Hwarang: The Beginning

In Hwarang: The Beginning, many aspects of specifically Asian melodrama tropes of coincidence and of the universal melodramatic mother are present. In this story, two peasants, Mak Moon and Moo Myung travel to the capital of their kingdom, Silla. This mission is extremely risky, as it is forbidden for uninvited outsiders to enter the palace, shown by the heads mounted on the exterior walls. However, in Mak Moon’s attempt to find his father and sister in the kingdom, the two childhood friends enter the palace, but Mak Moon is soon killed for seeing the hidden king. The story from here progresses mainly between the relationships of Moo Myung, Mak Moon’s sister, and the hidden king. Since this is a period drama, the stakes of the characters are well put in place for a melodramatic mood. Ben Singer in Melodrama and Modernity describes the genre of melodrama as having “heightened emotionalism”. Such emotionalism occurs especially in this drama with the life/death laws between the peasant/royalty. One of those laws being that anyone who sees the hidden king, conscious of who he is, must die, like Mak Moon.

         The elevated levels of emotion also come about through shocking and overdone coincidences. For example, when Mak Moon has been stabbed for seeing the hidden king, the person who happens to find him is his father, the one he was searching for. This causes his death scene to be especially heartbreaking and emotionally intense for the viewer. Later on as well Moo Myung, who joined Hwarang, the poet warriors, as one of the only non-noble men, turns out to be of noble blood. The stake of this nobility is high as well, because Moo Myung happens to be a secret son, actually named Sun Woo Rang, in direct line for throne. This puts him in competition with the other hidden king. The battle between cousins for the throne also leads into another character of Hwarang, the self-sacrificial Queen Dowager.

         In trying to keep the hidden king the successor to the throne, the Queen Dowager, the hidden king’s mother, sacrifices much of her own happiness and health. Like many women in melodrama, her agency comes from her self-sacrifice. “The female characters in family melodramas attempt to solve these problems and maintain the family… through the repression of their own desires and other acts of self-sacrifice.” (Mercer 25) While trying to keep her son in line for throne, the Queen had to sacrifice many important relationships, including her best friend. Since her friend was pregnant by her brother, the Queen Dowager had to kill her in order to stop competition between their offspring for the throne (but unbeknownst to the Queen the unwanted son, Sun Woo Rang, survives). She also sacrifices her life for her son’s throne by knowingly drinking poisoned tea for years. Out of fear that those poisoning her would poison her son if she called them out on their actions, she consciously accepted her death long before its time, fulfilling her self-sacrificial agency.