Review of "Drama Festival - The diary of Heong Yeong-dang"

By William Schwartz

Source: Hancinema

It seems like I write this about Joseon-era dramas all the time, but "Drama Festival - The Diary of Heong Yeong-dang" really does look great. Look at the brightness of the colors in the happy moments. And look at how subdued they become in apparent times of tragic discovery. Director Lee Jae-in-II really does have a flair for creating visuals that enhance the brightness of the mood. Even if, in a case like this, the mood is mostly just about a lot of bad stuff.

The actual storyline of "Drama Festival - "The Diary of Heong Yeong-dang" is pretty simple. It's a forbidden love story between step-siblings. It's in these scenes of interaction between men and women that the vibrancy of the drama's visual palette is at its strongest. Even though the Josen-era backdrop is obviously intended to foster a sense of social morality and ethics, even in drab moments as long as our leads are happy there's a sort of bittersweet pleasure to be had from the proceedings.

The main problem, though, is that the drama isn't really all that visual. For the most part it's just talking, and not even cross-gender talking. The focus is on conversations between men on matters that are mostly tangentially related to the emotional love affair that makes up the drama's heart. And these little chats are uninspiring enough that even by the time the story becomes a big deal, and tragic choices have to be made for the sake of saving face...well, my interest was mostly drained, in all honesty. There's only so far the concept can go.

I can see what writer Oh Bo-hyeon was going for here, and certainly, the concept alone is such that a potentially interesting story could be made out of the proceedings. By and large the concept is just too heavy on the criticism and melodrama of society for my tastes. The issues, when presented directly, take on the distinct hue of a personal familial situation. It might be weird and wrong, but in the first place the family itself should be confronting the problem rather than the more general overlords of society. The focus on the latter over the former just ended up boring me.

That is mostly a matter of personal taste, though. "Drama Festival - The Diary of Heong Yeong-dang" does, in any event, have the advantage of beautiful looking traditional costumes and backgrounds without the overly complicated plot that requires a very long time commitment. As casual entertainment goes, it's fairly decent. But the lack of focus on the more interesting emotional depth underlining its ideas ultimately consigns the drama to the lower tier of the one episode series.