This looks so adorably silly. A new character teaser is out for tvN’s upcoming 100 Days My Prince, starring Nam Ji-hyun (Suspicious Partner) and D.O. (With the Gods), and it looks like there’s a heavy emphasis on the comedy in this historical rom-com, which I love. I knew Nam Ji-hyun could do spunky heroine, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen her quite as rascally as she appears to be in this teaser.
The premise of 100 Days My Prince is pretty wacky from the start: Joseon is in the grips of a fierce drought, and because of the widespread belief that natural disasters are caused by the marital unfulfillment of “old” bachelors and bachelorettes, Crown Prince Lee Yul (D.O.) orders that they all be married by the next month. Our heroine Hong-shim (Nam Ji-hyun) falls within that description at the ripe old age of 28 (ah, ye olden days), though she is just as put off with the old maid label as I am, giving an official the stink-eye in the teaser when he remarks that she’s the oldest unmarried woman in the land.
She may curse the crown prince all she likes, but that doesn’t stop her from getting dragged to the local police bureau, where she gets punished for not complying with her marriage orders. As if being forced to marry weren’t bad enough. She finds herself a potential husband who just happens to be an amnesiac Prince Yul (though she doesn’t know that, I think). Though he embodied the perfect would-be monarch, after his accident relating to an assassination attempt, his amnesia has turned Yul into the useless village idiot.
To Hong-shim, he’s just the mysterious Won-deuk who appeared in her village one day. It looks like they had a chance encounter one night at a water mill and Hong-shim plays it up in front of her fellow villagers in order to escape further punishment, much to Won-deuk/Yul’s confusion and alarm. Next thing he knows, Won-deuk and Hong-shim are taking part in a marriage ceremony, though Hong-shim tells someone offscreen that she’s “never thought of this marriage as real.” She throws in a good sneer at the term “dear husband” as the teaser ends.
I always love it when we get a sageuk that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and this teaser reminded me of the sageuk parody Legend of Hyang-dan, which is a good thing in my book. I do have some reservations about this writer Noh Ji-seol, whose credits include She’s So Lovable, Scent of a Woman, and Dr. Champ, but let’s hope that 100 Days My Prince is more similar in quality to the latter two than Lovable.
100 Days My Prince will take over tvN’s Monday-Tuesday slot from Let’s Eat 3 starting September 10.
