Historical Dramas Club

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ROMANCE	DRAMA	FANTASY	COMEDY
WUXIA	ACTION	MYSTERY	WAR
POLITICAL	XIANXIA	ADVENTURE	THRILLER
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Useful resources:

• Wikipedia - History of Japan
• Wikipedia - History of China
• Wikipedia - History of Korea
• Wikipedia - History of Thailand
• Wikipedia - History of the Philippines

Dramas on Historical Time Table:

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• Chinese / Hongkongese
• Korean
• Thai

MDL & Historical Dramas

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Most Popular Dramas

1 Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo	2 Hwarang	3 The Untamed	4 Love in the Moonlight	5 Rooftop Prince
6 Chicago Typewriter	7 Mr. Sunshine	8 Moon Embracing the Sun	9 Mr. Queen	10 Kingdom

Top Rated Dramas

1 Nirvana in Fire	2 The Untamed	3 Joy of Life	4 Mr. Queen	5 Kingdom: Season 2
6 The Red Sleeve	7 Mr. Sunshine	8 Eternal Love	9 The Story of Ming Lan	10 Kingdom

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Wow, thank you @Estelll for setting this up and for giving us a space to share our love for historical dramas. 

I'm going to kick-start this place by sharing what I feel has been an often overlooked gem - a Thai historical lakorn 'Bpoop Phaeh Saniwaat' aka 'Love Destiny': https://mydramalist.com/23472-bpoop-phaeh-saniwaat. 

Note: There are NO spoilers in this post.

If you’re not normally a Thai lakorn viewer, or even a Thai boran (i.e. ancient history) lakorn viewer, you should definitely consider making an exception in this case because this is one very special show.
'Bpoop Phaeh Saniwaat' is a wonderful light-hearted romantic-comedy lakorn which feature underlying themes of history, karmic retribution and fate.

Time-travelling dramas are not new, even amongst lakorns, but I think that this show is a bit more inspired because it certainly knows how to make use of this premise and give us a lovely light-hearted walk through 17th-century Ayutthaya without making either the history-bits or the political-bits too heavy and overwhelming. On the contrary, from the title of the show itself - ‘Love Destiny’ - it makes it pretty clear that this show is primarily a romance show, which it fulfils to a tee.

It was very clever of this show to transport a budding archeologist back into ancient history because the show gives us a natural teacher in her. As she gradually meets one historical figure after another, we get wonderful internal monologues about the various characters’ positions and their impact on history. 

When she gets all excited over ancient historical sites, we get lovely little expositions of the significance of those sites. 

And through her fish-out-of-water personality and conversations, we are seamlessly introduced to the culture and customs of the times, as well as their hilarious reactions to her modernisms. 

History becomes so much more accessible and digestible as we follow Kadesurang/Karakade through some of the definitive times in King Narai’s reign in history. It’s a brilliant piece of writing and a brilliant way of introducing a slice of Thai history to viewers without making it too heavy or boring.

One also gets a really good introduction to the customs, traditions and costumes of that time period from beautiful local landscapes...

to the way the nobles and aristocrats dressed themselves...

to their deeply Buddhist-rooted traditions and customs...

to their beautifully presented and delicious food...

and to their traditional home settings and layouts...

to that of their royal courts and customs...

One would think that with so much historical setting, background, characters and events, the romance would be short-changed to accommodate it all. Wrong! Very wrong! As a romance tale of hate-to-love, and of fated love, this show not only provides generous amounts of time to introduce our main leads:

... and develop their relationship, it actually also spoils us with plenty of fan-service and squeal-worthy scenes. If you’re a romance-junkie like me, you’ll be pleasantly surprised with how much fixes you’ll get.

Before I say a few words about our supporting cast (because they are deserving of their own little section), I would like to say that another good thing about this lakorn is its great absence of your typical thai lakorn tropes.
No evil second female leads? Check.
No love triangles? Check.
No mad antagonist/ crazy villain? Check.
No plot-filler? Check.
No long-drawn-out misunderstandings? Check.
No lack-of-communication angst? Check.
No revenge plots? Check.
No slap-kiss? Check.
No cartoon/ cardboard characters? Check.
No inconsistent or irrational character portrayals? Check.
Wow, too good to be true? Yes.
There is, however, one - ONE - lakorn cliche that does feature itself heavily in this show and I would be remiss in not pointing it out. It’s your ‘tripping-and-falling-into-arms-followed-by-long-stares’ trope. Not gonna lie, this one gets quite a bit of air-time but they’re all variations of the trope so it might be interesting to see just how much they can stretch it, lol. They do water it down to just ‘turning-and-staring’ as the show progresses, and perhaps it may be a matter of taste but I personally thought the show did okay in giving this particular trope quite a bit of spice through its variations.

Finally, a word about the supporting cast. SOLID is the word that comes to mind. This show’s supporting cast have added extra layers of life, depth and breadth to the show. They sparkle and shine in their own different capacities, and while some might be a little more intense and heavy in terms of presence and personality, the show also gives us little insights and glimpses into their thought-process which makes them all comes across believably real and human. The scintillating supporting cast is truly a massive plus.

This show has so many things going for it - sweeping romance, liberal sprinklings of humour, good introduction into Thailand’s ancient history, beautiful sets and costumes, a memorable set of cast of characters, and a storyline which doesn’t spin itself into unnecessary knots or is packed with fillers.

One of the best light-hearted historical romance dramas I’ve seen to date. 

EDIT TO ADD:

There are 2 versions of this lakorn - it's original 15-episode (1 hour 50 mins per episode) version, and a Director's Uncut 40-episode (40 minutes per episode) version which features a few hours worth of extra footage. 

This lakorn became such a massive hit in Thailand during the year it ran (2018), it single-handedly cleared Bangkok's notoriously terrible traffic jams on the evenings when an episode was airing and spawned an Uncut version release. Unheard of. Yes, this lakorn was THAT good.

Great job and thanks again for this amazing initiative, @Estelll!

Thanks also to @Musical Veggies for the insightful and colourful sharing of the historical Thai drama.  This is a fabulous idea, to provide insights into lesser known segments and dramas, hopefully bringing awareness to club members too!

I'll do my part by sharing about Hong Kong productions and for today, I'll talk about a martial arts drama which I had truly enjoyed back in the day with a strong FL to boot.  It's true that HK used to be the pioneer and "market leader" in churning out historicals and wuxia since the 60s/ 70s through Shaw productions.  These days, it's been overshadowed by China and South Korea.  Nonetheless, there are still a few gems in recent years that provide very interesting source materials that inspire Chinese productions to release remakes.

Grace Under Fire

(TVB, 2011, 32 episodes) 

So what makes this HK production special?

Story/ Premise

• The titular character refers to Mok Kwai Lan, the fourth (and last) wife of the legendary Wong Fei Hung. Everybody knows who Wong Fei Hung is and all his exploits.  But not much, if any at all, is known about this lady who is actually a martial artist in her own right and the descendant of the Mok Gar style.  She later became a Hung Gar practitionar and actually helped in managing the famous Po Chi Lam medicinal shop in addition to Wong's martial arts school
• The premise of the drama is based on a combination of folklore and histprical records, and focuses mainly on Mok's early years as well as fictional dramatization.  This is a tale of love, revenge, and redemption, and all the jiang hu values of friendship, brotherhood, loyalty and chivalry are present as well.
• This drama is set during the early Republican era, after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, in Guangzhou and Foshan.

Cast

• Liu Xuan was cast as the main character in what was her first ever TVB drama role.  She was an Olympics gold medalist for artistic gymnastics in the 2000 games, hence she performed many of the stunts in the show and her flexibility in performing the martial arts sequences is truly impressive.
• The iconic David Chiang, of the Shaw Brothers kung fu era, played the role of Wong Fei Hung.  He was particularly famed for the character of the one-armed swordsman.
• Yueh Hua, another iconic Shaw Brothers actor, was cast as the villain in the show.

Choreography

• A mix of martial arts styles were featured, including the famous Hung Gar style (used by Wong Fei Hung as the 3rd gen practitioner who learned it from his equally famous father, Wong Kei Ying), Mok Gar style (created by Mok's family), Mizong style, and many others.
• There is plenty of action arising from martial arts duels and competitions depicted in the drama.

Link for streaming (with original Cantonese audio and fully subbed)

https://dramacool.vc/drama-detail/grace-under-fire

OST

The opening theme for the drama is really dramatic and uplifting, performed by veteran Canto-pop singer Elisa Chan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_78sT7zLYY

Selected posters and stills