Jewel in the Palace / Dae Jung Geum (PMP Version Complete Series, All Zone, Good English Sub, Korean Drama)

The content first.The story is interesting, Knowing that it is based on a real person makes me wonder how it really was back then. Seeing Korea and learning a bit of it's culture is good to. I am watching it with my Korean girl friend who loves it. For me the style is a little simplistic but it is still watchable.The content is probably worth 3.5 stars ***** I have just finished watching the series now. I have increased my overall rating to 4 stars. I will now say that the story is worth 4.5 stars. I stand by my earlier comments, however I think that the story (and possibly the acting or I have gotten more used to the style)grow as the series proceeds. I really like shows that have a long story arc and this show has one that goes from start to finish. It has some very poignant moments.Next this editionThe outer case is fine, but the discs are just in CD type soft slip covers (very cheap and as soon as I saw this I was worried that this might be poor quaility).Fortunately the video does seem to be fine, however the production of the discs has been skimped on in a few annoying ways.A) there are no episode lists on each disc, just chapters. This makes it very annoying if you are returning to a disc part way through (there seems to be 4 chapters per episode).B) Poor quality subtitles. The translations are poor (maybe barely acceptable), the length of time they are on screen is ridiculously short most of the time and occasionally way to long and there are frequent miss spellings. This detracts from the whole experience quite noticably. With good subtitles, when you think back on the program the next day it should feel like the characters were speaking your language, but these subtitles make it feel like the characters were mute.C)The volume (especially of the disc production credits)is set very high compared to all other titles. Be prepared to get blasted as you start it.This edition is probably worth 2.5 stars.In summary, because of the poor production of the discs it takes quite an effort to watch, so make sure that you are ready to concentrate. However with practice it does get easier to deal with the bad subtitles. I can now say that I think the effort is worth it if you cannot get a better edition.Hope this helps

Just to be clear: I am not reviewing the series as I still haven't seen it. I am reviewing the quality of the product I received from Amazon. First, the "Complete" series I received contains only 10 (TEN) discs - NOT 14. I had to play the final episode and then consult Wikipedia, DramaWiki, and AsianWiki to forensically confirm that I had received a complete series. To make matters even more confusing, the DVD I received lists the final episode as #70, whereas it would appear that there were only 54 official episodes. Because of this discrepancy, I had to fast forward through the "final" episode to see whether the last scene on my DVD matched the descriptions on the various Wiki sites I consulted. Furthermore, it is fairly evident that the DVDs I received are copies made from other copies. The quality is low definition such that it appears is if everyone is wearing some kind of plastic mask. Finally, the English subtitles are a joke: the grammar is atrocious and the translations are inaccurate.

this is a brilliant series about a young girl who enters the palace as a kitchen maid and ends up something else entirely.when i received this boxset i quailed at the sight of 14 dvds,but as i started to watch it, i was immediately hooked.the first episode looks a bit ropey and it's a little slow but it picks up as soon as jang geum get into the palace.the politics and backstabbing,as the cui family try to keep their monopoly of trade to the palace and the way jang defeats them by sticking to her principles no matter what happens to her makes this show addictive viewing.even my 10 yr old nephew liked it! the one fault i have is the bad subtitles.mostly they were ok,but every now and then they turned into gibberish or the wrong words were used.mind you they were quite funny.all in all, a good watch!

About 500 years ago during the time of Chosun Dynasty, Korea boasted a rigidly hierarchical and male dominated social structure. Set in this period, "Jewel in the Palace" is based on a true story about a legendary girl named Jang-Geum who became the first woman to be the supreme royal physician of her times.Despite her poor condition as a low class girl in the male dominated society, Jang-Geum overcame a series of social discrimination and landed herself as a royal cook, later becoming the royal physician, then ultimately the physician in charge of the king.She was even given by the king the title "The Great Jang-Geum".A great mini-series, English sub-titles, Korean language.

The series itself was very good, but the English translation was marginal. If you're not the type who can infer meaning or get a general gist when reading an ill-translated text, then you're going to have a problem with this. Also, I heard the original drama from Korea had only 56 episodes. This set has 70, no doubt because the episodes are cut short, which makes for some weird endings to some of them.