Disclaimer: this is a review, and as such it contains spoilers of the whole series. Please proceed to read at your own risk if you still plan on watching this show or if you haven’t finished it yet. You have been warned.

Sungkyunkwan Scandal
( 성균관 스캔들 / Seongkyunkwan Seukendeul)
MyDramaList rating: 7.5/10

Hello~ Back with another review and this time I watched a classic that has been on my list for a long long time. I’ve wanted to watch this but never found the time or wasn’t in the right mood, but I chose that it was time.
What also helped was that recently I saw the Korean movie ‘Burning’ and rediscovered my love for Yoo Ah In, so that was an extra motivation.
I really liked going back in time and watch an oldschool type 20-episode drama. I have to admit though, that it took me a while to get into and some details from the first episode have already started to fade in my memory. Despite this, I will try to summarize and critique the series as vividly as possible.

Let me start with a summary.
Sungkyunkwan Scandal takes place in the late Joseon period, and focusses on Sungkyunkwan, which were the university quarters of the capital in which only scholars were allowed. And only men could become scholars.
Besides special occasions, women were prohibited from entering the grounds.
The main character of the story is Kim Yoon Hee (played by Park Min Young), who – after the untimely death of her father 10 years earlier – now has to somehow fend for her family consisting of her, her mother and her sickly younger brother. To earn more money, she disguises herself as a man and helps out transcribing books at a local bookstore. Her talent for literature and writing is very unusual for a girl (since girls weren’t supposed to even learn how to read and write), so she has no choice but to hide her true identity. One time, the bookstore owner gives her a very risky job – provide a cheat sheet to an aspiring scholar who is taking the entrance ceremony to Sungkyunkwan. However, during her mission, she accidentally approached the wrong scholar, Lee Sun Joon (played by Park Yoo Chun/Micky). Although confronted by him afterwards, she gets away with it.
But urgency for a fair future arises when her family becomes so needy for money that her mother is even willing to marry Yoon Hee off as a concubine to the Minister of War. However, another opportunity arises for Yoon Hee to escape in the middle of the night (her mother and brother help, I don’t remember the details anymore >_<) to enter the Sungkyunkwan entrace test. While it wasn’t her first intention to actually enter the university, the king himself is so impressed by her literary wit in the exam that he insists she enroll.
And so it happens that Yoon Hee, under the name of her brother Kim Yoon Shik, enters Sungkyunkwan to become a scholar. There, she becomes friends with Lee Sun Joon, who becomes her classmate, their other roommate Moon Jae Shin (Yoo Ah In) and fancy-dressed playboy Gu Yong Ha (Song Joong Ki). They face many trials in their friendships and scholarly ambitions, mostly caused by the student body president and his group of followers. The student body president Ha In Soo (played by Jun Tae Soo), is also the son of the Minister of War, and he is determined to sabotage Kim Yoon Shik and Lee Sun Joon’s progression within the university, but they keep winning.
Slowly but surely, Lee Sun Joon and Kim Yoon Shik start having more than just brotherly feelings for each other, but of course homosexuality is more than prohibited in Sungkyunkwan; it’s unheard of.
Lastly, there is the case of a secret uprising to go against the king amongst some of the ministers and this all links back to the reason why Yoon Hee’s father and Jae Shin’s brother were killed 10 years ago.

I would like to emphasize again how much I enjoyed watching an oldschool drama from 2010 with everything that was still wrong but enjoyable about K-Dramas back then. They’ve progressed so much in the drama industry, but it’s still nice to watch something like this – it made me a little sentimental.
The flashy acting, the extreme close-ups (eyes, lips etc.), the tacky soundtrack… Still loved it, though.

The main part of the story revolves around these four friends, and among that around the growing romantic relationship between Lee Sun Joon and Kim Yoon Shik.
Of course, a lot of things happen in the 20 episodes. Mostly activities within the Sungkyunkwan tradition which require the scholars to face off against each other in some kind of tournament, whether it’s a written test or an archery competition. In every case, the student body president conjures up a plan to make sure the quartet of friends doesn’t win, but consistently fails. In this way, it was almost like watching a typical show with a typical bad guy who always tries to defeat the good guys but always loses. Ha In Soo was basically Draco Malfoy in late Joseon times.
Ha In Soo also has a younger sister, Hyo Eun (played by Seo Hyo Rim), who falls in love with Lee Sun Joon and almost gets engaged to him. By the time she starts to pursue him, Sun Joon is already falling for Yoon Shik, and although he initially agrees to marry her to get rid of his feelings for Yoon Shik, he ultimately calls it off when he finds he can’t ignore how he feels.
And then there’s Cho Sun (played by Kim Min Seo), the most distinguished gisaeng (I still don’t like the word ‘prostitute’ as a translation) who falls for Yoon Shik, of course under the impression that it’s a guy.
It is later revealed that Cho Sun is also a hired assassin who works for the Minister of War to stir up trouble and make people think the mysterious rebel thief called the Red Messenger is a dangerous rebel.
As it turns out, the Red Messenger is actually Moon Jae Shin, and he doesn’t kill anyone – he’s only out to warn people and rebel against the people responsible for his older brother’s death.

In the last couple of episodes, the quartet of friends is summoned by the King to help him with a pressing issue: to recover the late King’s will that went missing when Yoon Hee’s father and Jae Shin’s brother were supposed to secretly deliver it to the palace but were struck down on the way there by hired guards. Yoon Hee then finds out what truly happened to her father and that it was all the Minister of War’s plan to work against both the King and the Left State Minister (Sun Joon’s father).
Following a lead of literary clues which Yoon Hee is smart enough to decode, she eventually finds the will. To be clear, the will is the key to the King’s dream to move the capital elsewhere and start a country where everyone is equal (many of the Ministers are against this). Just when this will is found, the truth about Yoon Hee’s identity is brought to the surface, the King finds out, and in order to protect her from being used as blackmail by the Minister of War, he decides to burn the will but declares that he will still keep dreaming about this dream of creating an equal Joseon.
I believe it was something like that. He burned the will, claimed that it wasn’t recovered to the Council and Yoon Hee was able to remain at Sungkyunkwan (the Minister of War was arrested for giving the order for murdering the two people 10 years ago etcetera).

I would now like to give some comments on the casting.
I knew all the main actors but it was really nice to see them in this drama.
Park Min Young is growing on me with every drama I see of her, although actually I’ve only seen Healer (lol). But I loved her in Busted! and she seems like a very cool person in real life. I think this was a very good role for her since she revealed different layers to her character, both as a woman and a man.
I’ve seen Micky Yoochun in a historical drama before (Rooftop Prince, which is great) and I really liked his drama The Girl Who Sees Smells, which (gasp) I just found out is the last drama he did in 2015. I know he went to the army at some point but I haven’t heard anything from him since then, is he back yet? What’s he been up to? He usually doesn’t leave a very big impression on me, but I think he was cast well in this role of uptight ambitious scholar who slowly starts to loosen up and become more human.
As I mentioned before, one of the reasons I wanted to watch this drama was because of Yoo Ah In – I won’t make it a secret I have a slight celebrity crush on him – and Jae Shin was possibly my favorite character in this drama. The unpredictable rumored rebel nicknamed ‘Geol Oh/Crazy Horse'(?) who also turns out to be this mysterious rebel thief wanting vengeance for his brother’s death. All tough and mysterious, but when he’s faced with a woman he gets the hiccups. I mean, who even thought of this? I love that person. Through the story – pretty much after he discovers Yoon Shik is a girl – he starts developing feelings for her too and tries everything he can to protect her, but sadly he is the second male lead in this love triangle.
I only know Song Joong Ki from Descendants of the Sun, but it was really funny to see him as such a dandy in this drama. In the beginning he seemed kind of creepy perverted and occasionally even a little annoying to me, but his character grows a lot and he got a lot of character backstory and development and in the end I just started to love him too. Because behind that ever so confident smile and flashy clothes, he was actually covering up the fact that he wasn’t an actual noble family scholar. And he still risks being exposed for it when it means getting his friends out of trouble. That’s what I call a loyal friend.
I’ve seen Seo Hyo Rim before in Me Too, Flower, where she was this typical lady, and it was fun to see her act so brightly as a little spoiled princess in this drama. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her when we all knew her love for Sun Joon was going nowhere. I liked her character, she never turned bad like her brother. I have to say I didn’t even completely dislike the Minister of War either. He was just consumed by his greed for getting higher up and everyone who could help him with that looked down on him. Apart from that, he really cared about this children and always took their side, mostly when it came to protecting his daughter’s honor.
I didn’t realize Kim Min Seo was in this drama until I looked closely; I’d seen her in a couple of series before but she was always cast as the bitchy/jealous second female lead (The Moon That Embraces The Sun, Baby-faced Beauty). It was nice to see her as a good character for once, the Joseon look suits her very well.

The build-up in the growing feelings between the main couple is very slow, just the K-Drama way I like it. It takes about halfway through the series before Sun Joon realizes he sees Yoon Shik as more than just a roommate, but it all starts when he sees ‘him’ dressed as a woman during one of their missions. After that he just can’t see Yoon Shik as a normal guy anymore.
I really liked it when they finally confronted each other, Sun Joon accidentally finds out that Yoon Shik is a girl and he is just relieved. No unnecessary drama ‘you lied to me all this time nuuu’, but just ‘oh hey you’re a girl, well this is convenient, now I don’t have to feel weird for liking a guy’. And their romantic gestures and secret meetups and kisses were really adorable. This is what I like about K-Dramas, the old-fashioned tacky but adorable romances.
Honestly, I felt a little bad for Moon Jae Shin, but he saw soon enough he didn’t stand a chance and even though he was obviously bothered by it a little, he gave his friends all the space they needed. I wanted to hug him so many times. Then again, I wouldn’t mind hugging Yoo Ah In many times either, lol (sorry not sorry).

This won’t be a very long review, even though it took me some time to finish because I took a break after the first three episodes. But I think the story and the characters were all pretty well established. In the end, there were no loose ends, they wrapped everything up nicely and I don’t really have any main criticisms. I had a lot of stereotypes in the characters, but that’s what made it so animating. Nothing was rushed, all the characters received development were needed, and no one was only ‘good’ or ‘bad’. In the end, even some of Ha In Soo’s followers turned on him because they just couldn’t ignore that what he was doing was wrong, everyone had a conscience.

I might think of more to write later, but overall I very much enjoyed watching this and I was very eager to see the development of Lee Sun Joon and Kim Yoon Shik and how everything would work out when all the different truths came out.
What I thought was funny was, when in an important time in their relationship, the news arose that Sun Joon’s father might have been responsible for Yoon Hee’s father’s death. And I found it so satisfyingly mature of the relationship they were in that they didn’t immediately turn against each other. I mean, there’s lots of series were one bit of news like that is enough to instantly break a couple apart or suddenly make one party say ‘I can’t be with you anymore’. But that didn’t happen, their first instinct was to figure out the truth together and I think that’s what made their relationship so mature and very realistically written. There was no unnecessary drama, when conflict would arise they would always just figure it out within one episode and always get back together because their friendship was strong enough to hold. Some modern-day drama characters could learn from this; even in Joseon times, when drama was REAL (look at the unfair treatment of women) and the rules were to be abided by or you would literally by killed or tortured, people just talked stuff out.

I liked how the series was established as a ‘slice of life’ impression of scholars in Sungkyunkwan in this period. Sometimes in historical dramas I feel like they don’t really take it seriously and the way they talk doesn’t differ that much from how they talk in modern-day dramas (at least, it sounds pretty much the same to me). In 100 Day Husband someone even makes a heart mark with his fingers one time, I was shook when that happened! And of course there is Hwarang, I won’t even talk about Hwarang, I couldn’t take it seriously for the life of me.
In this drama, they took the historical credibility very seriously, even the way of talking was distinctively old-fashioned. I like it the best when I can completely be immersed in how they walked and talked during that period.
There’s a reason I love historical dramas, they give me so much lessons in Korean history, it’s so interesting! Especially when it’s based on true empires and royalties.
I will continue to watch more historical dramas since they bring me so much joy and I might also one day re-watch The Moon That Embraces The Sun, my first ever and all-time favorite historical drama that got me hooked on historical dramas in general. When that time comes, you can expect the review on my blog! No guarantees though, it all depends on my mood and my ‘yet to watch’ list is still longer than ever. I almost can’t afford re-watching stuff, lol.

I have one more thing to say, and that’s how progressive I found this series, not only for a story taking place in Joseon times, but also for a drama from 2010. Although I usually dislike standard tropes in K-Dramas, this time I realized one thing I like about the ‘girl-dresses-up-as-guy’ trope – it’s actual proof that people fall in love with a person, and not necessarily a gender.
In dramas sporting this trope, the main guy always falls for the pretend-guy at some point, and then he feels weird at first but then somehow gets over it by thinking ‘screw it, I clearly like this guy and I shouldn’t suppress my feelings’ and then they find out that it’s actually been a girl all this time and he feels kind of relieved. But my point is, he falls for a person regardless of whether it’s a guy or a girl. And I actually think this is overlooked because most people focus on the truth of it still ‘fortunately’ being a heterosexual couple. I think this might be a very good message, it definitely proves that you can’t help who you fall for, guy or girl or variation thereupon.
I suddenly realized this when watching Sungkyunkwan Scandal, and it made me appreciate it even more.
I mean, Sun Joon doesn’t hesitate for a minute to confess he is a homosexual in front of the entire student body just to protect his falsely accused friends. I found the way he accepted his own believed homosexuality was very progressive for someone in that historical time period.
Also, the story of course holds a great message for women. Women were never supposed to acquire any kind of scholarly status, but Yoon Hee is so talented even the King can’t deny her place in Sungkyunkwan even after he finds out she’s a woman. And the way she talks about wanting a free life and just do what she wants without having to obey specific rules or limitations just because she was born as a woman (sometimes she too didn’t have any choice in).
Now that I think of it, their way of thinking really is very progressive for that time. I’m not sure how accurate that is in terms of how progressive and open-minded people were at that time, but I liked it anyway.

I think I understand now why this story is called a classic. For me, it really has to do with it being ahead of its time. The main characters in the story are also ahead of their time and it has a really nice message with hope for a future where men and women can be equals. I wonder if the actual people from that time with this dream could be happy if they see how far we’ve come in 300 years.
People don’t blink about homosexuality and some of the most major academic scholars in the world are women. It’s all possible now. It wasn’t always like that.
I’d like it if this drama can be seen as a wink to create a bridge between the past and how far we’ve come in the future.

Stay tuned for my next review! Bye-bye~