A brief review cannot undertake the task of uncovering every aspect of a television series’ connection to current social issues, especially when dealing with a phenomenon as deep and complex as the one touched upon by Big Issue. Nevertheless, it is inevitable to recall certain circumstances, if only in passing. The filming of the drama began in March 2019. The previous year in South Korea had been loud with the "molka scandal" and the subsequent wave of protests, whose angry slogan was: "My life is not your porn!" The word "molka" is a contraction of "mollae camera." Its origins trace back to a humorous 1990s entertainment show (similar to "candid camera"), but it later acquired a layer of "surreptitious camera" meaning—now a criminal category—referring to the unauthorized production and distribution of erotic or pornographic recordings.
(Author’s screenshot from Big Issue.)
(Author’s screenshot from Big Issue.)
Immediately preceding the filming, in January 2019, the Burning Sun scandal erupted, reaching national and international stages, targeting wealthy and prominent figures of the entertainment industry. The series of unfolding scandals extended well beyond the show’s premiere (including the hotel peeping scandal and the N-th Room case). All of this highlighted that these were not isolated incidents, but systemic problems present in the country’s ethical public discourse. Patriarchal societies have had thousands of years to build systems that degrade women into second-class beings with diminished rights, contrasted with the mere few hundred years of the history of women’s civil rights struggles. Korea differs from many Western countries with similar perspectives only in that public thought—perhaps due to deeply bigoted Confucian roots in this area—remains more resistant and permissive to this day; naturally, from the perspective of men, and not women. While men thus remained the beneficiaries of cases that turned into legal matters for a long time, women became the victims. And they were not only victims of legal judgments but also vulnerable to a narrow layer of people who, feeling protected and absolved, unscrupulously indulge their morbid sexual fantasies, creating an independent and profitable industry based on the demands of a significant consumer base among the more timid majority.
It was during this sensitive time that Big Issue was born, touching upon these phenomena at many points but also pointing beyond them. It chooses a unique perspective: focusing primarily on the workings of the tabloid press, and more broadly the media, examining the role it plays in shaping power dynamics.
(Author’s screenshot from Big Issue.)
The story by screenwriter Jang Hyeok-rin (whose previous works include The K2 and Yong Pal) is a thoroughly considered piece of work that strictly avoids intellectual clichés. Its most surprising consequence is the unusual light it sheds on the tabloid press's position regarding its role in power games. Its basic thesis is that those in high social positions can be dominated by those who can keep them in check. The simplest tool for this is the compromising photograph, which makes the subjects blackmailable. And whoever possesses an entire archive of these becomes invulnerable, standing above everyone.
(Author’s screenshot from Big Issue.)
Accordingly, the main character of our story is a highly skilled photojournalist whose background unfolds in the opening episodes. Han Seok-joo (Joo Jin-mo), a fanatically committed employee of the country’s leading daily newspaper, Nara Ilbo, almost snaps when he gets the opportunity to take a "reveal-all" photograph. The picture brings him fleeting success, but at the very moment of his promotion, it is revealed that he made an irreparable mistake: he captured a false appearance, and his victim committed suicide. Seok-joo’s career and private life collapse simultaneously; having prioritized the photo over his wife and heart-diseased young daughter, he ruined the child’s chances for recovery. Seok-joo ends up in prison, then sinks into alcoholism, becoming homeless and sliding among those living on the fringes of society. At the lowest point of his life, he crosses paths with the editor-in-chief of Sunday Syndicate, who happens to need a photographer to replace a colleague who suffered an accident. Ji Soo-hyeon (Han Ye-seul) recognizes the former legendary photographer in the man and makes him an irresistible offer, providing support for his daughter’s medical treatment. In a scene that puts action movies to shame, we see the taking of the photograph, the consequence of which is the man’s journey through alcohol detox and a long rehabilitation process, until he eventually ends up employed by Sunday Syndicate as a paparazzi.
(Author’s screenshot from Big Issue.)
(Author’s screenshot from Big Issue.)
(Author’s screenshot from Big Issue.)
Seok-joo originally dedicated his life to ethical journalism, but now his only chance is to embrace the requirements of the paparazzi: an attitude that tolerates neither emotion nor sympathy. We witness the stages of this transformation through a series of successive events, while experiencing the technical feats our devilishly clever and truly daredevil photographer is capable of, often taking insane risks. The operations of the newspaper’s staff are anything but legal; they are capable of breaking any rule, as everything is permitted for them under the protection of their leaders, except for one thing: failing to deliver the expected photographs. Every case highlights the discrepancy between reality and its presentation in the media, but this would not be news to the viewers. A new element of the drama is that following events sometimes provoked to order, the leaders of the tabloid play a decidedly active and creative role in the resulting bargains, often achieving (or rather, forcing through the photos) a situation where every party comes out as well as possible. Initially, the cases focus on the minor and major scandals of entertainment industry figures, until at one point we move up a level, as the exposed individual is none other than Nam Jin-seok (Oh Tae-kyung), a prosecutor in the Criminal Division of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office—a true psychopath intent on taking bloodthirsty revenge on those who caught him.
(Author’s screenshot from Big Issue.)
(Author’s screenshot from Big Issue.)
At this point, a struggle for survival begins among everyone involved (the chief prosecutor, the police chief, and their subordinates), and eventually, they all reach the same conclusion: the guarantee of their personal survival is possession of the tabloid’s photo archive. Everyone in the editorial office knows this, which turns Editor-in-Chief Ji Soo-hyeon and CEO Jo Hyeong-jun (Kim Hee-won) against each other. An important detail is that, besides the CEO, no one—not even in the editorial office—knows who actually owns the paper; internal information is blocked even from the employees.
As organizations now rival one another, the field of force changes, which does not necessarily benefit the drama. It is as if we have suddenly dropped into a super-spy movie; every character, including the tabloid press, possesses a technical arsenal and knows how to use it, with no qualms about its deployment. This over-dimensioning strongly jeopardizes the seriousness of the drama. The pacing also becomes uneven; the previous momentum breaks here and there due to unnecessarily inserted interludes. For instance, I did not feel much need for the scenes intended to be funny involving the bumbling homeless buddies, and the portrayal of the gangster squad consisting of idiots felt like a break in style. The homeless characters were otherwise great, clearly portrayed with great enjoyment by the actors, and their later appearances revealed that Seok-joo had also learned the lesson of social solidarity.
Fortunately, the well-developed nature of the key characters and the fluctuation of power dominance keep the tension high throughout. The extremely cleverly written script allows each member of the editorial staff to have an individual and quite unique persona. This applies to the rivaling and careerist women (Shin So-yul, Kim Si-hyun, Kim Kyu-seon) just as much as to Soo-hyeon’s bodyguard-driver (Lee Kwan-hoon) or Seok-joo’s taxi-driving right-hand man (Ahn Se-ha). Standing out among them is the omniscient former legend, Im Deok-hoon (Kang Sung-jin), who is confined to a wheelchair.
(Author’s screenshot from Big Issue.)
Alongside the multitude of characters and events taking place in various environments, there is time for a deeper unfolding of the protagonists' characters. Soo-hyeon has her own backstory, which explains the duality of her personality: her professional brilliance coupled with cold elegance, and the emotional susceptibility hidden behind it. Seok-joo is an even more complex personality; besides his professional transformation and lingering doubts, we see his struggles as a father, his unyielding sense of shame, yet his stubborn perseverance—his finding of himself professionally, humanly, as a parent, and as a man, fought out from near-total destruction. Joo Jin-mo interprets all of this authentically, whether we see him as someone suffering from tremors in delirium or as a truly potential opponent to the "big dogs." Particularly interesting is the shared history of the two characters, as they realize how they influenced each other's fates and as they grapple with the awareness of this fact.
(Author’s screenshot from Big Issue.)
(Author’s screenshot from Big Issue.)
(Author’s screenshot from Big Issue.)
We find an abundance of both unsettling and hopeful elements in the story. A quite unusual character is the "outcast" of the prosecution, Cha Woo-jin (played by Cha Soon-bae), who has an irreproachable past. Among so many villains, he ought to be a positive figure, yet he is not. His integrity stems more from his predicament; fundamentally, he is a petty-minded but ambitious and repulsive character, as disgusting as the filthy hand he offers for a handshake. While it is terrifying when a media figure preaching about professional ethics turns out to be more corrupt than anyone else, the integrity of a politician who appears on the path to the solution is a refreshing phenomenon, even if the logic of the story surrounding him suffers from a few flaws. Since the corruption of power is not a new phenomenon, I will refrain from listing the many big-name actors who embody these depraved figures.
Beyond these, we encounter a wide variety of phenomena in the drama: alongside adult-rated content, we hear about the dark activities of talent agencies; sasaengs appear, as do the tricks and impacts of web broadcasting—all of which are logically integrated into the whole of the story.
Director Lee Dong-hun’s locations, color compositions, the film’s editing, and the careful application of CGI resulted in an extremely stylish film. However, this was somewhat disrupted when, presumably due to Lee’s illness, the substitute director was unable to carry this through with sufficient consistency. There is even a famous broadcasting blunder linked to this, when, incomprehensibly, episodes 11 and 12 were aired in a half-finished state.
The greatest question of the drama is actually whether the tabloid press can have a balancing role that, by moving within the gray zone, keeps those intoxicated by power in check. In any case, we learn that our two protagonists, who know every trick of the press's multifaceted operations, have already begun to set things right—at least around Sunday Syndicate. This, as we know, is a small step toward the purification of the press, but a giant leap in expressing the intent.
(Author’s screenshot from Big Issue.)
However, regarding the social reality relevant to the picture presented in the introduction, though occurring after the series: a year later, Joo Jin-mo hit the headlines because details of allegedly vulgar chats degrading women were leaked from his hacked phone, conversations he purportedly had with fellow actors of similar caliber. Since the police investigation revealed that he was the victim of a blackmailing operation committed against eight actors (the perpetrators received heavy prison sentences), the leaked texts—as Joo Jin-mo claimed—were almost certainly manipulated.
Yet, the very method of blackmail shows that even after such an authentic performance, the tone of private conversations (presumably distorted) can be made believable to the public. I am voicing my most positive suspicions when I assume that, for a long time to come, it will not be people’s changing attitudes for the better, but the ingrained habits of public discourse that determine if private conversations frequently strike a similar tone. We see countless examples of this in our own environments, and not everyone is a villain who occasionally yields to habit, while if they reflect on their phrasing, they realize they do not even agree with their own stumbling self. Furthermore, Joo Jin-mo married in 2019, so he likely has no grievance against the female sex. I would like to continue liking him as an actor who is worthy of it in every respect and to see him back in a new role as soon as possible.
Disclaimer: All images used in this article from Big Issue are owned by SBS and are used here under Fair Use for the purpose of criticism and scholarly review.
. . .
This article was originally written in Hungarian for Ricemegatron Expert Film Blog and subsequently translated into English for Ricemegatron Expert: Korean Screen Insights. The English version was created with the assistance of Gemini AI, focusing on preserving the original tone, structure, and critical style of the author.
After numerous peculiar fairy-tale and mythological creatures, we get to know
a new one in the period fantasy series titled
The Haunted Palace. Our
protagonist is an imugi,
a creature originally from ancient Korean belief, a serpent-like water deity.
Since this being is unknown in our parts, we can best get to know it through
the entry in the
Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture, the translation of which you can find at the end of this review.
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
The drama molds its central figure from various concepts regarding
imugis. Gang Cheol (Kim
Yeong-kwang) is a dragon—that is, a water god who, after a thousand years of
suffering on Earth, could ascend among the celestial dragons; however, this
journey must not be witnessed by human eyes, as that would tarnish the
sanctity of the process. But Gang Cheol meets with misfortune because a child
sees him; therefore, he falls back to earth and becomes an
imugi, an imperfect
being stuck in its transformation. His heart fills with anger toward humans,
and he spends a hundred years avenging his grievances by causing them harm,
which is why everyone fears the evil deity. Eventually, he finds a girl with a
pure soul blessed with great spiritual power; if she accepts him as her
guardian spirit and prays for him, he can finally transform into a celestial
dragon. Therefore, he follows the girl and does everything in his power to
persuade her, but Yeo Ri (Kim Ji-yeon) has been resisting him for thirteen
years. The girl is the granddaughter of Shaman Neob-deok (Gil Hae-yeon),
having inherited her abilities and learned the craft from her, yet she does
not want to be a shaman; instead, she occupies herself with making "seeing
glasses"—that is, spectacles.
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
Also born in the village is a kind and learned young man of low birth, Yoon
Gap, whom the like-minded King Lee Jeong (Kim Ji-hoon) has taken into his
service and confidence due to his erudition and reformist ideas. Yeo Ri and
Yoon Gap feel an attraction toward each other, but the young man, who is
currently on a secret mission in their village, is killed by the King's
enemies. To obtain Yeo Ri's talisman, Gang Cheol possesses the dead man's
body, and herewith the complications begin, as the
imugi falls captive to
the body and has no idea how he could break free from it.
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
Consequently, we only encounter the imugi's true appearance in the first episode, thanks to Kim Yeong-kwang’s cameo appearance. However, in those few short scenes, he portrays Gang Cheol so excitingly that I sincerely hope we might see him in a similar leading role one day. Of course, the twist is that the imugi remains the protagonist of the drama, except he is now played by another actor, Yook Sung-jae, who lends him a body. Thus, we see Yook Sung-jae in a dual role: at times as the imugi, at times as a royal archivist, occasionally with both of them in the same space at once, and even dominating the same body simultaneously. Yook Sung-jae’s performance is great because it is always possible to recognize which character he is playing, and as the imugi, he is able to evoke the characteristics of speech and behavior from Kim Yeong-kwang’s playful, cheeky persona.
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
The story proceeds along two lines. As is usually the case, the royal court is
a field of factionalism and strivings for the throne; the King can trust no
one. Furthermore, strange phenomena overtake the members of his family;
everyone already suspects the activity of some evil possessor, but the King
does not believe in superstitions—he had even previously banned the activities
of shamans. It takes a good deal of time before he accepts that his confidant,
returned from the mission, has not lost his mind, but rather a deity who
flouts the hierarchical relations of mortal humans is playing harsh practical
jokes on him in his own court, and who has brought a shaman woman along with
him. While they search for the source of the troubles, they stumble upon
various spirits one after another. These beings are all the deceased stuck on
the threshold between the living and the dead, who are angry because they have
not been appeased for the grievances suffered during their lives.
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
This brings us to the point where we can grasp what makes this drama so
marvelous. In many works, we have already encountered the concepts of Korean
shamanism regarding afterlife and certain rituals based upon them. Now, we can
form a more comprehensive—though still far from complete—picture of all this.
The emerging spirit figures each require different types of treatment, as
their grievances were caused by diverse reasons. Their deaths might have been
caused by fire or water, through which we come into contact with the primal
elements, or even by murder. Therefore, helping each of them toward
reconciliation and escorting them to the afterworld requires different
rituals, and the presentation of these constitutes the cultural uniqueness of
the series. Naturally, we do not see authentic ceremonies, but rather
dramatized versions of them; however, the purpose, paraphernalia, and the soul
of the performance of these rituals are perfectly suited for us to experience
their spiritual significance and the important role shamans play as mediators
between the celestial and earthly worlds. Buddhism has exerted a strong
influence on Korean shamanism, and we find the imprint of this in the series
as well. The incantations spoken by the shamans were likely also written for
the drama, yet they evoke the formulas of magic spells and warding charms,
becoming true ritual texts upon the actors' lips. To quote one as an example
(based on Ynonline8’s Hungarian translation):
O, Celestials!
Ye who turn the wheels of fate!
Drive away the evil, save the good!
Calm their heart, protect their soul!
Uphold hereby the heavenly law!
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
Yeo Ri and Gang Cheol soon encounter an evil spirit being, immense in both
size and power, who has swallowed Yoon Gap’s soul. The shaman girl knows that it
is hopeless to face the massive monster called Palcheokgwi alone (the name means
an 8-cheok tall, thus
2.5-meter demon, but in the translation, it received the poetic name
Sky-fading Shadow). Yeo Ri
thus needs Gang Cheol's help, so she accepts him as her guardian spirit. Gang
Cheol, however, realizes that he can only defeat the demon by sacrificing
himself.
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
The Palcheokgwi is also fueled by some mysterious force, and all signs point
in the same direction as the King's investigation into the conspirators
against him, which is simultaneously the other main thread of the story. The
mask falls off more and more enemies, but the uncovering of the past leads to
an inglorious event in the royal family's bloodline, providing an explanation
for the vengeful being's animosity toward the royals. Naturally, many things
happen until the climax; King Lee Jeong, Gang Cheol, and Yeo Ri become
comrades-in-arms, and another
imugi named Bibi
appears, causing some complications. Portrayed by Cho Han-gyeol, Bibi remains
a memorable figure of the drama with his kindness, beauty, and sad fate. The
two imugis also possess
color symbolism. Gang Cheol is the black
imugi, a stagnant being
due to his failed ascension, unable to transform; therefore, he is dark and
driven by revenge, and his power does not flow but destroys. In contrast, Bibi
is a white imugi, a
pure-intentioned being living with the promise of becoming a dragon, still
awaiting transformation. This, of course, is just the "textbook formula," and
it does not fit our heroes exactly.
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
Although Gang Cheol hates his weak human body, he enjoys the pleasures
experienced through the senses, and the more time he spends among humans, the
better he understands their workings, experiencing feelings, joys, and
pains—and Yoon Gap’s mother (Cha Chung-hwa), who treats the
imugi as her own son,
plays no small part in this.
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
Gang Cheol learns to recognize good and evil, but everything has a price—as he
becomes more human, he loses his divine power. Meanwhile, Yeo Ri's emotions
become increasingly tangled, as she sees her former lover in the body but her
hated enemy in the personality, and sometimes she no longer knows for which of
them she is more concerned. She also has to realize that she did not judge
everything correctly in the past, and these realizations show Gang Cheol in a
different light.
While the King fights his ill-wishers on the terrain of reality, an even more
ruthless battle takes place between two powerful shamans, Yeo Ri and the blind
Poongsan. The latter is in the King's service, yet supports his enemies with
his magical power. He is a great manipulator and shrinks from no evil. Kim
Sang-ho was perhaps given the role of his life with this character, and he
proves once again what a magnificent actor he is. As a shaman, we believe his
trance, his transformations, and that he is capable of unleashing and
directing otherworldly forces with his ritual drumming. His chanting is
mesmerizing, both regarding the speed of his delivery and its intensity.
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
It takes numerous blood sacrifices before we reach the source of the
calamities afflicting the royal family. At the beginning of the drama, a
question is asked that could serve as a summary of what we have seen:
"If humans finally grasped that life does not end with death,
and that the consequences of their actions haunt persistently
through generations,would the world be different?"
Although the drama is full of spirits, monsters, and people even scarier
than those, it is no more frightening than a somber fairy tale. Regarding its
visuals, it is a feast for the eyes, both in the photography of landscapes and
the interiors. The presentation of the ceremonies excellently conveys both
their terrifying features and their beauty. The care is palpable throughout;
one of my favorite scenes is when the
imugi—who is the lord
of the element of water and cannot exist without it—swims in the lake in human
form, surrendering himself to the pleasure, and in the actor's movement, we
see the serpentine winding of the dragon.
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
The cast is almost a star parade; I have not even mentioned countless greats,
especially from the world of court officials and bodyguards, though they all
deserve it, not to mention the beautiful queens, young ladies, and
maidservants, the numerous child actors of the series, or the actors
portraying the spirit beings. Instead, I grant space to the "clam-faced" Chief
Eunuch, as Kim In-kwon was able to give a completely new and entertaining
flavor to this role.
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
The Haunted Palace is a brilliantly successful piece among Korean fantasy series, perhaps precisely because they approached their own traditions with such love and respect. As a point of interest, I should mention that I watched director Kim Ji-yeon's previous drama just the other day, and her collaboration with Kim Young-kwang was already fruitful in Call It Love. Co-director Yoon Seong-sik also helmed Mr. Queen, during the filming of which he already had the opportunity to explore the humorous and dramatic possibilities offered by a similar body-swap situation.
✳ ✳ ✳
Imugi (이무기)
(Author’s screenshot from The Haunted Palace.)
Definition
An imaginary creature; a gigantic serpent that lives in water, having failed
to become a dragon.
Overview
The imugi is an
imaginary creature that frequently appears in Korean folktales. Like the
dragon (yong), it is
described as a sacred being that rules over water and brings wealth to
humans, but it is also portrayed as a negative entity that inflicts harm
upon them. Generally, while dragons are presented with a positive image of
helping humanity,
imugis are perceived
simultaneously as objects of both positive and negative attributes.
The dwelling of an
imugi is usually deep
underwater. Representative locations include ponds or marshes (so), and numerous legends related to
imugis, including
place-name legends, are distributed nationwide. In folk belief, it is
believed that if an
imugi spends 1,000
years (or in some versions, 100 years) in the water, it can fly up to heaven
and become a dragon. This signifies that the
imugi is perceived as
an incomplete being in the stage prior to becoming a dragon. This factor
serves to weaken the
imugi's divinity and
causes it to be perceived as a negative object. In the same context, this is
often the reason why the
imugi's divine powers
are mentioned unclearly or depicted as weak compared to those of a dragon in
most folktales.
An imugi in such an
incomplete state appears as a fragile being that loses its divine power even
through minor human intervention. At the very moment it ascends after
enduring a long period of suffering, if a human witnesses the scene, the
imugi has no choice
but to return to the water.
Consequently, in oral folktales, the
imugi primarily appears
as a being that fails to ascend due to human interference, and for that
reason, it is portrayed as an object that acts spitefully or causes harm to
humans. These attributes of the
imugi have also been
shaped into proverbs: "An
imugi that failed to
become a dragon has nothing left but spite," which is a figurative
expression for a person who is full of ill-will, lacks compassion, and only
causes loss to others.
Content
Korean perception of the
imugi manifests
primarily in three distinct layers. First, there is the
imugi as a sacred
being that protects Buddhist law, governs water, and guards humanity. This
aspect is confirmed in Volume 4 of
Samguk Yusa
(Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms), in the section titled "Boyang and the
Pear Tree." Here, the
imugi is referred to
as Imok (璃目), and
the details are as follows:
When the founding monk Jisik was returning from China after receiving the
Buddhist teachings and reached the middle of the West Sea, a dragon
welcomed him into its palace. The dragon had Jisik chant scriptures and
offered him a silk robe embroidered with gold thread as a donation;
furthermore, the dragon sent his son, an
imugi named Imok,
to serve as an attendant. Imok lived in a small pond next to the temple
and secretly assisted in the Buddhist enlightenment. One year, a sudden
drought caused the vegetables in the fields to wither, so Boyang ordered
Imok to bring rain, resulting in enough rain to satisfy the entire
village. The Heavenly Emperor, claiming that rain had been brought without
his knowledge, intended to kill the
imugi. When Imok
informed the monk of the danger, the monk hid him under the floorboards.
Shortly after, a heavenly messenger arrived and demanded the
imugi. The monk
pointed to a pear tree in the courtyard. The messenger struck the pear
tree with lightning and ascended back to heaven.
In this tale, the
imugi, like the dragon,
is a deity protecting Buddhist law and a being that governs water. We can
also discern the relationship between the
imugi and the dragon:
they are father and son, with the
imugi’s authority
being one level below the dragon’s, representing an incomplete being with
the potential to grow into a dragon. Furthermore, the
imugi plays a direct
role in helping human life, even risking its own life to bring rain.
This attribute appears identically in oral folktales as well. Imok would
transform into a dragon and enter a hollow. A monk followed Imok and learned
his true identity. One year, a severe drought threatened a famine. The monk
asked Imok to bring rain to quench the thirst of the land. Imok initially
refused, saying he would die if he disobeyed the Jade Emperor’s command, but
eventually brought rain at the monk's persistent request. Imok asked for
help to avoid punishment, and the monk hid him under the floor tiles. When
the Jade Emperor’s messenger asked for Imok’s whereabouts, the monk pointed
to a jujube tree. Imok survived through the monk's help and continued to
provide rain whenever a drought occurred. Here, the
imugi is expressed as
a being capable of transforming into a dragon, showing that unlike in the
Samguk Yusa, there was
also a perception that identified the
imugi as equal to the
dragon rather than an incomplete being.
Secondly, there is the
imugi whose divinity is
weakened while its human attributes are strengthened. As seen previously,
the imugi is often
perceived as an incomplete being that failed to fully acquire the authority
of a dragon.
There was a poor nobleman. One day, while coming home with money from
selling cloth, he saw a group of people trying to kill a large snake (gureongi). The nobleman gave them all his money on the condition they spare the
snake. Later, to support his family, the nobleman became a geomancer (pungsu). While eating at a house where he was seeking a burial site, he shared
his food with a pitiful child. The child possessed miraculous powers and
turned the novice nobleman into the greatest geomancer. The child revealed
he was the snake the nobleman had saved. He explained that people had
broken their promise and tried to kill him—an
imugi—which
prevented him from transforming into a dragon. The child said he came to
repay the debt but could no longer help, and then vanished. Thanks to the
imugi, the
nobleman lived prosperously.
In this context, the
imugi is described as a
gureongi (large snake).
In folk faith, the
gureongi often appears
as Eopsin (the deity
of wealth), and depicting the son of a dragon as a snake reflects the folk
perception of the
imugi’s
incompleteness. While its divinity is weakened, its human side—protecting
good people and repaying kindness—is strengthened, representing the common
people’s will to live a virtuous life.
Lastly, there is the negative
imugi that causes harm
to humans. In these cases, the being is depicted as having lost both
divinity and humanity.
Kim Si-min, a military official who performed great deeds during the Imjin
War, was exceptionally intelligent and physically imposing from childhood.
A legend from when he was nine years old survives. Near his village, a
large cave existed beneath a submerged rock in the river. A giant
imugi lived
there, appearing frequently to terrify people and harm livestock. Kim
Si-min gathered local children, took a bow made of mulberry wood and
arrows made of mugwort, and lured the
imugi using the
children’s shadows on a large rock (Guam). When the
imugi appeared,
Kim hit it with six or seven arrows, killing it. It is said the
imugi’s blood
stained the river red for days.
Here, the imugi is
merely a harmful entity and an object of punishment.
Characteristics and Significance
It is believed that the concept of the dragon entered Korea along with
Buddhist culture. The
imugi appears to be a
being that served the role of a water deity (susin) in indigenous beliefs before the introduction of the dragon. However, as
Buddhism expanded and dragon ideology became central to Korean faith, the
divinity of the
imugi weakened.
Consequently, the
imugi was likely
demoted to the status of a dragon's son or perceived as an object to be
punished.
Nevertheless, while the religious sentiment toward the
imugi has weakened,
its symbolism as a supernatural creature (imul) with human qualities remains. Compared to celestial gods or dragon
deities living in deep seas far from human experience, the
imugi transformed
into an intimate figure living in nearby ponds, involving itself in human
fortune and practicing righteous values. Thus, the image of the
imugi repaying a good
human who respects life and cares for a neglected child embodies the
righteous values and human ideals we pursue in the human world.
Source:Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture, National Folk Museum of Korea.
Disclaimer: All images used in this article from The Haunted Palace are owned by SBS and are used here under Fair Use for the purpose of criticism and scholarly review.
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This article was originally written in Hungarian for Ricemegatron Expert Film Blog and subsequently translated into English for Ricemegatron Expert: Korean Screen Insights. The English version was created with the assistance of Gemini AI, focusing on preserving the original tone, structure, and critical style of the author.
