Overview: Set during the early Joseon Dynasty in Korea, Hwa-yeon, a minister’s daughter and Kwon-yoo, a commoner are deeply in love. Yet, when Hwa-yeon is ordered to the royal palace to become the King’s concubine, she and Kwon-yoo attempt to lee. They are intercepted by Hwa-yeon’s father and his men who threaten to kill Kwon-yoo.

To save her one true love, Hwayeon agrees to go to the palace as instructed. Five years later, Hwa-yeon is the mother of the heir to the throne, but the King is slowly dying. After his death, the King’s step-mother, uses her power to appoint her biological son Sung-won as the successor.

Sung-won has been madly in love with the unobtainable Hwa-yeon for years. Now that he must procreate in order to produce an heir to the throne, he can have any woman he wants except Hwa-yeon … which pushes both of them into a dangerous chess game of lust, sex and power.

DVD Verdict: The 11th most watched Korean film of 2012, and a sequel to the 2010 movie, The Servant, The Concubine is set during the Choson Dynasty and features a young prince by the name of Sungwon (Dong-wook Kim) falling in love with a nobleman’s daughter named Hwa-Yeon (Heo-heong Jo).

Unfortunately, although she knows of Prince Sunwon’s attraction for her, she has fallen in love with another young man by the name of Kwon-Yoo (Min-Joon Kim) instead. So one night, overcome by their devotion to each other, both Hwa-Yeon and Kwon-Yoo make the fateful decision to run away together rather than abide by custom or family tradition.

Unfortunately, after sleeping together that night, they are caught the next morning and in a desperate effort to spare Kwon-Yoo’s life, Hwa-Yeon tells her father that she will now consent to become Prince Sungwon’s concubine.

What she doesn’t know is that, although her father agrees to spare his life, as a penalty for shaming the family Kwon-Yoo is castrated that very night. To make things even worse, when she arrives at the palace the Queen Mother (played by Ji-Young Park) takes an immediate dislike to her and does everything in her power to reduce Hwa-Yeon’s status there from that point on.

Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that I was very impressed at the overall depth of this movie as the plot was extremely intricate and the acting was first-rate as well.

Be advised, however, that there are a couple of very graphic sex scenes which definitely precludes this picture from being seen by a younger audience! Be that as it may, I thoroughly enjoyed this film and thus rate it highly. This is a Widescreen Presentation (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Special Features of:

• Special collector’s media book packaging
• Two-disc set
• Original trailer
• 24-page booklet featuring director/actor profiles and photos