Princess Hours (Goong)

Princess Hours might not have been one of the more popular Korean dramas like Boys Over Flowers or Coffee House prince, but it was for sure one of my favorite dramas and I've been watching it more and more recently. It was in the top 10 most popular drama in 2006. But my opinion about it is that it kind of has a mix of comedy and historical facts and twists to it too. It’s kind of like a historical fantasy drama that also adds in a sort of melodrama in it as well.

The drama takes place in modern day in Seoul, South Korea with a ruling monarch who is basically like a puppet figure in Korea, just like modern day Great Britain with Queen Elizabeth as the ruling monarch. Anyways the king and queen have a son, crown prince Lee Shin that has transferred from a royal school to a public school. He came to that school in search of being with one of his closer friend named Min Hyo-Rin, who was learning to become a professional ballerina. She rejected his proposal in her hand in marriage just so that she could achieve her dream and not be locked in a castle day and night learning castle etiquette in becoming the future crown princess. Within the school there is also a normal high school girl named Shin Chae-Kyeong. She just doesn't get why the crown prince has transferred to her school and why all the girls are just swooning at his feet and why he’s such a big deal. But the issue with this is that in the near future she is to be engaged to the crown prince because of a promise their grandparents made in the past.

So this is the event that began it all. Chae-Kyeong was just cleaning out her locker and there just happened to be a dirty bucket of water right next to her and then crown prince Lee Shin was walking by when she accidentally knocked it over and got the prince’s clean white shoes all dirty and he got all angry but in a calm and conservative way he started making fun of her. Then he lightly swung off his dirty shoes at her and put on a pair of new ones from his locker and told her to dispose of them like as if she was his servant and then she became really pissed at him and threw his dirty shoe back at him getting the back of his uniform all dirty.

She is soon brought to the castle because she receives a letter from her parents and she is then introduced to the king and queen and finally gets the memo that she is to be crown princess. Not soon after that, perhaps a couple of weeks they’re wed but not because they like each other, but because this was an agreement so they were both kind of forced into it. There also is a love triangle between the crown prince, the crown prince’s cousin, Prince Yul, who returns from England, and the crown princess. But like all Korean dramas the crown princess, Chae Kyeong, falls in love with the crown prince, Lee Shin,  but is kind of rejected at first because the crown prince still deeply likes Hyo-Rin but then she breaks the news to him that she’s leaving the country to pursue her dream as a professional ballerina. 

Then they soon develop and mutual relationship with each other, but then there’s a plot twist where the crown prince’s aunt arranges a problem to get him off the throne and get his cousin on the throne. She arranges people to set fire to the castle and make sure that everyone blames him for the incident and then is basically accused of being guilty which he’s not. But in order of everyone’s safety he is forced to leave Korea and the crown princess also leaves as well. At the end the crown prince’s cousin claims that he’s guilty in the cause of saving his mother from exile. But back to the ending of the crown prince and princess. They end up living in Omen and get married for real because of their true feelings for each other.

  

Word Count 717