
Kim Jun is the son of an escaped palace slave, who was raised by monks. Years later, after being torn from his home during wartime, Kim Jun must renounce his pacifist ways to partake in a deadly game that could be his ticket to freedom from his masters, Choe Chung-heon's clan. During the Mongol invasions of Korea, Kim Jun rises in the ranks to become the top military official and eventually rules the Goryeo empire for 60 years in place of its king.
First Aired: 2/11/2012
Languages: Korean
Type: Scripted
Countries: South Korea


3 episodes
ParkMin
They shouldn't have had made Wol Ah / An Shim be played by the same actress regardless of their intent to have have them share resemblance to one another. Wol Ah had her own role and was a turning point in the story. Since An Shim came to the picture, up until the end she was nothing but Wol Ah's replacement and had no real character. The drama, unsurprisingly, shared a common problem with others of the same genre. The drama started with the backstory and the hero journey but later on it striped the personal attachments and turned it into a battlefield between nations instead of mixing both elements together. It got turned around the other way back and forth 4 more times, making each transition more jarring than the last. This is why there was a massive disconnect after the timeskip in the early second 1/3. In addition, the last 15 episodes were too long to endure.

Kim Joo-hyuk
Kim In-jun/Kim Jun

Kim Ha-eun
Choon-shim

Park Sang-wook
Lee Gong-ju

Lee Seung-hyo
King Gojong

Cheon Ho-jin
Lee Gyu-bo

Ahn Jae-mo
Im Yeon

Park Hae-soo
Kim Yoon-hoo

Kim Gyu-ri
Choe Song-yi

Park Sang-min
Choe Yang-baek

Hong Ah-reum
Wol-ah/An-shim

Cho Eun-sook
Gan-nan of Tobang kitchen

Koh Soo-hee
Nan-jang of Tobang kitchen
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