The Glory is a powerful story of bullying and revenge
The Glory , revenge movie in serial format now on Netflix, is much more than a story of revenge. It is the story of an obsession and how a too serious wrong can determine the path of an individual's existence, give it meaning and even have a weight in the balance between good and evil in the world. Moon Dong-eun is a penniless high school student; her mother does not care for her and the girl lives in a bare room in a state of near poverty. At school she is targeted by the group of bullies led by the sadistic Park Yeon-jin, while the teacher who is supposed to protect her covers up the harassment and punishes her for seeking help. When the school nurse determined to expose the bullying acts is fired, Dong-eun realizes that the only way to save himself is to leave school. From that moment her purpose becomes to take revenge on her tormentors and to do so, in the following eighteen years, she conveys her every action and decision in the development of a plan that will allow her to take revenge on the five bullies of her adolescence.
The Glory Song Hye-kyo as Moon Dong-eun in The Glory Cr. Graphyoda/Netflix © 2022 jisun park This is the premise of the k-drama The Glory, the latest effort by Shonda Rhimes of Korea Kim Eun-sook. Kim is the most popular k-drama author currently in circulation: her Goblins , Mr Sunshine , The King - Eternal Monarch, Descendants of the Sun, Secret Garden, The City Hall, The Heirs, Gentleman's Dignity, all serial works that have marked the history of local television in the last fifteen years. Only with City Hall had Kim shown her most critical side towards society, in a mature series without the typical fuss of soap dramas or the absurd twists of makjangs. Netflix allows her the widest creative freedom and The Glory is by far her most political, toughest, so brutal show that it doesn't even seem like her own creation. What Dong-eun suffers are not insults and beatings (which already constitute an unacceptable abuse inside the school system and outside): Dong-eun is tortured daily by her peer Park Yeon-Jin - who uses a red-hot curling iron to disfigure her - by her friends Lee Sa-ra and Choi Hye-jung and comrades Jeon Jae-joon and Son Myung-o.
The Glory Cr. Graphyoda / Netflix © 2022 jisun park Dong-eun exceeds an inviolable limit of tolerance - under penalty of losing humanity - and almost twenty years later she is invincible: no one scares her, hurts her, moves her. The damage she sustained mutated her DNA into that of an avenging angel. For the Korean people, whose history is dotted with invasions and colonization attempts by China, Japan, France, America, forbearance is engraved in the culture and revenge is a sinful dream - rather than a reality - the fantastic stuff of movies and series. The Korean small screen is full of characters humiliated by the rich and powerful who suffer without rebelling. Dong-eun belongs to another category, which also includes Yoon Ji-woo from My Name on TV and</a> characters from Park Chan-wook's revenge trilogy in cinema. Kim chooses to narrate that revenge with a chilling elegance, as if the clash between Dong-eun and his nemesis were a foil duel.
The Glory (L to R) Park Sung-hoon as Jeon Jae-jun, Song Hye-kyo as Moon Dong-eun in The Glory Cr. Graphyoda / Netflix © 2022 jisun parkDong-eun is so obsessed with her torturer that the constant presence of her face in her thoughts has become almost comforting: The Glory is a story of hate where hate is such a powerful feeling to look like love. It is also a show that aspires to formal charm, from sophisticated chiaroscuro photography, from wide and refined shots, from sets and costumes full of attention to detail - in particular to accessories - and often of metaphorical value such as green décolleté. To play Dong-eun, an inscrutable and thorny protagonist who does nothing to be loved or pitied, Kim chose an old acquaintance of Descendants of the Sun Song Hye-Kyo, an actress of glacial beauty (also loved by John Woo, for who starred in The Grandmaster). Sometimes accused of offering cold and woody performances, here Song is wonderful: a beautiful automaton, an unstoppable terminator, a sensitive and merciful woman who has buried her humanity and denied herself and her femininity in the name of an ideal.
The Glory Song Hye-kyo as Moon Dong-eun in The Glory Cr. Graphyoda / Netflix © 2022 jisun park Her fear of becoming attached to someone who returns her feelings and emotions is her own proof that Dong-eun can still save herself from a destiny of destruction and self-destruction. Dong-eun is not looking for redemption – she strongly believes that if no one stops the villains, they will continue to do to others what was done to her – which makes her character highly suggestive in her unflinching purity of purpose. . Kim poses as a silent voice that lets the viewer judge Dong-eun, side with her, or blame her for lack of leniency, but actually quietly takes a gloriously immoral stance through some gimmick that manipulates the viewer. The author, as mentioned, has chosen a beautiful, haughty, elegant actress who, despite being ten years older than the performers of the bullies, looks like a goddess. To play Park Yeon-Jin she selected Lim Ji-Yeon (cast from the erotic films Obsessed and The Treacherous), in her early thirties but deformed by plastic surgery. The same can be said of the other bully performers, some already known for villain roles in series and films (Kim Gun-Woo was the detestable antagonist in Fight For My Way ).
The Glory Im Ji-yeon as Park Yeon-jin in The Glory Cr. Graphyoda/Netflix © 2022 MH We will not say which direction the series divided into two tranches – the second part is scheduled for March – will take, if Dong-eun is punished for her thirst for revenge, if she succeeds in carrying it out or if she gives in to the temptation to indulge in the happiness of a normal life, but the brutal and hard sixth episode focused on close-up shots of Dong-eun's tortured naked body ends with a new ally begging her “ Tell me who you want me to kill for you ”. Can hate unite more than love?
