive the physical torture, diplomatic concubine, shrewd strategist, intelligent problem solver, loyal companion to the emperor, loving mother to her son and a commanding leader. Needless to say, casting of this title character was most important and Ha Ji-won plays all these shades with such effortless ease that you are left spellbound. She deserves all the awards and accolades that she received for this role.
It’s a well founded belief that the viewers are always looking for something new and to a great extent, that is true. But sometimes, even a conventional story with powerful characters can leave a strong impact. As long as you keep the viewer engaged, she will not care what stratagems are being used to keep her glued to her seat.
Humans have the unique ability to tell stories as well as appreciate them. That’s the reason why children just love stories – at least they did in the pre-digital era. (In The Simpsons S2 E9 Itchy & Scratchy & Marge, all the kids switch off television and go outside to play, with Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony playing in background. The cultural references in The Simpsons are a treasure trove to be discovered.)
Sometimes, all you need is a good story.
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Empress Ki is streaming on Netflix.
- (Jim Carrey voiceover) Actually, we use Content Delivery Network to deliver the content from a server nearest to the user. This allows us to synergise, vaporise, and pulverise the user engagement through improved CTR.. ↩︎
- “You know, you are born in a place and you grow up there. You get to know the trees and the plants. You will never know any other trees and plants like that….Here you wait for the poui to flower one week in the year and you don’t even know you are waiting. All right, you go away. But you will come back. Where you born, man, you born.” – V S Naipaul, The Mimic Men ↩︎
- The character of Tal Tal for instance, that reminds me of Karna in Mahabharata. ↩︎
