The Historical K-Drama Mini-Series Hymn Of Death

Hymn of Death is a three-part mini series which I watched on Netflix. At first, I thought it was just your normal scene but it's actually based on a real account such as the Korean series known as Hwang Jini. A historical drama would be based on an actual event yet you've got some scenes that are merely extras or imagined by the director -- such as family conversations since history books don't record everything they've said word for word.

The story is based on a married man named Kim Wu Jin who ended up having an affair with an opera singer named Yun Sim-Deok. How the affair happened or why it happened seems not to be clear. But it's imagined in said series he's stuck in a loveless marriage that his father arranged for him -- so he must be unwillingly married to a woman he doesn't love. So what shocks me is that the first Korean woman soprano wasn't all that good looking based on the picture from Lee Dong Suk's (the guy who acted as Wu Jin) Twitter account.

Shin Hye Sun (who looks like a Korean version of Kabataan Partylist member Rep. Sarah Elago) looks better than the actual face of the first Korean soprano. She had a voiceover from So Hyang (and I just heard the name just now) so I wonder does actress really know how to sing? But it was an impressive voice over if you ask me. I like how she portrayed her emotions even if she does remind me of Sarah from Kabataan Partylist -- at least on the surface only!

The setting is in Imperial Japanese-occupied Korea prior to the split. The occupation happened from 1910 and ended in 1945 -- way back when it was still a unified Korea! It was time to watch the atrocities of the now-extinct Imperial Japan. The story also involves where Sim-Deok was offered a chance to become a collaborator. It was a difficult choice especially that said person comes from a poor family.

I just thought the director knew how to insert those imagined scenes quite well. There's the possibility that Sim-Deok's family objected to her becoming a Japanese collaborator or how Dong Suk's father must have reacted. I guess they did dig the diaries of both people and imagined the scenes to what could have happened behind the scenes for both characters. Makes me feel nostalgic to my Asian history and world history days in high school!

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