The Red Sleeve

It's been a week since I watched this drama and let me tell you my mind , heart, soul everything is stuck in it.

This DRAMA shows different emotions at the same time. This shows the real definition of LOVE.
It made me believe that love can be like them too.
This drama shows a next kind/type of LOVE which we would have never heard, imagined , seen , felt, experienced.
This also shows Love with Toxicity.
This drama shows EMOTIONS which cant be told, expressed and even named.
It's all like a new thing to me

Before watching this drama , i got to know that this drama is based on a real historical events.
I didn't wanted to ruin it by knowing the story before watching it so I watched it first and then read some more facts about this which weren't included in the drama.

Talking about its cast, male lead 'Lee Jun-ho' or the king ' Yi San' was perfectly perfect for this role and same goes for the female lead court lady 'Seong Deok Im' or
'Lee Se- young'

(I haven't really seen any of their drama before this one.
But they did a great job, I can't them out of my mind now.)

Like every other k-drama, there is a childhood connection between leads and I don't know if it was in real too.
Story is based on a complicated love story between a king and a court lady.

And to our surprise court lady's father was a companion or a man of the king's father who was dethroned and killed by his own father and mother.

So our king San lead a quite lonely life as his father was punished to death by his own grandfather and grandmother who was concubine.
And that was because of some evil deeds his father or whatsoever.

He lead a lonely and busy, strict life until he met this court lady named Deok-Im.
Although they met earlier too when they were small but they didn't knew each other's identity then.

Comming to the main story:-
*Crown prince San fell in love with court lady Deok Im
and when he finally became the king he wanted her to become his concubine.
*Whereas Deok Im never wanted to become a concubine as she knew how her life will change after that.
She had 3 friends with whom she was happy with. She wanted to spend her life with them but her destiny wanted something else.
* Although she liked San but she wanted to keep herself first , she wanted all the freedom she had now as a court lady.
* She refused San about being a concubine and Sab respected her decision.
* But eventually she gave in and became his concubine which was kind of sad for me.
* After she became a concubine, her life became lonely, kind of miserable
* And at last she dies when she was pregnant for the second time as shown in the drama

This was a very very short summary.

Here is my opinion----------------------

According to me Deok Im want wrong when she denied king's offer to become a concubine.
She knew that being a concubine means never going out of palace, a wall between her friendship with her friends and other maids who were like her family, never being able to live like she does now.
She knew the consequences of beinga concubine.
She wanted to be free like she was now but King never understood that feeling of her's.

She loved San but she kept herself above every single thing and that was absolutely right.
She denied the fact the she loved him too, she denied her feeling and it was a good decision.
But when you are just a court lady , you can't do anything in front of a king.
Eventually he can do whatever he wants.

It was good to find San respect her decision but that too until he could.
He protected her many a times but that sames goes for Deok Im as she protected him with her life everytime.

Deok Im was already miserable as a court lady as she already had many enemies as well as admirers. Yet she was happy and satisfied.

But as she became a concubine, her life took a turn and she was lonely as hell. This DRAMA shows different emotions as I told earlier.

After becoming a Concubine, you can see pain in her eyes when she just lay down helplessly, you can see loneliness in her, you can see the urge to be loved in her eyes, you can see how she lost her real self, her life.
She was nothing but just like a corpse in that palace.

When her friends go too market or town and she was the one left out. She realises how she lost her freedom and herself.
It pained my heart when i watched that particular part of her friends leaving without her.

She was caged inside that small tomb.

The time when she found she was pregnant but the king didn't came to her immediately as he had a responsibility towards queen too.
She knew he would be with queen. She knew that was his responsibility, she knew that already that this was going to happen but she was helpless.

She understands all his duty, she realise everything but at the end she is also a human with emotions.
She took that as her destiny.
That's the time you realise it was toxic for her.
She couldn't do anything about this.
She couldn't change her fate.

It was painful to see her like a living corpse. She was broken when her first child died and she couldn't even see him for the last time.
She looked miserable at that moment and I think all the viewers could feel that.
She was just living for the baby inside her and for the king. She never lived for herself even once and the king never realised that.

How Toxic is that.

She lost her friends too at the end.
Friends played a important role in her life but eventually one of her frnds was punished as she had a dating rumour and was pregnant while she was a court lady who are prohibited to date, marry and have children.
Deok I'm was showed how she felt bad that being a king's concubine or being her friend she can't do anything.
How helpless she was to her friend.
They all made the plan to live together in a small house when they all retire from their duties but that dream never fulfilled.

In the end they promised to wait for eachother in heaven.

Her other friend died due to a disease and this was shown in the last episode.

Eventually they all were lonely at the end.
I cried my heart out in all these scenes.

I think the pain I felt while watching this drama was not even 1 percent of the pain they lived.

In the drama
She lost her first child due to a disease. And she died when she was pregnant with second child.

But according to the things I read.
King San and Deok Im had 6 children and non of them survived. How sad this is.

Deok Im surrendered to be a concubine when her friends were being punished ....how miserable is that.

I know she would have lead a happy as well as a sad life after becoming a concubine but in the drama I could only see her pain.

At the END King was left all alone. He only loved once in his life.
I dont know if he regretted about making Deok Im a concubine.

But at last I fell bad for the king too although it can't balance the pain of Deok Im.

I cried a lot while watching this drama.
My tears weren't ready to stop.
With tears I felt pain which was just a small portion what the characters of the drama felt.

It was one of the best drama I have watched and I would do anything to watch this again.

I just wish deok Im and San to meet again in another life as a normal human being where they lead a beautiful life.
Although Deok Im wanted San to walk past her if they meet in another life.