Until the Azalea Blooms (1998)

Directed by

Hong Sung Duk

Cast

Yum Jung Ah, Yoo Tae Woong, Yoon Dong Hwan, Park Geun Hyung, Heo Jin, Kim Kyung Hee, Park Woong, Jung Dong Hwan

Genre

drama television series

Country

South Korea

Length

8 episodes

How it feels

A South Korean miniseries based on a ballerina's essay about her life under North Korean leader Kim Il Sung. It shows her witnessing a public execution and eventually defecting to the South.

dramatictensegrimhistoricalearnestintensesoberingpersonal

What happens

Until the Azalea Blooms (Korean: 진달래꽃 필 때까지; RR: Jindallaekkot pil ttaekkaji) is a South Korean miniseries starring Yum Jung-ah and Yoo Tae-woong. It aired on KBS2 from January 5 to January 27, 1998. Based on the 1996 essay by Mansudae ballerina Shin Young-hee Until the Rhododendron Blooms, which portrays North Korean society during Kim Il Sung's regime, the show dramatizes her life in the north of the peninsula, the public execution of Woo In-hee, a mistress of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, which she personally witnessed, and her defection to South Korea. One of its three writers, Jung Sung-san, was also a defector from North Korea, and the series was his first work in South Korea. The first two episodes achieved a viewership rating of 16–21%, but the series was criticized for being overly sensational, ridiculing North Korea and distorting the original work. The author herself, in early October 1997, tried to stop the show from airing, filing an injunction against KBS for copyright infringement and asking for a halt of the production of the drama. On January 5, 1998, the same day the series began airing, the Seoul Central District Court rejected the injunction, saying "There is no reason". Until the Azalea Blooms, remembered nowadays as one of the first entertainment programs that portrays North Korea without propaganda purposes, was negatively received by North Korea, which threatened to kill the staff and bomb KBS headquarters if the channel aired it, as the drama deals with corruption in the North. Listeners in North Korea, however, sent letters to encourage the producers to expose "the atrocities of dictators". North Korea banned it as well, but it has nevertheless circulated and people have been punished and executed for watching it. The series was extremely sensitive in North Korea, as it revealed the very existence of Kippumjo (pleasure group). (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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