Il Ji Mae (sbs 2008)

Yeah, I call it the "Lee Jung Ki Rules." Same thing happened in Time of Dog and Wolf. In both shows, he's a helpless, hapless welp for much of the story. But when ish starts to really hit the fan, his character flips it On and then we get to experience Ultimate Lee Jung Ki at his cockiest and wiliest. Suddenly, his character becomes Korean James Bond. All the women fall in love with them; and all the men cannot stop him.

And reallly Yong, if you had applied yourself like you did when trying to steal that golden thingie, you'd easily have passed the exam!

The lattern / stone thing (as well as him jumping walls easily) kinda makes sense, in that his thief dad already taught him a great deal about movement. (Though then it begs the question why his dad was so bad at this.) Also, if we had fully recovered his memory, he would have also regained his martial arts training, which would have been of the same class as Ja Dol's. This adaptation of Iljimae briefly covers his training, but I guess we're led to believe that he spent an enormous amount of time working on his craft. And, again, he's being played by Lee Jung Ki. Therefore, he's bad ass.

One major problem I have with the character is how, after recovering his memories, his personality hasn't changed that much. As a child, he seemed extremely principled, even a bit self righteous. Here, he still maintains a callow indifference that lets him stay in a gang, even though he knows what they do is despicable. Even his leader wants him to quit.

Can't wait to see how the heck he got an Invisibility Cloak. Harry Potter's his boy?

Yeah I know he learnt some skills from Jal Dol, like you said he's not that good and from what I can see of the skills he taught Yong it's mostly being quiet and climbing over walls also breaking locks. But not somersault and go up all over the roof. As to him remembering his fighting skills off his real dad. All we saw was his dad teaching him basic sword skills, which he had not used and was very basic swings.

Even in the child scene, he doesn't feel anything about Eun Chae seeing it. It's more like "phew, I weaseled my way out of beating a child. But it's okay watching a village get torn asunder like that." I just have a hard time connecting it with the young Geom.

The story took a long, long time to set up the triangle and the political intrigue, but now we're seeing the payoff. Eun Chae loves Iljimae. Bong Soon loves Yong-ee. Which is Geom really? We can't see the upright princess Eun Chae mix with the callow Yong-ee and we can't see high spiritied Bong Soon with the noble Iljimae. Now, Kong Hee has discovered that Yong-ee is really Geom. And it doesn't seem like a plot twist; it seems inevitable that the man with even more secrets than Geom has found the boy's.

Jung Ki's performance of the wackier side of Yong-ee has greatly improved, because it now has context. It's not that Jung Ki is giving us a Geom who hides his pain under neath the veneer of the happy go lucky gangsta wannabe. It's that, because we the audience know that this clown is in fact a very smart boy, Jung Ki now can play it as a pure act, a demonstration of his character's intelligence. That wiliness, that smirky "what me worry?" bravado that Jung Ki used in Time of Dog and Wolf works wonderfully here.

Going back to the triangle . . . Part of what made Geom and Eun Chae such a hard sell (after watching Yong-ee and Bong Soon's HGD-style give and go), is that Han Hyo Joo has done a very good job portraying a young noble woman. A young noble woman simply would not mesh with Yong-ee; it's not two opposites, but oil and water. Usually such characters are played with the arch grace of a beauty pageant, but here Hyo Joo underlines her character's intensity and blue-blooded seriousness. (Also, it helps that Hyo Joo is very, very at ease with the lines, which more fit the more ornate style than the modern stuff everybody else is using.)

She's so serious, in fact, that she and Yong are no fun at all. But she and Iljimae . . . They are of two like minds. Episode 11 is the beginning of their romance, and also of Iljimae's internal transformation. She mistakes Iljimae's acts of class revenge for class justice, and yet her belief also motivates Iljimae to change his mind too. Her "our world MUST be made better" conviction, that which brings her closer to Iljimae, also is the same thing that makes her hate Yong with a piercing and arrogant anger. It's very well done. Between Jung Ki and Hyo Joo, when as noble thief and princess activist,there's a fairy tale "above mere mortals" chemistry between them. An inevitable sense of bond by sharing of same ideals, a beautiful highness that is like pop celebrity, in that it makes other people go "wow, they look perfect together."

I liked how they're dialing Bong Soon down a bit. She and Yong is wonderful counterpoint to Eun Chae and Iljimae. Soon and Young are sweet, unpretentious, accessible. When he is badly hurt, you could imagine that a scene between Eun Chae and the hurt Iljimae would be gilded with tears reflecting perfectly in moonlight and tenderly sad looks whilst Iljimae is crying out deliriously for his family. It would just have to be, because they seem like that kind of couple. Instead, we have Soon wondering how the heck Yong could have gotten himself into this mess, and how really she even surprises herself as to how much she cares for this annoying, immature, yet mysterious guy. She loves him accidently. They're not dazzling, but they're more accessible. I like Yong-ee more than I like Iljimae.

Part of Jung Ki's charisma is that, at 26, he's still so much a Peter Pan. In that aspect, he can be so adolescent in portraying anger and cruelty, crude smarminess or callow arrogance, or vulnerability and sincerity. But, also appropriate to the Peter Pan myth, he's also very Princely, slightly above in station even when he's rolling with the masses. By Episode 11, we have started to see all sides of Geom, and in turn we have seen Jung Ki's Peter Pan fully out of the box.

Loved the bit with the octopus, and the way his legend uhhhh overrates his actual skills. Also, I liked how, at least, we can see that perhaps his pure martial skills are not yet all there. When he fights Park Shi Hoo, he is out of his league and nearly dies.

This episode had marvelous pacing, and it enhanced the Iljimae vs. Shi Hoo rivalry. They've done a good job setting the "hunt for Iljimae" story; you know it's too early for him to get caught, but you can feel how close Shi Hoo is to getting him. The first part of the episode showed how Iljimae has a long ways to go, and the last part of the episode nicely used "the passage of time" device. It nicely sets up the return of Iljimae and Yong-ee.

Was Kong He the one who actually slain both Bong Song's parents and Geom's father? I don't remember, but it just adds another level of complication to this story. Will the student kill the master?

If you watched and didn't like Time Of Dog And Wolf's ending then I suggest you don't watch the Iljimae Finale.

One BIG disappointed fan here.