“The Remarried Empress”, one of Naver Webtoon’s most popular games, has reached nearly 3 billion views in 10 languages since its release in 2019.
As a live-action series streaming on Disney+ and Hulu in the US, it carries the expectations of a fan base that already knows each character. Originally scheduled to air on November 4, the series was released a day earlier “as a special thank you to fans for their overwhelming support,” according to the broadcasters.
In the series, Navier (Shin Min-a) and Emperor Sovieshu (Ju Ji-hoon) were friends who married for the sake of the Eastern Empire. Their peace is disrupted when Sovieshu rescues Rashta (Lee Se-young), a runaway slave on a royal hunt, and brings her home as his concubine. As love, lust and regret take over the palace, Heinrey (Lee Jong-suk), the charming crown prince of the Western Kingdom, sets his sights on Navier. It is directed by Cho Su-won (“I Can Hear Your Voice”, “Pinocchio”) from a screenplay by Yeoh Geena and Hyun Choong-yeol (“The Uncanny Counter”).
The series premiered its first three episodes at the Screen section of the Busan International Film Festival before its global launch.
The shooting for Shin Min-a (“Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha,” “Our Blues”) was a familiar story rarely seen in Korean dramas: a European-style fantasy empire of ballrooms and crowns. “I had high expectations for what kind of balance it would strike when it was made into a series,” he says.
Her on-screen husband Ju Ji-hoon (“Kingdom,” “Trauma Code: Heroes on Call”) was influenced by the source material. “Love, divorce, complexity, power struggle, it all makes for a fascinating subject,” he says.
Lee Se-young (“Red Sleeves,” “The Story of Park’s Marriage Contract”) inherited the story’s most divisive figure. Rashta arrives at the palace as a runaway slave and the emperor’s new favorite, and as she gets a taste of the life she never had, she begins to want more. “Because there needs to be a character that can become the seed of conflict, I thought about that first and then built the character from there,” he says. “At the same time, I tried to make him a character that you resented but didn’t quite hate.”
The players and technical team behind the palace intrigues go back years. Shin and Ju previously starred together in “The Devil” and “The Naked Kitchen”, and Cho directed Lee Jong-suk in both “I Can Hear Your Voice” and “Pinocchio”. This happens when all four leads share the screen, as in a highly anticipated prom scene. “When [they] “When they gather in one area, there is more tension,” Shin says.
The production researched castles in France, Germany and the Czech Republic before settling on Schleissheim Palace outside Munich as the main location, giving the series a European palace look closer to Netflix’s “Bridgerton” than the Joseon-era palaces of Korean period dramas. “This is something completely new for a Korean drama,” says Lee Jong-suk (“Pinocchio,” “Big Mouth”).
Shin says he watched documentaries about kings and queens abroad to get used to this type of royalty. “But the narratives they carry are different from ours,” Shin says. “So I looked at those as references, but then I focused on the script itself.”
The series combines lavish costumes and sets with visual effects to build its own fantasy world, including the Queen, the mysterious bird with whom Navier bonds. Shin calls these scenes “challenging” but says he took the role partly because he thought they would “look good on screen.”
Webcomics have proven to be a reliable source for Korean originals among streamers, and Disney+ is no exception. Kang Full’s “Moving,” which Disney described as an unexpected international hit, began filming its second season in May, and Ju also starred in the streamer’s Kang Full adaptation “Light Shop.” “The Remarried Empress” is already attracting similar attention with its main trailer, which reached 13 million views in the first 48 hours.
Produced by Studio N, the 10-episode series will begin with four episodes, followed by two episodes from Wednesday to November 25.
Alphatart’s web novel first appeared in 2018, and the webtoon drawn by Sumpul released its final episode in January.