Written by Choi Hyo-bi | Directed by Jung Ji-in
Production companies Studio Dragon & Studio N
Rating: ★★★★★

A Flame That Dances
In post-war Korea, Jeongnyeon: The Star Is Born follows a young woman’s journey to shine in gukgeuk, Korea’s operatic theatre. Kim Tae-ri doesn’t just perform—she sets the stage ablaze. Her presence is a quiet marvel, delicate yet fierce, like a flame swaying in a gentle wind. Every gesture, every note, feels effortless yet carries years of honed craft. I’ve adored her since her raw brilliance in The Handmaiden and Twenty-Five Twenty-One. Here, breathing life into gukgeuk, she brings me to tears, her craft a rare pulse: an artist shaped by the story she shapes.

The Heartbeat of Gukgeuk
Kim Tae-ri’s performance channels the spirit of gukgeuk, Korea’s vibrant operatic theatre of the 1950s and ’60s, where women once defied norms by playing every role—kings, lovers, warriors. Bold and subversive in its time, gukgeuk faded as cinema and television rose. Yet through Jeongnyeon, she breathes new life into this nearly forgotten art. Her pansori-inflected singing, steeped in han—Korea’s deep, unspoken sorrow—threads defiance and longing into every note, a fragile, radiant echo of history reborn.

The ensemble, including Moon So-ri and Shin Ye-eun, shares this reverence. Moon’s weathered wisdom and Shin’s youthful fire bring depth to the gukgeuk world, their voices echoing pansori’s soulful cadences. Their dedication—mastering dialects, embracing traditional songs—feels like an act of preservation. It moves me, this art within art, where performance becomes a quiet, steadfast survival, holding what time threatens to erase.

A Tapestry of Healing
Beyond its stage, Jeongnyeon weaves a deeper story—of art as a balm for wounds. It holds sorrow and mental well-being gently, like a fragile melody, never exploiting pain but honouring it. Here, art is a vessel—for mourning, remembering, carrying what words cannot. This tenderness, woven through the drama’s craft, speaks to the resilience of those who create against all odds.

Love threads through this tapestry, not as spectacle but as presence. Adapted from a Girls’ Love webtoon, the drama faced critique for softening its queer heart. Yet, in its silences—subtle gestures, lingering glances—it speaks a quiet truth. Love, like gukgeuk, persists in the unspoken, a rebellion that needs no name, enduring in the heart’s quiet corners.

A Song That Lingers
This is not a story to watch but a feeling to carry—a love letter to forgotten traditions, to those who sing their own songs in a world demanding another’s tune. Jeongnyeon asks us to tend to our inner stories, stubbornly, tenderly, fiercely. As its echoes settle, I’m left with a question: What art keeps you whole? What element of Jeongnyeon—its music, its spirit, its silence—stirred your heart?

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Image courtesy of tvN Network