뉴스레터

It's sad to think about the movie "Gwanghae" for two reasons. One is because of the response I get whenever I ask the following questions when giving special lectures. "Has anyone here read my book?" I'm usually lucky to find one or two hands raised out of a hundred. Then when I ask "Anyone watched the movie Gwanghae?", most in the audience raise their hands. The movie "Gwanghae: The Man Who Became King" (Gwanghe: Wangi dwoen namja) was released just when I had published my book "Gwanghaegun, That Dangerous Mirror" (Gwanghaegun, Geu wiheomhan geoul), which was written from conducting research with the general public. That timely coincidence directed many questions my way with one of the most popular being "Is there really a fifteen-day gap in "The Diaries of Gwanghaegun" (Gwanghaegun ilgi)?"

The movie's trailer clearly features the following caption, which does actually appear in "The Diaries of Gwanghaegun."

February 28, the eighth year of Gwanghaegun's reign, "Do not leave a record of things that must be concealed" (可諱之事, 勿出朝報).

Then comes a transposition between the actor Ryu Seung-ryong's voice and captions with a horse-riding scene and background music full of tension.

"Go get those fifteen days' worth of diary entries from Seungjeongwon this instant!" "Missing from the Joseon wangjo sillok" (in caption) "Get them no matter what, even if it means stealing them!" "The whereabouts of Gwanghaegun for 15 days……." (in caption)

At first, I was rather stunned by the question asking whether there really is no record of those fifteen days. I had read "The Diaries of Gwanghaegun" multiple times and it never occurred to me that any records had been left out. Nevertheless, I double checked before I proceeded to answer such questions from reporters, but actually, anyone can easily find the answer to that question for themselves by checking the Joseon wangjo sillok, known as the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty. That is because it has been made available online through a website dedicated to it (http://sillok. history.go.kr/).

○ February 27, 28, 29, and March 1, 3, 4 of the Eighth Year of Gwanghaegun's Reign

The records are all there. There are no fifteen days' worth of records missing. That is why I once laughed and said that the movie starts out with a lie. Apart from the cute lie about missing records, the movie exposes a couple of other ignorant aspects from the very beginning.

Take the first ignorant aspect. An order demands "diary entries" to be fetched from Seungjeongwon, the Royal Secretariat of the Joseon dynasty, but then refers to them as missing from the Joseon wangjo sillok. Seungjeongwon ilgi, or the Diaries of the Royal Secretariat, has therefore been mistaken for Joseon wangjo sillok, the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty. Of course, it is understandable if the scriptwriter had actually meant to refer to Gwanghaegun ilgi, or the Diaries of Gwanghaegun, but that is also incorrect. The reason Gwanghaegun ilgi is called ilgi, meaning diaries, and not sillok, meaning annals, is because Gwanghaegun had been a dethroned king. Moreover, while Gwanghaegun ilgi and Seungjeongwon ilgi may both have the word ilgi as part of their titles, the nature of each record is completely different from one another.

Then there's the second ignorant aspect. It would have been impossible to compile the Diaries of Gwanghaegun under the reign of Gwanghaegun himself. According to the custom, the sillok's compilation began during the early stages of Gwanghaegun's successor King Injo's reign, but it was never finished because Gwanghaegun had squandered the royal treasury in constructing palaces, so the sillok remaining today are actually early drafts of it.

On the other hand, the order not to "leave a record of things that must be concealed" in the Jobo (朝報, daily government gazette), is true. Around that time, the deposal of the Queen Dowager Inmok was being discussed in court at Joseon. That was also when envoys from China were visiting Joseon. Fearing that talk of the deposal led by bureaucrats Jeong In-hong (鄭仁弘) and Yi I-cheom (李爾瞻) might leak out and create diplomatic problems with China, Gwanghaegun did in fact make such an order. The underlying reason for making the order had been a mediocre one to avoid further suspicion from the Ming dynasty of political instability in Joseon since Chinese envoys had already been dispatched to Joseon around the time Gwanghaegun sent his brother Imhaegun into exile. By that time, it had become customary to bribe such envoys with silver to talk them out of passing on negative news. These would have been motifs behind Gwanghaegun's addiction to poppies for fifteen days that is featured in the movie.

Apart from names such as Gwanghae or Heo Gyun, and terms like Daedongbeop (Uniform Tax Law), Ming (明) dynasty, subjects, sangcham (常參, morning audience with the king), and titles such as Jungjeon (queen) or Sanggung (ladies-in-waiting), everything that appears in the movie Gwanghae is pure fiction. That should be acceptable since it is a movie after all, yet I find myself questioning whether we should be so accepting. Because it actually does end up confusing many people who watch the movie.

In reality, Heo Gyun was someone who had been far from being a man of integrity. His work "Hong Gil-dong Jeon," or the Story of Hong Gil-dong, makes us remember him as a visionary figure who dreamt of a new world based on equality. However, Heo Gyun in the history of Joseon is someone who colluded with Yi I-cheom in proposing that the Queen Dowager Inmok be deposed, only to be betrayed by the very Yi I-cheom later on.

Figures like the eunuch Cho in the movie did exist in real life, for instance, the eunuch named Yi Bong-jeong. When Gwanghaegun once asked Yi Bong-jeong why the eunuch had recently been putting on weight, this was what he said in reply. "I used to lose weight from being so busy serving the previous king, but I've been gaining weight from not having much do so since Your Highness ascended the throne." That was a direct criticism toward Gwanghaegun for his inertia towards tending to state affairs. Eunuchs are often depicted as clowns in television dramas, something that should be treated with more caution. Without them struggling in the shadows of the palace, there would be no king.

All else aside, there is one comment I would like to make lest people might mistake the Gwanghae featured in the movie for the real Gwanghaegun. The Gwanghae addicted to poppies is the closest resemblance to the real Gwanghaegun in the history of Joseon. Full of suspicion, insecurity, and narrow views……. Even so, history textbooks describe that Gwanghaegun was responsible for introducing Daedongbeop, or the Uniform Tax Law. It is true that he established the bureau called Seonhyecheong (宣惠廳), which was supposed to be in charge of enforcing the law. However, Daedongbeop languished from being opposed by Gwanghaegun as well as the cabinet, and discussions surrounding it surfaced again only after Injo banjeong, the coup d'état of Injo in 1623.

Which brings me to the second reason I feel sad when I think of the movie Gwanghae. A caption scrolls up near the end of the movie, which reads "Gwanghae was the one and only king of Joseon who imposed tax only on land owners and stood up against the Ming dynasty for his subjects." Setting aside the veracity of whether he really did stand up against the Ming dynasty, that caption only reminds me of the grownups in one of Hans Christian Andersen's tales when they look at the naked emperor's procession and shower his clothes with compliments such as "What fine material!" No, that misleading caption is not just sad, it's both sad and comical at once.