Director Hur Jin-Ho returns after his 3 year hiatus from the big screen with the movie, <Forbidden Dream>. It is a film about the relationship between King Sejong (Han Seok-kyu), one of the greatest kings in history, and Jang Yeong-sil (Choi Min-Sik), a praised scientist of the Joseon Dynasty, that established Joseon’s own celestial studies.
Though there was a huge difference in their status, King Sejong and Jang Yeong-sil worked together to create and establish Joseon’s scientific development, and even developed a special relationship beyond their social class differences. Jang Yeong-sil was originally a slave of the government who was recognized for his talents and taken to the palace during the reign of King Taejeong. After keeping an eye on Jang’s talents, King Sejong bestows Jang with a scientist of fifth-class status as soon as he takes the throne, and after Jang realizes King Sejong’s dreams of making a time unique to Joseon, the two begin to create astronomical instruments that opens the skies of Joseon for study and research. However, later on, King Sejong’s palanquin, which was designed by Jang Yeong-sil, breaks apart and is left recorded in history as the ‘palanquin accident’, leaving Jang to be interrogated and later sentenced to 80 floggings. There is no more historical record of Jang after this incident, leaving many to wonder what had ever happened to him.
<Forbidden Dream> is a fictional historical drama that begins from a historical event that actually existed. The movie was created from the curiosity of what ever happened to the genius scientist Jang Yeong-sil, and why all records of him had disappeared from history. The film fuses the cinematic imagination of Director Our with that of real historical records to showcase the relationship between the two geniuses of the Joseon Dynasty, and the mysterious disappearance of Jang in historical records.
Be sure to watch <Forbidden Dream> to catch Director Hur Jin-Ho’s extraordinary directing of one of Korea’s historical records!