Eight Days, Assassination Attempts against King Jeongjo

Eight Days, Assassination Attempts against King Jeongjo
Also known as	Eight Days Mystery of Jeongjo Assassination
Genre	Period drama Drama
Based on	Journey by Oh Se-yeong
Written by	Kim Won-seok
Directed by	Park Jong-won
Starring	Kim Sang-joong Park Jung-chul Jung Ae-ri Lee Seon-ho Hee Won
Country of origin	South Korea
Original language(s)	Korean
No. of episodes	10
Production
Executive producer(s)	Han Chang-hoon
Producer(s)	Go Jang-won Kim Do-yeon Ahn Sang-hwi Lee Joo-hyung
Running time	Saturdays and Sundays at 23:00 (KST)
Release
Original network	CGV
Original release	November 17 (2007-11-17) – December 16, 2007 (2007-12-16)
External links
Website

Eight Days, Assassination Attempts against King Jeongjo (Hangul: 정조암살미스터리 8일) is a South Korean television miniseries starring Kim Sang-joong, Park Jung-chul, Jung Ae-ri, Lee Seon-ho, and Hee Won. The series ran for 10 episodes, and was aired by CGV from November 17, 2007 to December 16, 2007. This show is placed in the context of the Eight Days procession organized in 1795 by King Jeongjo of Joseon to visit the tomb of his father at Hwaseong Fortress. This historic event was a huge one, involving 5,661 people and 1,417 horses.^[1]

Synopsis

The screenplay is based on the novel Journey^[2] (Hangul: 원행; RR: won haeng; lit. "a round trip") written in 2006 by Oh Se-yeong. The background of the action is the 1795 procession organized by King Jeongjo of Joseon for the 60th birthday of his mother, Lady Hyegyeong that also commemorated the 60th birthday of his deceased father, the Crown Prince Sado. During the eight days period when the Court left the palace for the ceremony, the show introduces several assassination attempts against the King. A first one comes from the Moon In-bang's group (a millenarist sect). But this plot is used by the Noron Faction to pursue its own agenda, attempting an armed suppression against the Sipa Faction and the King as well.

Apart from the fictional elements, a major focus is placed on two historical sources. The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyeong^[3] is extensively used during many flashback sequences relative to events that occurred before the death (1762) of Crown Prince Sado, while the official documents from the Joseon Royal Library are used for the current events: the "Wonhaeng Eulmyo Jeongni Uigwe" (Eulmyo=1795) for the Procession itself, and the "Hwaseong Seongyeokuigwe"^[4][5] concerning the Hwaseong Fortress as a whole.

This series is often referred as Eight Days, Mystery of Jeong Jo Assassination, a misleading translation since King Jeongjo won the 1795 confrontation and only died in 1800.^[6]

Cast and characters

As described in the credits of the last episode, the drama involves the following characters:

• When provided, birth and death years are given according to the real life of the character.
• Hong Bonghan is described here as a Noron leader during the reigns of Yeongjo and Jeongjo, but he rather appears as a key Sipa in the Haboush's translation of the Memoirs.
• Mun Imbang is described as related to a peasant uprising that occurred in 1786 (byeongo). More real-life details would be interesting !

Documents about the real-life 1795 procession

The main document of the 1795 procession is an eight-panel screen, the Hwaseonghaenghaengdo Byeongpun. Nowadays, three copies of this screen exists: a sepia one,^[7] a blue one and a colored one,^[8] the King's copy. This last copy can be seen at Samsung Museum of Art Leeum and has been designated as Korean National Treasure 1430 in 2005-04-15.^[9]

Tombs
화성성묘전배

Examinations
낙남헌방방

Banquet
봉수당진찬

Elders
낙남헌양로연

Seojangdae
서장대야조

Arrows
득중정어사

Procession
환어행렬

Bridge
한강주교환어

The Hwaseonghaenghaengdo Byeongpun

Map of the Hwaseong Fortress in the 1800 Uigwe.

Hwaseong Jeondo 화성전도

Artistic license

• The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyeong are in fact a collection of four different documents, written at different times, for different audiences. The description of the controversial behavior of Crown Prince Sado occurs in the 1805 Memoir,^[10] ten years after the procession, and not in the 1795 Memoir.^[11]
• In the real Court, the red robe was for the highest ranks, the blue for the intermediate ranks, and green for the lowest ranks. In the series, the blue dress is the uniform of the villains, while the "good guys" are uniformized in red. This helps the viewer to identify who's who, but this can also be a POV-시파 joke from the screenwriter.^[12]

References

Bibliography

External links

• Eight Days, Assassination Attempts against King Jeongjo at Daum (Korean)