I’m in trouble. I can’t decide which fusion sageuk to blog: the “Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency” or the “Tale of Nokdu.” They’re both televised on the same days, dubbed by Viki, and feature male leads that I like.

Should I let you decide for me? That way if the show turns out weird, I can blame you? Haha.

Let’s roll.

1. The Ahjussi characters

I swear I spent a good half hour trying to figure out who all the ahjussis were. I had trouble identifying them because they all sported beards and mustaches. Grrr.

Here’s Nokdu’s dad. Thanks @agdr03 for reminding me that this actor played Mr. Park in “Memories of the Alhambra,” and the creepy husband/dad in “He’s Psychometric.” But do you know that he was also that lifeline doctor in “Hotel del Luna”? He’s had a very busy year, eh?

His name in this drama is Jung Yoon Jeo, and that’s his son, presumably his biological son.

Here’s the King.

He doesn’t seem to be well-liked. His carriage was stoned by an old man who protested the seizure of his property in order to build a palace for the king.

The King had a dream about strangling the baby Nokdu. It’s too early to tell whether he actually attempted to kill the baby (and the baby survived!) or he merely had an active imagination combined with a guilt complex.

Now, I don’t know who this man in the King’s entourage. I’m keeping an eye on him.

The King’s Minister/Right-hand man addressed him as “Your majesty” or “Jeona” so for a second there, I thought he was the King’s body double. lol.

And he wore this big ring. That looks like ring for man who’s over-compensating for a small pecker. Lol.

This is a Minister/King’s confidant. I’ll call him Minister for now.

He’s been deceiving the King about the death of the baby.

Minister: The body (Nokdu’s) disappeared?
Aide: Yes. When they went back, he was gone.
Minister: The sponsor of the meeting told me that he definitely died…He tracked Muwoldan by faking his death. (If so), he’s already at the Widow’s Village.
Aide: But it’s a place where men can’t enter.
Minister: He can easily hide at the courtesan house or anywhere nearby. Tell them to look for him thoroughly. What happened to the king’s people who went to the island?

huh? What was he talking about? What king’s people? More spies? assassins?

Aide: We sent them elsewhere and only Muwoldan remains. So, he won’t be able to find out anything.
Minister: What about the rest who ran away from the island?

I think he’s referring to Nokdu’s “father” and “brother” and his teacher and his 6-year-old fiancée.

Aide: All the widows spread out everywhere and will start looking for them, so it shouldn’t be for long.
Minister: You must find every one of them without fail, understand?

Once his aide left, he muttered, “He has a long-lasting life. Why did he reappear? Why now of all times?”

Here, he wasn’t referring to Nokdu. He was referring to his old friend, Nokdu’s surrogate dad, Jung Yoon Jeo. He has a flashback of the moment he first found out that Jung Yoon Jeo reappeared.

Minister: Who did you say you just saw?
Colleague: I’m sure it was Jung Yoon Jeo. I went down all the way to Gangyangpo over promotion matters, and I was so shocked when I saw him.
Minister: (But) Yoon Jeo died during the uprising.
Colleague: I know. Exactly. So I took another look, and it was definitely him.
Minister: You must’ve just seen wrong. Don’t go around saying such things. You’ll only get scolded for lying.

lol. He was acting here. He just didn’t want the king to know that JYJ had been spotted and search for JYJ.

Colleague: His Highness was very pleased to hear of it.
Minister: (face falling) You’re saying that you told His Highness?
Colleague: I did. You were, too, but His Highness was a close friend of his.

When his colleague left, he clenched his hand. He knew he was in trouble and had to act fast.

The Minister didn’t know that Jung Yoon Jeo (JYJ) was in Gangyangpo looking for a medicine shop. He was buying medicine for his ailing wife. (Mind you, judging by the way he was coughing, he looked like he could use some medicine for himself.) He was spotted by the colleague who thought he died in the uprising.

The Minister also didn’t know that the King had sent his own aide to look for JYJ in Gangyangpo and the nearby islands. His aide returned saying that no one by that name was found. The King expressed (fake?) disappointment that the friend whom he thought died during the uprising, wasn’t found.

I thought for sure that the Minister was a bad apple but as it turned out, he was the one to let JYJ go free. Hearing the baby Nokdu cry was a pivotal moment of conscience for him. He told JYJ, “Go. I’ll tell him that the child died and that you buried him. And that you fell in the water after I cut you with the sword. Live like you’re dead. Like you’re dead.”

But it’s also possible that the Minister just cannot stomach killing. He almost throttled the King to death while he was (fake) sleeping but he changed his mind at the last minute.

To be honest, I’m not eager to see NokDu end up on the throne. With all palace intrigues and political factions, the ideal life for him and DongJu might be somewhere far away from Hanyang.

2. The medicine

I find it interesting that Nokdu’s earliest memory of his mother was watching her put medicinal herbs on his brother’s legs. Although the camera didn’t show his mother putting salve on his own legs, it could be inferred that his mother didn’t do the same thing for him. He closed his eyes and turned his eyes from the sight.

By the time they grew up, he didn’t expect his mother to worry about him. Once when he and his Hyung were laying on the beach, he told his brother to go home because Mother will be worried. His brother replied, “She worries about you, too. Let’s go in together.” Nokdu wondered aloud, “Will she?” His remark suggests that he sensed that his mother was indifferent to him, and cared for his Hyung alone.

That’s why the medicine represented something sad to me. The absence of a maternal affection is the reason he didn’t think of putting medicinal herbs on his burn and thought only of attending to DongJu’s wounded hands. He wasn’t used to getting his wounds treated.

It was DongJu who thought of applying the medicine on him because Nokdu slept without giving a thought to his painful butt.

Then when he received medicine from his suitor, Yeon Geun, he again thought only of applying the ointment on Dong Ju’s burn, not on his. He cheekily offered his butt for Yeon Geum’s medicine, but of course there was no way he’d let his butt be touched.

He tended to Dong Ju’s hand first like a mother.

But Dong Ju admitted that she was used to having someone take care of her. Before she entered the gisaeng’s establishment, she’d been a precious child. Her dying mother urged her to live on when her whole clan was massacred. Hence, her attempt to assassinate the King. She blamed him for her family’s murder.

To me, DongJu’s memory of her mother contrasted greatly from Nokdu’s memory of his own dying mother. At her deathbed, she was half-apologetic for her actions and half-resentful for being pushed into a life on the run.

She told Nokdu, “My son…Sorry for making you live like this. I made you like this when you’re so precious. I’m very sorry, Lee Hyun.”

Surprised, Nokdu said “What?” so she replied, “Listen to me carefully. Your name is not Hwang Tae. Jung. Lee…”

This was a weird confession (or perhaps a weird sub). Hwang Tae was the name of his hyung. Was his mother delirious and mixing up her two sons?

She started to gasp so she couldn’t reveal his birth secret. lol. This is so makjang! 🤢 She barely managed to blame him for her miserable life in hiding, “It’s because of you. If it weren’t for you, my son would’ve been…our family would’ve been.…”

Remembering all this, Nokdu opted to view his mother as a good person. She was a pitiful person and he was sorry for her.

His mother’s deathbed confession confirmed what he knew all along. She treated him differently from his Hyung. And it’s all because he wasn’t her biological son.

To me then one of the advantages of staying at the Widows’ Village is that the MOTHERLY attention Nokdu previously missed was now being compensated by the neighborly care and attention he received from the women. The strong women were looking after him and his needs (i.e., taking him to the bathing pool and comforting him about his small breasts) like nagging mothers. Lol.

3. Cutting DongJu’s hair

This is the significance of the haircutting:

In Korea, during the Joseon Dynasty, men and women were forbidden to cut their hair, since it was viewed as a legacy from parents and thus something to be preserved.

source: koreajoongangdaily

This other site concurs: Ask-a-korean

Go ahead and check that site out if you want to know more about hairstyles for women, like the giseng’s hair.

And this poster from the Quora forum cited Confucius:

Confucius said this
身體髮膚，受之父母，不敢毀傷，孝之始也=

which means

Our bodies – to every hair and bit of skin – are received by us from our parents, and we must not presume to injure or wound them. This is the beginning of filial piety.

Quote from 孝經

To me, Nokdu’s reaction to DongJu’s haircutting was a revelation.

For somebody like him who was always trying to sail away since he was a child, and was now on a mission to discover his real identity and family, DongJu’s act showed defiance and self-determination — two traits that he could admire and emulate.

As a child, Nokdu protested his father’s strict orders not to go on boats. However, because his brother was whipped along with him for his disobedience, he learned to comply. His hyung became his whipping boy so he stopped. Even when the assassins came for him, his brother was the one who got stabbed.

Seeing DongJu defiantly cut her hair and confront a nobleman must have been an eye-opener for him. To save a young child from a lecherous nobleman, she was willing to sacrifice her hair. She didn’t allow strict social conventions get in the way of doing the right thing.

To me, Nokdu was mesmerized by Dongju’s act because they were kindred spirits.

Just like she was determined to stop the lecher, he was equally determined to find the leader of the assassins. He wanted to know the reason the assassins came after him. Since his father was unwilling to reveal the secret about his true identity, he was going to get the answer by other means.

I thought the cinematography was pretty appropriate. In slow motion, DongJu cut her hair and the wind ruffled her hair. This was a literal “wind of change” and her new hairstyle signified a new start for her. Cutting her hair meant she was rebelling. She always had a different purpose from the other gisaeng anyway. She was planning an assassination, remember? But now, her outer appearance matched her inner goal. Hence her hair ties were blown from her hair and fell to the ground. That meant the old ways could no longer hold her back.

Meanwhile, Nokdu’s hair, too, was windblown, and we have a “couple” hairstyle. lol.

4. Cool scenes

Part of the fun of watching this show is the unexpected twists. I can’t yet predict where the writer is going with the jokes. Take for instance this scene at the bathing pool.

I thought the ladies were shocked because

they saw his armpit hair.

lol. I would have been shocked, too.

As it turned out, they were shocked because they saw a peeping Tom, or rather a peeping Yeon Geum.

There were plenty of scenes too that I liked not for their comedic value, but because they were “heart-fluttering.” Like that scene in Episode 1 when DongJu and NokDu were sent to the courtyard after waking up in jail. DongJu was rattled by the sight of people being tortured (she must have suffered from PTSD from her family’s massacre) and couldn’t respond to the interrogation. Sensing her panic, Nokdu laid a hand on her shoulder and stood up to take the heat off of her.

I thought the way he stood up looked quite majestic, although there were no trumpets blaring and fireworks lit in the background.

He took the heat instead for DongJu.

He absolutely looked cool in this scene without resorting to histrionics. (Ha! Do you hear me now, Lee Seunggi, and director of “Vagabond”?)

I also liked the way he used his brains as much as he used his brawns. For instance after they were set free from jail, he was trying to figure out how to find the assassin, the owner of this overcoat.

He deduced that the other assassin must be looking for him, too, so…

he slung the coat on his shoulder. lol. This move is as badass as waving a red flag to a bull. He wanted the assassin to come and get him.

I also like the scene when he “saved” DongJu from a fate worse than death, that is, doing laundry. Ha! This is one moment when I don’t mind being a damsel in distress.

Nokdu saw her walking with a laundry basket and he sighed in exasperation.

He went right after her and took charge of the laundry. It didn’t bother him that he was doing a “woman’s job”. He just went out and did it because he knew SHE shouldn’t be doing laundry with her injured hand. 😍 Awww. He won me over in that instant.

I swoon when a guy shows initiative and helps with chores without being asked.

But Nokdu needs to go easy with his grip on her shoulder. He pushed her away and she toppled down.

I don’t think he’s aware of his strength. This was the second time he accidentally tossed her to the ground. The first time was when he pulled her out of the way of an “assassin.”

I’m looking forward to that time when he can tenderize his enemies to an inch of their lives then tenderly pat DongJu to sleep like he did in jail. He doesn’t know yet how to match his strength to her.

5. Cross-dressing

Like @nrllee, I’m not a fan of cross-dressing tropes. However, this romcom intrigues me because the male lead is the one disguised as the opposite sex. The actor Jang Dong-Yoon is doing a convincing job — even his fake voice matches his fake appearance — so I’m going to stay to see how this story goes. I’m sure the writer can milk the situation and create more hijinks for at least four more episodes.

He’s obviously falling for her hard. To watch him struggle with his attraction while a) she remains clueless and b) he’s so repressed about skinship is going to be a hoot. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.