Netflix K-drama Under the Queen’s Umbrella: Kim Hye-soo impresses in studious period court drama
- Also featuring Kim Hae-sook and Choi Won-young, historical drama fuses palace scheming with the popular K-drama theme of students pushed by unrelenting mothers
- Superb visuals complement Kim Hye-soo’s strong performance, but the show has typical period drama flaws, like underdeveloped characters with unclear connections
The recently concluded hit K-drama Little Women is a hard act to follow, but period drama Under the Queen’s Umbrella – also showing on Netflix – has just launched in the former’s slot on South Korean TV and achieved the highest ratings of any drama this year.
That is testament to Kim Hye-soo’s magnetism as one of the country’s biggest stars.
Kim plays Queen Im Hwa-ryeong, the mother of a crown prince during the rule of the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910) in Korea. When a sudden illness sidelines her son, a desperate race ensues among his fellow princes to become a cohort – and thereby second in line to the throne after the crown prince.
Hwa-ryeong is mother to four other “grand princes”, but these wayward sons have fallen behind the other, more studious princes in their classes. These other princes are the sons of royal consorts – concubines.