New Trailer for Action Sageuk 불꽃처럼 나비처럼 (The Sword with No Name)

Set aside obvious "villains" like Prince Yeonsan, Empress Myeongseong (or Queen Min, for the Lee Byeong-Do aficionados) is arguably one of the most controversial figures of the entire Joseon Dynasty. Whereas her exploits during the final days of the Korean Empire mostly concerned historians and history buffs up until the turn of the century, Jung Ha-Yeon's 명성황후 (The Last Empress) - not to be confused with the musical, which is much more shallow and nationalistic - put so much fuel on the fire that she ended up entering the collective Korean psyche, what with her roaring "내가 조선의 국모니라 (I am Joseon's mother of state)" catchphrase. Now, perhaps a little too late to the party and when the topic is starting to lose steam, we even get a film out of it. Before the history buffs take out the sashimi knives, I wouldn't worry too much: this is just a period drama wearing glitzy hanbok and borrowing some historical names, that's it. No controversy there.

I guess the biggest hint revealing what kind of direction 불꽃처럼 나비처럼 (The Sword With No Name) might take comes from the original story by Yaseollok (born Choi Jae-Bong), moniker of one of the most popular wuxia manhwa artists in Korea. Sure enough, looks like we'll get plenty of heroic action (notice our protagonist fighting off hordes of troops), spicy romance - I wouldn't expect the kind of "spice" we saw in 쌍화점 (Frozen Flower), though - and metric tons of flashy angst surrounded by CG. If there's anything that could make you breathe in relief out of all this Hollywood-like veil is director Kim Yong-Gyun of 우리에게 내일은 없다 (Boys of Tomorrow) and 분홍신 (The Red Shoes) fame, who is pretty good when given decent material to work with. Also, cast is quite solid, with Soo Ae and Jo Seung-Woo as leads (both have sageuk experience), the criminally underrated Kim Young-Min, and great veterans like Cheon Ho-Jin. The theatrical trailer is still a little too flashy and manhwa-like for my liking, but we'll see. You can make up your mind below the break. Release is set for September 24.

theatrical trailer

teaser trailer