Such a richly written drama indeed! I find my own reaction to the series interesting because even if I love JH a lot and this is my first time watching Chuno, I have been watching the series perhaps a bit… detached? Appreciating everything but not letting myself be too attached to the characters because sageuks (especially the epic ones) are always, always written to break hearts.

A bunch of thoughts:
(1) THE GIRL – I am not a fan of Lee Da Hae’s role so far (standing frozen during battle scenes) but I envy her for being in all these gorgeous locations, shot cinematically from all angles. How it must feel to be the object of fervor from our two male leads in such an epic tale. (I envy her also for starring several times in dramas with Jang Hyuk and Lee Dong Wook)

(2) THE PRODUCTION – Not sure if this has been asked/answered in the threads before but just how much of this series was pre-produced? I can’t imagine the amount of work needed to make it work like this, it feels impossible to shoot this live. I remember JH mentioning that the lower you are in the caste system (in dramas), the more you get to travel to interesting places because kings and royals are usually just stuck in the palace. How true!

(3) THE OTHER GIRL – Unfortunately, I’m in the minority of not being a fan of Seolhwa for many reasons but especially with her losing the horses… again!? Her new outfit (pink and grey headgear) is much more becoming for her and I understand why our trio needs her to balance out the testosterone (and her previous hanbok provides a splash of color to their mostly brown outfits).

(4) THE NOT SO BAD GUY – Huge fan of the actor who plays Ji Ho (have always liked his roles, good or bad, in all the other series including It’s Okay That’s Love) and for the first time in Chuno, I feel for him and root for him as he mourns for Mandeuk (and he doesn’t even know what has happened with the rest of the gang sent back to HanYang). I can hope/imagine him teaming up with Dae Gil later.

(5) THE DETAILS – I love the little details of this drama, including the “character” of Song Tae Ha’s weapon, huge and chipped. And never have I seen such realistic slave clothing (and fleshing out of day to day living) in any other drama than this. Would it have killed the owners/masters to dress their servants in slightly better clothing? I doubt they pay them wages, right?

(6) THE ROMANCE – If I were to view this show strictly disregarding Dae Gil, then I can totally root for the pairing of Unnyun and Song Tae Ha. It is epic in its own right, a guy on the run with a noble mission and a noble spirit, paired with a girl who has been through a lot and who deserves her own happiness at last.

That said, while I haven’t watched JH and LDH’s other shows together (Robber and Iris 2) the show’s producers must believe a lot on their chemistry to bank on them having a romance that keeps them apart nearly half of the series (so far). Their reunion must be phenomenal too with all this pain and longing. And with how the show is moving, I both look forward to and dread what’s coming.

I’m starting my new year off by jumping back on the Chuno group watch bandwagon (albeit a little late). I have one question and one comment on this pair of episodes.

Question: Towards the end of Episode 9, Eonnyeon hands back Tae Ha’s folded robes to him while they are on the boat, and he gives her a surprised look, as if there was something significant in the act. Was there? Am I missing something? It seems like something shifted in their relationship at that moment, but I’m not sure what or why.

Comment: In Episode 10 during Dae Gil’s showdown with Keunnom, the more shocking thing to me, rather than the reveal about Keunnom’s parentage, was Keunnom’s description of Dae Gil’s reaction when his father sentenced Eonnyeon to death. The image of Dae Gil crying in his room over the injustice just didn’t compute with the swaggery character we’ve come to know. But then again, when I recalled some of the other flashbacks to Young Dae Gil hiding under a building during the big fight, staring at Eonnyeon as she cries out for him to save her, it becomes clear that Young Dae Gil was pretty spineless. That moment with Keunnom made me realize just how much Dae Gil has changed as a person over time, and how much the fire marked the divergence in Dae Gil and Eonnyeon’s paths. Other commenters have noted that Eonnyeon has always had the heart of a noblewoman, even when she was a slave. Escaping and reinventing herself as Hye Won was the path for her to manifest her true self. However, for Dae Gil, the fire marked a sharp divergence from the path he had initially set out on, and he ended up becoming someone very different from who he had thought he was, probably in part as a rebuke to himself for his past cowardice. Weirdly, to me, Tae Ha seems to be an idealized counterpoint to Young Dae Gil: also of noble bearings and with a similar desire to change the country, but a skilled warrior who would rather die on principle rather than accept something other than what he feels is right. In that sense, it seems almost natural that Eonnyeon would eventually settle with him. But even if Tae Ha doesn’t seem to have Eonnyeon’s heart the way Young Dae Gil did/does, the Dae Gil that exists now never would either.

Happy New Year 2021 to all of you and hope the happy and fun-filled viewing of KDramas continues into this year as well; And I hope and pray for a healthy and peaceful year ahead for all of us;

I have purposely watched only till episode 10 and this is my first time viewing of the drama and I have no idea what happens in the end; So with this in mind, I felt that episodes 9 and 10 were brilliant and has set the pace/tone for the next few episodes and beyond;

Brilliant cinematography, great action sequences and fantastic acting at the right occasions; And special mention of the background score; Honestly in this drama background score is a character in itself;

When I started out on the drama, I had a soft spot for Tae-ha (especially in the first few episodes) but by episode 6 I fell for Dae-gil and I am on team DG now; Something tells me that he is going to end up getting maximum sympathy by the time the drama ends. I already cried out in the last few minutes of episode 10 when they show the slow motion cut of Hye-won moving away; Jang Hyuk hit the ball so out of the park in that sequence with his great acting….

I also liked the confrontation scene between Dae-gil and Hye-won’s brother and the secret revelation was well-timed; I really empathised with the brother character and he did what he felt was right at every occasion. Actually I wanted to know a bit more on what exactly Dae-gil did when his father imprisoned Hye-won. Indeed if he had closed out himself in the room then maybe he was a coward then at that point in his life. Of course I will wait for the drama to end before I say that conclusively.

A special shout-out to the guy who rescues the little prince and his scenes with the royal helper is very touching. Actually I realised that most of the characters in this drama have gone through a lot in life and are either trying to set things right or just scrapping through life; Makes me feel much more thankful for my current life and its perks; Don’t know what I would have done if I was in that period;

But I didn’t like that the friend of brother of Hye-won and Yoon-Ji getting killed so early on; Thought they would play more pivotal roles instead of being wasted away like that; Or maybe the further episodes have far more greater characters coming in…have to wait and watch;

And finally Seol-hwa is so good and honestly I like her better that Hye-won; For someone who has gone through so much in life already and with nobody to protect her until DG comes in, she is so earnest and I really want DG to like her and they both have much better chemistry flowing in;

I have been thinking about Kfangurl and BE’s statement that it was Daegil’s rather rash and irresponsible act (declaring that he wanted to marry Eon Nyeon) that put him on his tragic path. My question is, could he have done things differently? What other options did he have? How would someone else behave in the same situation?

The first option for Daegil would have been to marry a girl of his father’s choice and make Eon Nyeon his concubine. That was a perfectly acceptable practice at the time. However, I just can’t see Daegil doing that. Yes, he is naive and irresponsible, but there is really a room for only one woman in his heart. I find his earnest faithfulness really innocent and touching. Also, becoming Daegil’s concubine would not have improved Eon Nyeon’s situation much. She would have been at the mercy of Daegil’s wife.

Another option for Daegil and Eon Nyeon would have been to just run away, maybe go to a different city and assume new identities. But I still can’t imagine Daegil doing that. How is he going to make a living to support himself and Eon Nyeon? It is also very likely that his father would put slave hunters on their trail.

Daegil and Eon Nyeon could also make a new life in another country, like China or Japan. But again, teen Daegil does not seem to have the resources or the forethought for something like that.

So what really was left for him besides breaking up with Eon Nyeon? He tried to reason with his father, and ended up bringing a disaster on himself and his family, and losing Eon Nyeon. A happy ending would never have been possible for Daegil and Eon Nyeon…

I also tried to imagine Song Tae Ha in a similar situation. He is from a noble family, so he probably owned slaves. I can’t picture him mistreating his slaves, but he would probably keep a distance between them and himself. I also can’t picture him having a wife and a concubine.

@BE, I think Tae Ha was referring to Commander Hwang when he said that his best friend betrayed him. He already knew that Han Seom was following his orders and was not really a traitor. I am still curious about Commander Hwang’s background and past. He accused Song Tae Ha of looking down on him and only giving him orders. So far Tae Has has been shown as a fair and trustworthy leader. In an earlier discussion thread we speculated about Hwang not being noble, or maybe being a noble’s son by a concubine. In other dramas characters of similar circumstances always have a tragic vibe to them. I thought about how different Hwang is from Han Seom, who is also of humble origin. And yet, Han Seom is loyal to Tae Ha. I can’t imagine Tae Ha treating his subordinates differently. So maybe Hwang has a deeply seated inferiority complex, and that’s not something that developed overnight. I can easily imagine how a lifetime of frustrated ambition and mistreatment could have turned him into a sociopath.

It occurs to me that while I’m a first-time watcher of Chuno, I’m not having a very typical first timer’s experience. Reading the comments here each week fills in gaps and draws my attention to points more quickly and completely than most first-time lone watchers could ever imagine. I hardly have time to think “I don’t understand” before I do. The next time I watch, likely on my own, may be more like a first time… because I’ll never remember all of these thought-filled
contributions. 😉

Gorgeous couples costumes this episode. I loved Seol Hwa and Dae Gil’s new clothes. They are a matched pair wearing coordinating colors and rustic yet elegant ensembles. The clothes say they go together in a colorful earthy way – whether or not it ever comes to pass. Similarly, Tae Ha and Un Nyun’s ensembles complement each other and underscore a shared nobility/gentility. Tae Ha’s screams masculine while Un Nyun’s cries feminine. Dae Gil and Seol Hwa’s are both far more androgynous. Though it’s impossible to miss their masculine and feminine charms. And notice how Han Seom and Court Lady’s outfits complement each other in color and design, as well. The crisp whites, the true blues, the slashes of red. They, too, were meant to be together…if only for a few minutes.

While we were swashbuckling and torso-glistening through the first half of the show, I was distracted from the consequential, less light-hearted, stories unfolding. The spate of deaths of people with cast credits in these two episodes suggests we’re moving into more serious territory. I have some trepidation.

Guys! I just wanna say I missed you all so much! lol! Ill be back later to read you all and comment. I’m just so excited to see the thread up, I had to say something. To me, the drama gets even more exciting from now on! I hope you had an amazing holiday.

So much to see in these shows; didn’t feel like filler to me at all. Starting with….

The Body Count. Not one, but two consequential characters cut down in these episodes. Not gonna lie…aghast and sorry to see Lady Ninja go down so soon. I thought she was great. And Keunnom, following major exposition/secret sharing. From a dramatic viewpoint though, these losses bode well because they signal that Show is willing to Do What It Must and that Anything Can Happen.

I share kfangurl’s shipping Han Seom with his Court Lady, only partly b/c I felt unnecessarily proud of myself for recognizing Seom from “Tree With Deep Roots”. It’s easy to forget that everyone has a life, not just Main Characters, and they all matter. It’s a sign of a good show that they can invest us in this side-story so concisely yet compellingly.

I had serious suspension of disbelief issues with Commander Hwang defeating an entire troop after the interview with Tae Ha. I mean, really. This isn’t a superhero saga (or so I thought).

I found Gae Hil’s respect for the recently deceased Baek Ho touching. May he, indeed, rest in peace.

And while Cheobok may never be able to wash her face, her teeth look FANTASTIC! Actually, I suspect that Chun Ji-ho may be more the norm for the era than the rest of our group.

And, I totally, completely, unequivocally agree that Tae Ha’s taking time for kissy-kissy made zero sense and made me crazy. I can say more about this next time, but man! Get your priorities straight!

The confrontation between Dae Gil and Keun Nom is a pivotal scene in the show: as BE observed, it is Dae Gil who is the catalyst of the story, not Eon Nyeon. I thought that the last words Keun Nom spoke to Dae Gil were the words of an older brother advising his younger brother, for the first and the last time.
This is a rewatch for me, so I knew what was going to happen to Keun Nom, but I was very sad at the scene in Episode 2 when he told Eon Nyeon to be happy. This was the last time brother and sister were together…

Dae Gil and Seol Hwa: Her one-sided love is so heart-breaking. I think he knows that she loves him, and has a soft spot for her, but he is unwilling to give himself a chance.

Poor Court Lady and poor Han Seom…poor underlings of Cheon Ji Ho…

Little prince Seok Gyeon has to be the best behaved toddler in history😀.

There is so much to unpack in these two episodes. And I have many different takeaways than you did.

First and foremost, I think that we finally get the real reason for the title, to which I would add one thing. First I want to know if chuno is a singular form. I believe the title of the show should be The Chuno, A Tragedy. That this is not about slave hunters, but one slave hunter and the tragedy of his life in which the tragedy of his age was most dramatically embodied.
First of all with all the carnage of these two episodes does anyone really doubt that as in all tragedies inevitability has set in. Whatever may happen to anyone else, it is clear to me at this point, based on what I know now about our main character, what has led me up through the first nine episodes, culminating in the confrontation at the beginning of episode ten, and what I know of how the arc of tragedies transpire, I cannot envision from this point in our tale that there can be any happy ending for Dae Gil.
We now know for a certainty that Dae Gil put Eon Nyeon in mortal danger,by confessing to his father his love for Eon Nyeon, something that Keun Neom recognizes instantly. And we know Dae Gil did nothing, nothing, nothing, but weep and moan about it while she was first beaten, then imprisoned to die of thirst. This recognition has been prepared for in previous scenes as we have gone back and forth about earlier.

We know on the other hand Keun Neom did something. He first begged Dae Gil’s father for mercy. Then he tried to leverage the reality that Dae Gil’s father had raped his mother, thus the fact of Keun Neom’s birth. And as he is telling Dae Gil this, he makes the point that such (rape) was ubiquitous behavior by such as his father. Dae Gil with all his arrogance about nobility and slaves, even right up to the moment of this confrontation, with his empty promise of a casteless society to Eon Nyeon, Eon Nyeon, who remembers that promise, then telling Tae Ha, there is nothing worse than being a slave–ah, it is not Eon Nyeon who is the catalyst of this story but Dae Gil himself, revealed as the pure embodiment of the worst, the most cowardly, the most privileged and hypocritical element of the outrageous injustice between the noble class and their slaves.
And insult to injury, finding out that Eon Nyeon has wed Tae Ha, in denial, in screaming denial, before and after, Keun Neom forcing his hand by placing his trust in Dae Gil’s love for Eon Nyeon that Dae Gil on the blood of his self sacrifice will propel him to doing the right thing in the end, Dae Gil is overwhelmed by the abject shock of his situation.
Irony heaped upon irony, Dae Gil’s denial bursts out of him upon the empty rationale of his emotions that Eon Nyeon has eloped with another slave, Tae Ha, whom we should not forget he was hired to hunt down by the Left State Minister, Evil Incarnate, that Dae Gil has been played by the epitome of the corrupt, avaricious, and murderous noble class.

Much else to discuss–an elaboration on the theme of who is really noble; the heroic beauty of Tae Ha and Eon Nyeon; the mendacious but human evil of Commander Hwang; the epic poem of Han Seom; team Ji Ho; the problem of dislocation and sense of time; the relative sword bad assery of Tae Ha, Commander Hwang, Han Seom, whereas Dae Gil fists and knife; laughter as a dramatic device–think Dae Gil, Ji Ho, and Left State Scoundrel; Eon Nyeon disappearing from Dae Gil as she embraces Tae Ha; Han Seom’s comment about saving one person one saves a nation, commenting about Tae Ha’s nobility in going back for Eon Nyeon–but for me the single most important element of these two episodes is how they culminate all that went before and direct where we will be headed from here on out, and above all show us the abject complexity of Dae Gil. There is no other character half so conflicted or complex. I feel much warmer toward Tae Ha than I did in my first viewing, Eon Nyeon as well–something epic and heroic about the two of them, but I understand better than at any previous point why Dae Gil is the focus of this drama, and it has nothing to do with liking or disliking, simply there is more there there to Dae Gil as magnificently enacted by Jang Hyuk.

My thoughts:
So, we’re into the second third of the piece, and it feels like a lot of deadwood getting cleared to launch into whatever comes next. Cosplaying ninja lady: ded! White tiger warrior dude: ded! Eunyeon (and Daegil! who knew?!) brother: ded! Most of Jiho’s disreputable crew of rogues: ded! Commander Hwang…unfortunately not ded! But wounded, at least!

Yeah, so I know y’all have spilled a fair amount of ink trying to humanize Commander Hwang, or give some depth to the dude, and I have to say I’m just not feeling it. This guy is a jerk, and I have a hard time caring about if it’s because he wants to give his mom a better life or whatever. I mean, why you gotta throw a cut bamboo spear through the back of the hard-working nursing maid, for cryin’ out loud? You need that for your bucket list, or next promotion on up the villain tier or something? Also, I get that Commander Hwang is supposed to be a serious bad-ass in the warriorly arts, but wounded and still takes down an entire platoon of troops? Nah, we’re in fantasy-land now.

Conversely, for maybe the first time, I was starting to sort of warm to Eunyeon a little as a character. I mean, she’s still kind of useless, but her warming up to Taeha and signalling support of his mission and goals made me feel like she was more there, more of a living breathing character with agency. And man, she sure made a pretty picture seated in that colorful hanbok against that incredible mountain panorama backdrop. That was pretty breathtaking. I don’t care overmuch for their romance-as-romance, but conceptually, seeing it run in parallel to the Daegil-Seolhwa pairing, I found myself wishing more than once over these two episodes that Eunyeon and Taeha would just get together, do their mission(s) or whatever, and live happily ever after together.

Which brings me, yet again, to Daegil and Seolhwa, and I’m starting to sound broken record here, but man. Girlfriend is just yearning for that boy and he’s consumed with a brain rot named Eunyeon. Maybe that symbolic vision of her turning away and leaving will provide a temporary break in the fever? Can’t possibly hope for it to be permanent, but still find myself hoping for Daegil to get his head on straight (and his heart aligned) and notice what’s right under his nose, so to speak.

(This reminds me, what happened with Kim Ha-eun, who played Seolhwa? Her career as an actress never seemed to really take off, and she–at least so far–has been a vibrant delight in this. ‘Tis a mystery).

Anyway, that’s enough for now. Curious to see where we go from here, ’cause we still have over half the show to go.