All these #kdramas are having a healing effect on my bitter  & skeptical heart, I keep finding myself  reluctantly believing in love again...what is happening!? Is that part the #Kdrama newbie initiation?

I binge watched this drama, and then got everyone around me interested in how it was going and how it ended. My brother could  hear my loud reactions from the TV room. I was gasping, shouting, screaming and laughing at the screen. I even tweeted about it. It was too much in a good way! 

This Korean drama,  also known as Hundred Days My Husband,  stars Do Kyung Soo aka D.O  as Lee Yul  the crown prince and Nam Ji-Hyun as Yeon Hong-shim our heroine. It was written by Ni Ji Sul, and directed by Lee Jong-Jae and Nam Sung Woo. 

It is the 11th highest rated series on cable television in South Korea...(Wikipedia says so...).

Basically the story starts with  our onscreen couple being childhood buddies, both from noble and wealthy families. Yeon Hong-Shim family ends up being massacred in a merciless coup, in order for Lee Yul's father (Jo Han-chul) to take the converted royal throne. 

 Years later Lee Yul is still traumatized by the onslaughter he witnessed and how much his life changed as the heir to the throne.  During an unsuccessful attempt on his life, he losses balance after being shot  at by a deadly arrow and tumbles down a hill where he is discovered by Yeon Hong-Shim's adoptive father, Mr Yeon ( Jung Hae Kyun), Yul is unable to remember who he is, and  is given the new identity of Na Won -Deuk and married off to the willful and independent Yeon Hong-Shim to save her from corporal punishment . 

It caught me off guard, but this drama had  just the right  amount of mystery and political intrigue. It didn't take away from the comedy or the romance, instead these elements added some zest and zeal to the storyline. Each character had  their own story, and each story moved the overall plot forward.

 Its very clear from the beginning that both our hero and heroine remain deeply disturbed by their shared childhood experience . Lee Yul  reluctantly becomes crown prince and is frustrated by the duties and demands of  the kingdom. He is in a loveless arranged marriage and the country is suffering through a drought. The people believe that if the prince 'sleeps' with  his wife, the crown princess (Han So-Hee)  it will balance the yin and yang energy in the country, and rain will finally fall. To avoid consummating his marriage, he writes a royal decree that every single person who is eligible for marriage should be married by the end of the month or be punished severely.

 

The vice premier, Kim Cha-eon (Jo Sung-ha), who lead the massacre that killed all the noble families when Lee Yul was a child,  happens to be the crown prince's father in law, and coincidently wants his son in law dead. 

The crown prince is sent to preside over a rain festival by the King,  and on the way there, with the help of his trusted bodyguard escapes death. As I said earlier, Yul is found by the Hong-Shim's adoptive father, who wants to save his unmarried daughter from punishment so he creates an identity for the crown prince and succeeds in getting them both married on the very last day of the month. 

From episode eight onwards, fire after fire after fire gets dropped! Every thing and every one is connected somehow. Things just continue to get fantastically complicated. Hong Shim's brother, Yoon Seok-ha (Kim Jae-young ) who we thought  was dead/missing,  is in fact alive and well, working as an assassin for the evil Vice Premier. 

Now to add to this whoooooole story, the crown princess is pregnant with Seok-ha's baby... WHAAAT!?

Also at one point some one was supposed be dead...well he isn't two or three episodes later...

All these many many many plot twists and turns in a drama I thought would be relatively predictable....!?!

I think this is what they call 'slow burn romance'... right? It took too many episodes for them to fall for each other, even though they had very nice chemistry. 

Neither of them can recognize each other from childhood. Hong-Shim must hide her real name and the fact  that she's of noble blood from those around her and Yul can't remember who he is.  

The prince is cold, stubborn and unfriendly....which isn't attractive but makes for comical situations. It shows rather that tells us the contrast between a life of privilege and a life of relative poverty. 

Our heroine is independent, she didn't want get to married and is planning on abandoning her husband when she reunites with her long lost brother. 

Eventually the prince confronts and heals his traumas then remembers who he is, and we warm to his personality as he realizes the value of his friendships and life lessons from his village life identity. Our heroine also realizes she is worthy of love and that love is worth fighting for.  

The supporting characters  are the glue. They may not be the stars of the show, but without them the sky would fall. They bring this drama to life and make it believable and hilarious. 

As a dotting father Mr. Yeon does everything he can to support his responsible and hard working adopted daughter, including marrying her off to a man he found unconscious in the forest.  

Hong-Shim's best friend, Kkeut-Nyeo (Lee Min-Ji) and her husband, Gu-Dol(Kim Ki-Doo) are committed to ensuring that Won Deuk and Hong-Shim have a successful marriage including advising them on how to consummate it . 

Then there's the spoilt entitled aristocrat/Yangban Park Seon-do(Ahn Suk-Hwan) who is upset that Hong-Shim refused to be his fourth or fifth concubine, so he makes it a goal to ensure the newly married couple's life is miserable and full of struggle .

 The town clerk, Park Bok-Eun ( Lee Jun Hyeok) is just trying his best to do his job,  and ensure all the villagers follow the rules and abide by the laws of the kingdom; he is stuck in the middle because the villages are his dear friends too. 

Lastly we have Jang Jae-Yonn (Kim Seon-Ho) a trusted civil servant in the palace who gets promoted to become the Magistrate of our beloved village.  He helps the crown prince regain his memory and keeps Hong-Shim safe as the chaos ensures in the Kingdom.  

I repeat the villagers are the glue..

And who are these people? I don't recognize them...lol

There's not much I didn't like in this  drama . 

I think the episodes were cut well and used the time to tell the story efficiently. The costumes and the setting spoke to the time and characters and didn't distract us. I am not a historical expert so there isn't much value in my critic in the above areas.  

My only question is.... why isn't Hong-shim enraged at the King for killing her family?

100 Days My Prince will be added to my all time favorites' list, just for making me laugh and shout s0 much.  

I watched the series on Netflix, but I know its is also available on Viki . 

Please...Pretty please go watch if you have not already. 

I had no idea this #cdrama and #kdrama world existed, nor did I expect to find it so entertaining.  I am  glad I stumbled on it. Honestly, it feels like discovering an alternate TV universe, a well kept secret that everyone knew about except me. This, in my humble opinion, is the beauty and genius of the internet and social media apps.

Unfortunately  this nouveau-addicting-hobby is now competing with my love and time for reading. There are twenty neglected-brand-new books waiting for my attention and consumption.....I am sure when my enthusiasm levels dip, everything will eventually  balance and accommodate each other like it did before. 

Ironically my latest  mini review is about the Korean romance series, 'Her Private Life'  which stars Park Min Young who plays Sing Doek Mi and Kim Jae Wook who plays Ryan Gold. Sing Doek Mi is a secret fan girl and a curator at Cheurm Museum of Art,  Ryan Gold is an artist and renown art critic who joins the museum as the newly appointed Art Director in the midst of a financial scandal. The series was produced by Studio Dragon and Boon Factory Worldwide and according to Wikipedia is based on the novel Noona Fan Don Com. 

This is the second Korean drama that I watched this year. Just what I needed; a world to enter and temporality forget about our current pandemic reality and be like a fly on the wall in a make believe romance.

1. I didn't know you could be a hard core fan girl beyond the age of 16 years old. Did you know you could? I thought those sort of things ended once your adolescent hormones organized themselves and stopped trying to betray or embarrass you. Also....I don't think I was ever that obsessed with my favorite superstars. Sing Doek Mi, has spent the whole of her teenage years and her twenties being a dedicated and passionate fan of  Chi Shian (Jung  Jae-Won also known as One). 

She spends  her limited time off, dressing in black incognito, going to events, taking pictures and posting on a competitive fan-girl community social media  site. She has a huge camera which to me seems like a significant investment...I mean the lenses are items you see professional journalists use to capture top notch award winning photos. This is NOT a cheap hobby. I remember watching Backstreet Boys, Take That and Boyzone concerts on TV and seeing young people being carried out of the stadium, because they fainted from shear excitement. So now I wonder was I ever  truly a fan?  Probably not, compared to Sing Doek Mi. I never invested in high tech equipment, I didn't have a sudo account to only share my dedication, and I didn't spend my evenings painting and pining the finished portraits on my walls. This is a secret that only her family and loyal best friends Nam Eun Gi(Ahn Bo-Hyun) and Lee Soen Joo (Park Jin Joo) know about, she is ashamed of it and it makes for some funny misunderstandings and entertaining moments of conflict in the beginning episodes. 

4. Sometimes... well... most of the time I didn't understand Ryan Gold's fashion...maybe I'm old fashioned...I don't know.... what do you think?

6. The disgraced  art director of  Cheurm Museum of Art, Uhm So Hye (Kim Sun -Young) and her toxic relationship with her daughter Cindy (Kim Bo Ra).... well her toxic relationship with everybody in her life. She reluctantly hands over management of the museum to Ryan Gold because her husband is going through an embezzlement scandal.  Though she's never far away; always spying on everyone and trying her level best to stay in control of the museum and her former employees. Uhm So is so funny that I couldn't stop laughing at the ridiculous tantrums! I agree with soompi she's a scene stealer for sure. She even goes to the extent of  sending her daughter to be an intern/spy in the museum, which backfires because Cindy starts to discover her own career potential aside from being a being a fan girl...yes Cindy is a fan girl too!

1. When  Heo Yoon Je /Ryan Gold (Choi Go) first goes missing nobody reported it to the police. Why? Sing Doek Mi's mother watches her children playing with this boy late into the evening, even takes him home for a few days when she learns his mother is missing, then abandons him at an orphanage.  Even Heo's mother didn't report to the police when she gained consciousness from the accident. I am guessing Heo was between the ages of eight and ten years old, surely they could have asked him where he stayed and who his mother was?  At that age I knew our home phone number off by heart in case of an emergency, I knew the name of the road we lived on,  I even knew our car registration number. If you know the answers to any of the above questions or you have a different perspective  please comment below.

2. My last question is... what happened to the whole 'fan girl' aspect of  the story? It just fizzled out towards the end. There's no big reveal, Chi Shian never discovers who she is. Fan girling was such a huge part of the beginning episodes. It was a hobby that was jeopardizing many areas of Sing Doek Mi's life . Even Cindy  was thrown out of her home and cut off from her 'rich- kid' lifestyle because of this obsessive hobby and yet they never learn that they are actually online rivals...we needed a proper climax!