by Frank Hecker, Staff Writer

The Takarazuka Revue has inspired several manga and anime. Now comes Jeongnyeon: The Star Is Born, a Korean drama (currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+) that features an analogous 1950s-era all-female gukgeuk troupe performing plays based on classic Korean tales and featuring songs sung in the traditional pansori style. Jeongnyeon the series features Yoon Jeongnyeon the performer (played by Kim Tae-ri), a natural-born pansori genius who goes from working as a fishmonger to joining the Maeran Theater Company as a trainee and competing to become its new “prince.”

If you’ve heard about Jeongnyeon at all, you’ve likely heard that it’s based on a yuri webcomic of the same name, and that the explicit yuri elements were erased in the live-action adaptation. This is true: in the webcomic Jeongnyeon has a girlfriend, Kwon Bu-yong (the rightmost figure in the webcomic image below), who starts out as a fan of Maeran. There’s also a side character who was disrespected as a woman and decided to henceforth live life as a man. Neither are present in the TV series.

Nevertheless, Jeongnyeon is still of interest to yuri fans who enjoy dramas about the theater in general and all-female theatrical troupes in particular. And there is plenty of drama to be had: Jeongnyeon finds her quest to become a top star impeded by the violent opposition of her mother Seo Yong-re (Moon So-ri), who has a mysterious past and a hidden connection to Maeran’s imperious director Kang So-bok (Ra Mi-ran). She also finds herself beset by bullies, incurring the wrath of director Kang for various offenses, and enmeshed in a triangle of sorts with her rival would-be prince Heo Yeong-seo (Shin Ye-eun) and their would-be princess Hong Joo-ran (Woo Da-vi). Meanwhile, scandals past and present threaten the positions of current prince Moon Ok-gyeong (Jung Eun-chae) and her princess Seo Hye-rang (Kim Yoon-hye), and the future of Maeran and indeed gukgeuk as a whole hangs in the balance.

The yuri elements discarded in the transition to screen reappear elsewhere as subtext: Ok-gyeong has the transmasc aura of the previous side character and with Hye-rang forms the troupe’s resident couple: They live in the same house, are casually affectionate with one another, and are even raising a young girl together. With Bu-yong absent, the show’s focus is solely on the Maeran trainees, and Joo-ran becomes a (very) thinly-veiled love interest for Jeongnyeong. Finally, in a rare example of heterosexual erasure, Yeong-seo loses the boyfriend she had in the webcomic and is free to devote her attentions to Jeongnyeon and Joo-ran. Almost all the remaining men have only minor roles or function as obstacles to the core group of women; the only other men featured, Jeongnyeon’s father and grandfather, are dead as her story begins.

As a show considered on its own merits, Jeongnyeon has a uniformly excellent cast, high production values, and a compelling if often bittersweet plot. Kim Tae-ri, who first came to fame starring in the Korean lesbian drama The Handmaiden, studied pansori for multiple years in preparation for the part, and it shows. I thought she played the role of Jeongnyeon a bit too broadly in some early episodes, but otherwise she’s completely convincing. Shin Ye-eun takes a common trope—the hard-working performer who’s overshadowed by an untutored genius—and makes Yeong-seo a complex and compelling rival to Jeongnyeon. Finally, Woo Da-vi is unjustly neglected in the show’s promotional materials, but her character is the emotional heart of the series. Joo-ran’s scenes with Jeongnyeon are some of the show’s most affecting, and certainly the most romantic.

As a story, Jeongnyeon harks back to Hana Monogatari and other “S” fictions, in which young women have relationships of “passionate friendship” (and sometimes more than friendship) with other young women, relationships ended by adulthood and (typically arranged) marriages. Gukgeuk itself lost its mass audience to television and its elite audience to Western opera (exemplified by Yeong-seo’s mother, a famous soprano who looks down on Yeong-seo’s chosen career). So, even if other events didn’t intrude, the time the characters would have with each other would be fleeting.

As a production, Jeongnyeon was created in a modern society marked by often violent misogyny and homophobia, and can be seen as a response to that. The series was written and directed by women, and its main cast are all women. The women in Jeongnyeon start and staff their own troupes and put on their own theatrical productions. They claim for themselves ownership of stories that are classics of Korean culture and sing in a style originally pioneered by men, a style that in its frequent harshness is the very opposite of the ultra-feminine stylings of the stereotypical present-day idol.

While yuri fans have bemoaned the changes made in the transition from webcomic to live-action, the mainstream South Korean audience has taken this example of “quiet feminism” to heart and propelled the show to high ratings and the number 1 position in its time slots. If Jeongnyeon: The Star Is Born is anywhere near as popular outside South Korea—as it deserves to be—perhaps one day there’ll be an official English release of the webcomic, and we can experience the story of Jeongnyeon as it was originally conceived.

Ratings:

Story — 7 (a bit too much coincidence in the initial setup, and a somewhat flat ending)
Characters — 9 (complex characters vividly brought to life)
Production — 9 (impressive recreations of multiple theatrical productions)
Service — 1 (Ok-gyeong in a suit and fedora counts, I think)
Yuri — 5 (the subtext is strong with this one)

Overall — 8 (a kiss apparently left on the cutting-room floor might have made this a 9)

Yuri fans who can look past the (self-)censorship of a canon yuri story will find an entertaining and emotionally resonant drama elevated by standout performances by Kim Tae-ri and the other leads, along with splendid recreations of classic gukgeuk performances.

Note: If you want to further explore the real-life history of all-female theater in Korea, see Ha Ju-yong, “Female Masculinity and Cultural Symbolism: A History of Yeoseong gukgeuk, the All-Female Cast Theatrical Genre,” The Review of Korean Studies 24, no. 2 (December 2021), 107-144, doi: 10.25024/review.2021.24.2.107. This open-access article has a wealth of detail, including promotional posters and ads, photographs of performers, and even example sheet music for one of the songs.

Continuing our tour of Southeast Asian live-action yuri, we come to Cambodia, a country that has a much smaller population than either Thailand or Vietnam, and a per capita GDP as small relative to Vietnam’s as Vietnam’s is to Thailand’s. It’s therefore a surprise to find that Cambodia has produced a number of live-action yuri series, due primarily to the work of media entrepreneur Bun Channimol and her production company Sastra Film. Thus far Sastra Film has produced almost a dozen yuri series (some short-form, others longer), distributed through its own streaming app and on YouTube. Here I look at two series chosen at random from its output.

Is You is an adult yuri series, with six episodes plus a final “special episode” available on YouTube with English subtitles. It tells the tangled tale of TV host Neang (Ya Sophanmai), her husband, actor Kun (Sok Sunny), and fitness trainer Sour (Rachana Ravady). Neang is secretly married to Kun, who chafes at her reluctance to make their relationship public. Sour, a guest on Neang’s show, is also (unknown to Neang) Kun’s girlfriend from many years ago. Kun seizes the opportunity of Sour’s reappearance (and his apparent single status) to renew their relationship. After learning of Kun’s infidelity, Neang strikes back by beginning her own affair with Sour (as one does).

Unfortunately for yuri fans, this turn doesn’t occur until the end of episode 4. A good part of the first few episodes is taken up with Kun’s and Neang’s frustration with each other and Kun’s gloating to himself about having found a new love. After Kun is exposed and Neang and Sour begin their affair in earnest, the final episode destroys any goodwill one might have had toward the series: First Neang tests Sour’s love for her with a cruel prank that Sour should have slapped her for, and then Kun ends the episode monologuing like a B-movie villain about his desire for revenge. This implies that there may be a second season, but frankly I have zero interest in watching it.

Story — 5
Characters — 4
Production — 5 (mediocre subtitles, with some episodes on the Sastra Film app lacking them entirely)
Service — 3
Yuri — 5 (Neang and Sour get together because it’s ostensibly a yuri series and the plot demands it)
Overall — 3

After watching Is You I badly needed a palate cleanser, and fortunately Don’t Mess with Senior fit the bill nicely. Season 1 is on YouTube and the Sastra Film app, with a second season starting October 19. (There’s also a short form series, Don’t Mess with Senior: Part-Time Love, that’s set after the events of season 1 and presumably before the events of season 2.) Its premise is a classic yuri trope: first-year university student Dy (short, brown-haired) enthusiastically pursues her senpai Lin (taller with black hair), who initially resists Dy’s advances but eventually finds herself responding to them.

As we saw in Blank: The Series, there are two keys to making this trope work: the actor playing the younger pursuer must walk a fine line between being cute and being annoying, while the actor playing the pursued character must effectively portray the transition from being annoyed to being intrigued to being in love. An Mengly (nickname “Lily”), who portrays Dy, does about as well at this as Yoko did in season 1 of Blank, playing things a bit too broadly at times, while Som Monipich (“Pich”), who portrays Lin, isn’t as convincing as Faye in her character’s evolution. Nonetheless Lily and Pich as Dy and Lin play well together and make a cute couple, even when Dy’s antics get to be a bit too much.

Don’t Mess with Senior is also noteworthy for its setting: most of season 1 takes place on a university trip to rural Cambodia to study the local ecology and plant mangrove trees (which entails everyone schlepping around almost hip-deep in the water). The trip offers plenty of occasions for Dy to try to get closer to Lin, to play pranks on her fellow students (including Lin) and their professor, and to get jealous at Lin’s being friendly with the professor’s daughter.

The season ends somewhat inconclusively, with the final episode being a combination of recap episode and a Q&A session with the two leads. The latter features questions a bit bolder than those posed to other yuri leads, including asking Lily whether she and Pich are in a relationship off-screen (“No!”) and what she thinks of homosexuality (“I can’t see anything wrong [with it]. I want our society to accept them as well.”). Lily adds that people tried to discourage her from appearing in the series (her first role) based on the subject matter, but “I don’t care at all.” For her part, Pich is happy to have been cast in Don’t Mess with Senior: “I’m into that kind of series. Now I’m able to act in my kind of series.” Lily and Pich conclude by thanking their supporters and asking them to watch the upcoming season 2; I think I’ll take them up on that suggestion.

Story — 5 (you’ve no doubt seen it before, and likely more than once)
Characters — 6 (somewhat one-note, but often amusing and endearing)
Production — 6 (location shooting greatly improves the look and feel of the series)
Yuri — 6 (a reciprocal confession from Lin must await season 2)
Service — 3 (a drunken kiss)
Overall — 6

Is You is eminently skippable, but those interested in live-action yuri beyond Thailand might want to check out Don’t Mess with Senior, especially if you want a break from the typical urban settings of Asian TV series.