Yay, finally, some focus on the women in this drama! I’ve been eager to see what kind of roles we should expect from Kim Ok-bin (Children of a Lesser God) and Kim Ji-won (Fight My Way), so I’m excited that tvN’s Arthdal Chronicles has released a teaser that centers around one of them. Kim Ok-bin will be playing an ambitious player in the struggle to rule Arthdal, and I can’t wait to see her hold her own against Song Joong-ki (Descended From the Sun) and Jang Dong-gun (Suits).
In the teaser, Kim Ok-bin makes her way through a flower-covered path and comes face to face with Jang Dong-gun. A voice offscreen tells her that he is “the star” and “will be king,” though that doesn’t seem like a future she wants to accept. She whips a dagger close to his neck as she declares that what “the king has is me,” as if that’s the reason he will ascend to the throne. She’s no friend of Song Joong-ki’s character either, though, as we see him hold her with a knife to her throat.
She muses to someone offscreen that “no matter how skilled he is, I can catch him. Because I am not one to stop when there is something left to try.” Her character is the daughter of a sea captain, and that status probably lends her some political capital, though this father-daughter relationship doesn’t seem too warm and fuzzy, as we see him slap her to the ground at one point. We see brief shots of her taking off her white robes, watching as soldiers drag Kim Ji-won, laughing while covered in blood, and angrily crying, while she tells us that her goal is “to have Arthdal at my feet.”
I’m not sure whether Kim Ok-bin will be playing a straight villain in this show, but I’m not sure I care too much because she’s so good at playing darker characters. I’m also excited to see that she’s going to hold her own amongst all the powerful men in the show, and I can’t wait to watch her machinations unfold.
Arthdal Chronicles will premiere its first of three parts on June 1 in tvN’s Saturday-Sunday slot.
