Goong S (Prince Hours)

PREVIEW

Title: 궁 (宮) S / Goong (Gung) Season S
Also known as: Palace S / Prince Hours / Imperial Household / Goong Special
Genre: Romance, Comedy
Episodes: 20
Broadcast network: MBC
Broadcast period: 2007-Jan-10 to 2007-Mar-15
Air time: Wednesdays & Thursdays 21.55

Cast
Choi Dong Wook (a.k.a. Se7en) as Lee Hoo (Kang Hoo)
Heo Yi Jae as Yang Soon Ae
Park Shin Hye as Shin Sae Ryung
Kang Doo as Lee Joon
Myung Se Bin as the Queen
Lee Gi Young as Jo Sang Ki
Oh Min Hee as the Queen's mother
Yoon Ye Hee as Jang Yoon Hee (Lee Joon's mother)
Chun Ho Jin as Joon's father
Ha Jae Young as Lee Hoo's and Queen's uncle
Cha Hyun Jung as Lee Joon's bodyguard
Ye Soo Jung as person in charge of Lee Hoo's education
Song Baek Kyung as Bulbam
Jung Hye Young as Hoo's mother

Synopsis

The Empress (Myung Se Bin) is in her early 30s, but she is still not married. Since, the 1st successor to the throne died, the royal family is in search for a new successor. Incidentally, they come to know of a young man who was in fact a son of the prince to a woman who left the Palace for her to be able to keep her pregnancy a secret. The young man's name was Lee Hoo (Se7en), more commonly known to his friends as Kang Hoo. Lee Hoo worked as a delivery boy at a Chinese restaurant, and was known for his 7-minute maximum delivery time. Lee Hoo had been brought up as more of a punk than a prince so his habits and his way of conversing were very different from the people of royal blood. Although he had never dreamt of living in the Palace, he one day finds himself immersing himself in its grandeur and improving himself to prove that he indeed deserves to be called the Successor to the throne. He soon finds out that not only will he be facing lessons to the path of royalty, and dilemmas of love and of stature, but he will also learn to compete for the position he had been, first
and foremostly, called for.

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Watching episode one of this drama I realize how carefree middle class people are portrayed to be. We are not all always carefree, however most of us do act like a bunch of crazy animal trying to beat our competitor.

Se7en, or Kang Hoo as he is called in the drama, used bits of English in this first episode. This proves that English have influences a lot of culture and many culture have learn it. It is a good thing for communication, however is it always good that other countries learn our language and we not there? How long will the English language be global? Se7en speaking English, to me, shows me that we must learn other language beside our owns and our neighboring countries. Se7en being a great singer, and I being a fan of his, he speaks fluent Korean and Japanese, conversational English and Chinese, and even a little bit of Thai. Not taking his real background into consideration, Se7en plays a mid-class teenager who speaks English, meaning that students in Asia no matter middle or upper class knows some sort of foreign language. A shorter way to put this is, Asia is getting more advance pretty fast.

This episode also show honor and family. When his "uncle" told him that he was the Prince he was surprise, but show his respects and took up his place. His "uncle" showed honor because he hid him for 20 years because of his promise to Kang Hoo's mother.

The strange thing was that the queen was awfully young. She was in her thirty, which was suppose to be ten years Kang Hoo's senior. Not to mention that during a showcase Kang Hoo met some from his grade school that did not like him and she was proud that she was working for the palace, even if it was to be part of the working staffs. This first episode is still pretty confusing but things will clear up, I hope.

drama info (i.e. Synopsis & Cast) credits: DramaWiki