Today we’re talking about ‘The Tale of Nokdu’, a gender bender historical drama based on a 2014 Webtoon series.
Women dressing up as men and somehow fooling people is big in K-dramas. This sub-genre is rather special, and it’s not so rare for people to start watching a drama purely because of gender-bending shenanigans.
Sageuks are hardly a stranger to the gender bender trope, and in fact tend to pair well with it. From ‘Sungkyunkwan Scandal’ to ‘Queen SeonDuk’ and ‘Love in the Moonlight’, you have everything from fun and fluff to political intrigue and straight up drama.
The way ‘Nokdu’ stands out among its peers, is that in a rather unusual turn of events, this time it’s a man who’s pretending to be a woman.
Joseon Rom-Com: The Tale of Nokdu
Meet Jeon Nok-Du (Jang Dong-Yoon), a … resourceful and athletic dude who has spent his entire life on a remote island with his adoptive family. When female assassins show up after him, murder his brother (but unfortunately not the insanely annoying little sister), he has some serious questions.
His quest to figure out who they were and why they were after him leads him to a hidden widows’ village. After helping a widow escape her in-laws, he somehow ends up impersonating her in order to sneak into the no-men-allowed village. Now ‘Lady Kim Nok-Soon’, he must remain undiscovered while trying to uncover a conspiracy much bigger than he can imagine.
This widow village is right next to a gisaeng house, which I felt was odd, but hey, I’m not about to argue the logic of a gender bender drama. For those of you who’ve not watched any historical K-dramas, gisaengs are basically upscale entertainers/ prostitutes. Our Lady Nok-Soon is sent to bunk with unwilling gisaeng trainee Dong Dong-Joo (Kim So-Hyun).
Dong-joo might be a talentless entertainer, but she secretly is an excellent artisan, who’s also plotting to assassinate the king. Yup, the stakes just shot all the way up.
They each discover the other’s secrets fairly quickly, and work together to keep them hidden, while dealing with their budding romance. They need to especially keep an eye out for Yool-Moo (Kang Tae-Oh), a seemingly perfect nobleman, who is obviously a far more complicated character than he lets on.
The verdict
I am not going into any more detail cause I’d be giving away too much. I’ll let you get surprised by the twists and turns of this drama all on your own.
As far as gender benders go, this is solidly on the “embrace the absurdity” side. The antics of Lady Kim Nok-Soon were hilarious to watch, and I thought the approach was refreshing.
I like how even the ‘I must avenge my dead father’ broody dude trope was flipped on its head with Dong-ju. On this note, I’ll say that I expect we’ll be seeing far more of Kim So-Hyun. She was excellent in her performance.
We need to take a moment and appreciate the pacing. While slightly fudged near the end, the build up of the story, and especially the romance, was excellent. Our main couple switches from cute to steamy and back and I, for one, was hooked. The whole plot unfolds in a similarly satisfying manner, and it really makes the drama flow and easy to watch.
As in any sageuk worth its salt, the stakes are higher than they seem. This is established early enough for the writers to tie all the loose plot threads they started, and to give us a satisfying conclusion. I can’t even begin to complain about all the questions I still have about other historical dramas, so this was a welcome change.
Let’s talk second leads and villains…
Yool-Moo was… a revelation? Kang Tae-Oh really did a brilliant job there of convincing us throughout his character’s arc. This says a lot, cause damn that was some arc.
However, by far the most memorable and interesting aspect of ‘The Tale of Nokdu‘ is the character of the King. Set up as the villain, we get glimpses into his mind and troubled psyche. We see how being tormented by fear and mistrust leads him from one bad decision to the next; At the same time, he keeps wanting to do better, but is ultimately consumed by those negative voices. His eventual friendship with Nokdu is fascinating because it offers a brief respite to both, yet is inherently tragic. Jung Joo-Ho was exceptional in his portrayal of this conflicted villlain.
If you like your historical dramas fluffy but still kinda dark, then ‘The Tale of Nokdu‘ is definitely one for your watch list. For fans of the gender-bender sub-genre particularly I’d say it’s an absolute must. Not many dramas take the man-posing-as-woman road, and it brings up interesting storytelling devices.
Here’s the trailer.
The drama is available on Netflix.
