My next post is about IL JI-MAE , an adaptation of a Chinese classic novel and made into a Korean TV drama series. It tells the story of a Robin Hood type hero. The title of the Chinese novel is " Happy Enemy". When the novel reached North Korea , it became a literature piece.
A Korean artist, by the name of Goo Woo Young turned this story into a comic book and gave its name IL JI-MAE...
This story happened during the Choseon Dynasty between AD 1600-1700 . If you still remember in my earlier posts, Choseon is old Korea.
Il ji-mae , which means Phantom Thief , was born Lee Gyeom, the son of Lee won-ho. They were of an aristocrat family. The story told how Gyeom (pronounced as Gyeom-ah) as a boy witnessed his father's death. Many years later when he was a young man he saw his sister being publicly hanged because she had wounded a King's guard. As a result he swore to avenge his father's and sister's death. In order to do this he turned into a robber at night and a distressful youth in the day.
One night when Gyeom dozed off while studying, his father heard noises outside. Gyeom awoke when his father tried to hide him in a cupboard. His father told him not to make noise and remained in the cupboard no matter what happened.
Won-ho went outside to face the intruders. A fight ensued with Won-ho and three swordsmen. During the fight, a gust of wind blew open the window to the room where Gyeom was locked inside the cupboard. Gyeom managed to see through an opening in the cupboard what took place outside the house. When his father was finally defeated by the swordsmen, a fourth person came to finish off his father. This was when Gyeom saw a peculiar emblem on the blade of the murderer's sword.
Who was this fourth person?
What was the connection between Lee won-ho and this fourth person?
The murderers made Won-ho's death looked like a suicide. When the officials of Lord Byun-syik's court came to the house that night to arrest Lee won-ho of treason, they found his body lifeless on the grounds of his home.
On that same night, however, Gyeom was rescued by Soe-dol when he took home the cupboard with Gyeom inside. Soe-dol was a common thief and a loser but with a kind heart. Before the tragic night when Lee won-ho was killed , Soe-dol had promised Lord Byun-syik to do a job for him for a handsome reward, naturally. Soe-dol was supposed to bury a letter under Lee won-ho's house. Soe-dol, however, changed his mind when he was tempted to open up the letter and saw it was written in red. Though he was illiterate, he sensed something bad about it . He then decided to return the letter and the reward to Byun-syik. This had angered Byun-syik and ordered his men to punish Soe-dol. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Soe-dol , his adopted son Ja-dol , had been following Soe-dol eversince he left their house that night.
Unfortunately for Ja-dol, he was caught snooping infront of Byun-syik's gate by one of the guards and was made captive. When he heard his father was being tortured and screaming in pain, Ja-dol cried out that he would do it.
While searching for evidence around Won-ho's house on the night of the murder, one of the guards found a letter buried under the house. The letter which Ja-dol buried apparently was an evidence that implicated Won-ho as a treasonist. Hence an order was given to seek and arrest Won-ho's family.
Gyeom who seemed to have recovered from the shock , escaped from Soe-dol's house and went back home to look for his mother and sister. He found his house being squandered and no sign of his mother or sister. He cried out and ran to the Titis tree to engrave the emblem that he saw on the blade of the sword which killed his father. He swore then that he would not forget what had happened.
After several harrowing incidents, he was finally saved again by Soe-dol though this time Gyeom had lost his memory and did not know who he was. Soe-dol and his wife, Danee , however, knew Gyeom's true identity. Feeling sorry for Gyeom and blaming himself for what had happened to Won-ho, Soe-dol decided to keep Gyeom as their own. Though Danee objected , Soe-dol insisted to keep Gyeom and decided to call him Ryung (pronounced as Yong-ee )
Ja-dol is Danee's biological son. Danee kept a secret from Ja-dol about his real father. One day when trying to save her son from being imprisoned, he told Byun-syik that Ja-dol was their illigetimate son. This led Ja-dol to live with his so called biological father. Though Ja-dol objected and Soe-dol was unhappy to this decision, Soe-dol had no choice but to agree with his wife. Ja-dol then grew up as Shi-hoo, a noble young man in Lord Byun-syik's home.
Now Lord Byun-syik also had a beautiful and good natured daughter named Eun-chae and a useless son call Shi-jong . Shi-jong and his mother naturally despised Shi-hoo. Eun-chae, being good natured loved Shi-hoo as her real brother. Unbeknownst to Eun-chae, Shi-hoo had some deep feelings for her.
Lord Byun-syik is a minister at the Imperial Court who carried out dubious acts for the King. Hence he was responsible in making Lee won-ho a treasonist on the order of the King.
During one of Gyeom's harrowing experiences as a boy he met up with a boy and his sister who helped to hide him in a beggars' village when the Imperial guards were chasing him.
Later, the boy unfortunately was killed by some swordsmen when they mistook him for Gyeom. Gyeom, however , witnessed this tragic incident. He had no choice but to run away from the village and took the boy's sister with him. They however got separated when Gyeom jumped off a cliff to escape their pursuers.
What was the faith of this little girl after Gyeom left her up on the cliff?
Thirteen years later, Ryung grew up into a restless young man who found himself always in trouble. Soe-dol wanted Ryung to attend school like other aristocrats' children. This made Shi-jong and his friends despised Ryung. One night when Ryung did not return home, Soe-dol with Ryung's close friends went looking for him. When they finally realised that Shi-jong was responsible , Soe-dol threatened Shi-jong to tell the truth about Ryung's whereabouts.
When finally Shi-jong showed them the pit where they threw Ryung into, Ryung was not to be seen. Soe-dol lost his control and started to beat up Shi-jong. Fortunately, Shi-hoo came to the rescue and prevented Soe-dol from hurting Shi-jong. Soe-dol wanted to attack Shi-hoo but stopped half way when he realised Shi-hoo was none other than Ja-dol, his dear adopted son.
After being left for dead inside the pit, Ryung regained consciousness and tried to get out from his predicament. When he finally managed to come out from the pit, he was been made captive by an abductor. This abductor was actually one of the trusted aides of the King. His job was to determine, whether Ryung was really Gyeom , the son of the rebel, Lee won-ho.
Ryung found himself on a lake of ice being tied up . The abductor threatened him to admit who he really was. Ryung still believed he's Ryung. Unconvinced, the abductor made a hole around Ryung on the icy lake which caused Ryung to fell into it. Ryung then kept himself immersed in the icey water for as long as he can. This led the abductor to believe that he had died. When the abductor left him for dead, Ryung was finally saved by a hunter.
This hunter was actually one of the Robbery Department official who caught Ja-dol when he was accussed of stealing Won-ho's family jewellery at a fair in Hanyang. The hunter had met Gyeom with his father at the fair thirteen years ago. He knew that there would be a handsome reward for catching a rebel 's son. Hence he had been keeping an eye on Ryung eversince he accidently met Ryung in the village, Nam Mun.
Suspecting that Ryung was actually Gyeom, the hunter had been feeding information to Lord Shim Ki-yoon, an official of the Left Main Parliament. After he had saved a half-dead Ryung from the icey water, he sent him to Shim Ki-yoon's house.
When Ryung regained consciousness, he found himself being attended to by a stranger. Later, an old man appeared into the room and introduced himself as Shim Ki-yoon. He asked Ryung whether he was Won-ho's son and told him how his father had died. He told Ryung that he was a close friend of Won-ho , Ryung's father. He also told Ryung that he knew where Ryung's mother and sister was. Of course Ryung did not believe the old man. Ryung convinced the old man that he's father was still alive and he was the only child in the family. Apologising for the mistake, Shim Ki-yoon let Ryung out.
Meanwhile Soe-dol found himself in serious trouble when he was arrested by Byun-syik's guards for hurting Shi-jong. The punishment was to cut off both Soe-dol's hands. When Ryung learnt about how his father could lose both hands, he went to plead with Shi-jong. Shi-jong then told Ryung that he had to pay a certain amount to help release his father of the offence. He told Ryung there would be a fight for money outside the village and he could help Ryung to be in the fight. Shi-jong then brought Ryung to meet Hee-bong , the leader of the village thugs.
Shi-hoo too knew that Soe-dol had been arrested and the punishment involved. He tried to persuade Shi-jong to forgive Soe-dol since Soe-dol was his adopted father. Shi-jong, however, told Shi-hoo the same thing he told Ryung. His intention was to get rid off Ryung and Shi-hoo at one go.
Ryung, with the help of his friends, devised a plan to fight off Deok-ba, a very tough and ruthless fighter. On the night of the fight while waiting for his turn to fight Deok-ba , suddenly, someone pulled Ryung's hand from behind and he turned. It was Eun-chae. Thinking that Ryung was her brother (since Ryung was wearing a mask ) Shi -hoo, she prevented him from fighting. However, when her servant came to tell her that Shi-hoo was actually out in the arena , she realised her mistake. Ryung found himself attracted to Eun-chae. However their first accidental meeting ended in Eun-chae giving Ryung a slap on his face as he would not let go Eun-chae's hand.
Ryung managed to cause Deok-ba to surrender in the fight as Deok-ba found himself in a very uncomfortable situation. Ryung's victory was short-lived when another challenger came out from the spectators to fight him. He was shocked to see Shi-hoo. Ryung was badly beaten in the fight until finally , Shi-hoo discovered that he was fighting Ryung. Ryung told Shi-hoo that he could not lose this fight, as this is the only way to save Soe-dol. Knowing this, Shi-hoo gave in and showed the card that he surrended. Hence Ryung won the fight.
Ryung , with the reward money, hastily went to see Shi-jong in order to save Soe-dol. While on the way, he suddenly experienced terrible headaches. To add to the problem, he was being attacked by some men. One of them was the same man who had abducted him earlier. While fighting off the same abductor, Ryung managed to save him from falling off the cliff. To repay this , the abductor let him off but cut-off part of his hair as evidence to show to his superior that he had killed Ryung. He then knocked Ryung out cold. When the rest of the men came, they saw Ryung already unconscious and one of the men pushed off Ryung down a slope. Ryung 's head accidently hit onto a rock from the fall. He passed out again.
If readers were wondering what happened to the little girl Ryung/Gyeom left on top of the cliff thirteen years ago, well, she was Bong Soon who had grown up into a young lady. She was now living with a man she called father. Gonggal Ajae was her adopted father. He was actually one of the King's men who had killed her brother and chased her and Gyeom thirteen years ago. Gonggal Ajae had since then repented and had been taking care of Bong Soon. One of Gonggal's partner and friend , Sa-cheon , however remained faithful to the King. Gongal and Bong Soon had been travelling far and wide, conning people along the way until they ended up at a village where Ryung, Soe-dol and his wife were staying.
One day, Bong Soon sold off an aphrosodiac potion to Ryung. Thinking it was true, Ryung gave it to Soe-dol. Believing what Ryung told him, Soe-dol tried the potion himself. The outcome led to a burning sensation and purging. When Soe-dol told Ryung what had happened to him, Ryung realised that Bong Soon had conned him and wanted his money back.
It seemed that the father and daughter pair had been going round the village trying to sell anything they could hold their hands to. It was this potion that Ryung used on Deok-ba before the fight. That's how he won.
When Bong Soon and Gonggal Ajae knew that Ryung had managed to win a handsome reward after the fight, they followed him thinking that they could steal it. They found the pouch with the money while following Ryung's tracks. Apparently Ryung had dropped it while fighting off his attackers. While argueing with Gonggal Ajae who should keep the money, Bong Soon saw a body lying near a rock. When she came near, she realised it was Ryung. Bong Soon and Gonggal helped to revive Ryung who had a nasty cut on his forehead. Ryung went berserk when he could not find his winning money. Feeling very distressed he went to see Soe-dol. Surprisingly he saw Soe-dol already being released by the guards and was with Danee. Ryung was glad to know that they didn't harm Soe-dol but only that he lost his front tooth in the event.
Since the accident, Ryung had been having constant headaches and visions of his past. He then went to visit Shim ki-yoon. Shim ki-yoon explained to Ryung about his real identity and showed Ryung's family jewellery, the Tiger's claws. Ryung seemed to remember that he had seen it somewhere. Suddenly they heard voices outside calling Shim ki-yoon a traitor and wanting to arrest him. Shim ki-yoon quickly asked Ryung to hide while he attended to the matter. When Shim ki-yoon's men put up a resistance against the Forbidden Palace officials, Ryung who was watching from his hiding place suddenly had a vision of how his father was killed by a particular sword. Ryung now could remember what had happened thirteen years ago. Unfortunately his only source of help had been taken away by the officials. Shim ki-yoon and his nephew, Kwon Do-hyun were arrested that night. Shim ki-yoon was thus sentenced to death as a traitor and that meant death by pulling apart his entire body.
After Ryung learnt from Shim ki-yoon who he really was, he went back to his old home and found the Titis tree with the emblem carved on its trunk. He then remembered the promised he had made when he carved that emblem.
Ryung had been asking around for information about his mother's and sister's whereabouts. Gonggal overheard this and told Bong Soon, that now was her chance to swindle Ryung's money by providing the information that he wanted.
Ryung soon resort to breaking into the Archives Record Dept; in the Forbidden Palace himself after Bong soon had swindled his money and failed to obtain the information. Bong soon and Gonggal eventually made a clean getaway from Nam Mun village.
Suspecting something not right, the Mandarins from the Private Law Dept; were investigating about Shim ki-yoon's death and the arrest of ki-yoon's nephew, Kwon Do-hyun. They requested from Byun-syik evidence that prove ki yoon and Kwon Do-hyun were traitors. Byun-syik explained to them evidence were kept at the Archives Record Dept; and he'll try to give it to them. Byun-syik later learnt from his official that Kwon Do-hyun wanted to confess to the King about a conspiracy going on. When he reported this to the King, he was directed to get rid of Kwon Do-hyun. That night, Kwon Do-hyun requested from Byun-syik's official to allow him to change into new clothes before seeing the King the next morning. The officer obliged. Kwon Do-hyun then secretly tore up the ends of his old clothes.
One night after setting out to break into the Forbidden Palace, suddenly, to Ryung's astonishment he saw a figure clad in black climbed over the Palace wall with ease. Seconds later, he saw smoke and then heard a commotion from within the Palace. In the chaotic situation, Ryung managed to enter the Palace grounds and learnt to his horror, the Archives Record Dept was on fire. He went inside to look for some documents that he could salvaged. While trying to do so, the soldiers found him but he managed to escape. They gave him a chase and he accidently went into a building where the cells were. Unknowingly to Ryung , Kwon Do-hyun was kept captive there. While looking for a safe place to hide, the same figure swiftly passed him and went to one of the cells. He saw the figure was strangling someone inside the cell. Ryung hid himself .
When the soldiers who were chasing Ryung came into the building, they saw the figure and gave it a chase. But the figure managed to escape. Ryung was left unnoticed and he managed to get away from the soldiers. Ryung felt helpless as he could no longer find the information regarding his mother and sister.
The next morning when the Mandarins from the Private Law Dept; wanted to claim Kwon Do-hyun and brought him to see the King, he was found dead instead. They also learnt that the old records were destroyed during the fire last night. The figure who was clad in black had burnt up the Archives Record Dept; had also killed Kwon Do-hyun. He was the King's assassin.
The slain body of Kwon Do-hyun was brought out by the soldiers to be disposed off as instructed by Byun-syik. He had made a report that Kwon Do-hyun had bit his tongue to death.
Sa-cheon , the trusted and loyal aide of the King , ( Ryung's abductor's immediate superior and also a friend of Gonggal), wanted to make sure that Kwon Do-hyun did not leave any evidence behind. He then went to the Forbidden Palace grounds, where the soldiers were just about to burn Kwon Do-hyun belongings. He inspected Kwon Do-hyun old clothes and he noticed something a missed. At the same time the soldiers who carried Kwon Do-hyun's body to get it disposed , returned and told Byun-syik that they had been attacked on the way and the body had been stolen . When Sa-cheon heard this he instructed his assistant to go after the attackers.
Unbeknownst to the Palace soldiers, they did not just carry Kwon Do-hyun's body out of the Palace but Ryung himself. Ryung planned to escape the Palace grounds that night by hiding in a cart. Fortunately for Ryung this cart was used to carry Kwon Do-hyun's body the next morning. The next morning, Ryung found himself next to a corpse. He happened to notice a rolled up cloth in the corpse's hand. He took it to look , but all of a sudden the carnage was being attacked. He did not have time to open up the roll of cloth, as he was discovered by the attackers. They were two men dressed as Palace soldiers. Ryung managed to run away from them but realised later that part of the rolled up cloth had been torn. The text written on the cloth was actually Kwon Do-hyun's message to Gyeom regarding the identity of his father's killer. With only the torn off part of the cloth in his hands, Ryung could not figure out what was the message all about. The two men who dressed up as soldiers and stole the corpse were Shim ki-yoon's loyal aides. They now had the other part of the torn off cloth with half of the message on it.
Disappointed with having only part of a message, Ryung went back home. Danee told him that some one had been looking for him and had left a message to meet up at the Nam Mun bridge.
Curious as who the messenger was, Ryung went to the Nam Mun bridge. There were many people crossing the bridge and Ryung was busy looking for some familiar faces. Then he noticed two men whom he had recalled seeing at Shim ki-yoon's residence. The two men too, recognised him from the crowd. While they were walking towards Ryung to meet up, one of the men noticed a mysterious man clad in black was following behind them. They, however, kept walking towards Ryung and signalled him not to meet up with them. Curious as to why, Ryung suddenly noticed the same man who had abducted and tried to kill him , walked passed him. He was following Shim ki-yoon's men. Sensing that the two men were in danger, Ryung turned back to follow this mysterious man . Alas, Ryung missed him as well as the two men.
After the unsuccessful meeting with the two men, Ryung decided to seek the help of Hee bong to locate his sister. Hee bong knew that Ryung had lost his money and therefore could not pay for his services. Somehow Ryung managed to obtain some money to pay Hee bong. Hee bong eventually, managed to find Ryung's sister and apparently fell for her.
The two Shim ki-yoon's men finally met their death in the hands of the mysterious man. This man was actually the King's assassin. He managed to steal the message from one of them. Hence the King's conspiracy was saved for now.
During the course of looking for his sister, Ryung could not recognise her, eventhough he had the chance to be locked up together in the same cell. He regretted this and wanted to help his sister when she was about to be hanged in public for her offence. He watched his sister met her death when his tricks failed to save her. Naturally, this had once again aroused his vengiance to look for his father's killer as well as his sister's.
After knowing his real identity, Ryung had met up with a sword expert enquiring about the emblem that he saw on the sword. The expert told him that the sword with that kind of emblem could only belonged to a noble family. After Shim ki-yoon, his nephew and all his men had been killed, one aristocrat after another ended up dead. Those who died had a different emblem tatooed on their chests, just like Gyeom's father, Won-ho.
As a result of all these mysterious deaths and Ryung's determination to find the sword and hence his father's killer, he went robbing the aristocrats' houses at night incognito. The valuables or money that he stole, he gave them to the poor. But his main intention was to look for that particular sword. He soon became famous and being worshipped by the people. Thus he got to be called Il ji-mae, the Phantom Thief. After every house that he broke into, he would leave a mark of a branch with red blood titis flower. His heroic deeds soon came to the attention of Eun-chae. Secretly, Eun-chae came to grow fond of him. Their paths crossed and soon Eun-chae and Il ji-mae found themselves in loved. Ryung/Il ji-mae tried to deny his love for Eun-chae when he discovered that Eun-chae was the daughter of Lord Byun-syik, one of his nemesis . However, deep in his heart, he could not do so.
Somehow during the course of the story, Bong Soon learnt , that Ryung was the boy who tried to save her, thirteen years ago. Soon she fell for Ryung , however her love was not reciprocated. Bong Soon too learnt that Gonggal Aje was responsible for her brother's death. She tried to kill him but could not.
Il ji-mae/Ryung/Gyeom, finally met up with his real nemesis. He, however could not kill him, as the killer was none other than the King himself. He made the King asked for forgiveness to his father at the Titis tree where he carved the emblem. It was learnt that Ryung/Gyeom's father, Lee Won-ho, was actually the King's younger brother and this made the killer was actually Gyeom's uncle! He even had his own son poisoned so that he would remained King. The King eventually became a mental case after this.
The ending to the episode saw Il ji-mae was slained from behind by Sa-cheon and presumed dead. Shi-hoo came to kill Sa-cheon because he was responsible for Soe-dol's death and also for kidnapping Eun-chae. Soe-dol was caught when he impersonated as Il ji-mae in order to protect Ryung. Shi-hoo knew that Il ji-mae was Ryung/Gyeom and who was also his younger brother. Shi-hoo's real biological father was actually Lee won-ho and his mother was Danee.
There might be a sequel to this as viewers were made to guess the faith of Il ji-mae towards the end.
