Bon Appetit, Your Majesty, a romantic comedy about a chef who accidentally falls through time into the Joseon Era, is the latest Korean drama to find popularity on Netflix. After the release of the series’ first two episodes, the time-slip story (known as 폭군의 셰프, or The Tyrant’s Chef, in Korea) was in the U.S. Top Ten and reached the top spot in the Global Top Ten, proving just how popular a well-executed starcrossed romance can be.
And the burgeoning love story between 21st century chef Yeon Ji-yeong (King the Land’s Lim Yoon-a) and Joseon-era tyrant King Lee Heon (Hierarchy’s Lee Chae-min) is very much starcrossed. Not only do the two characters hail from vastly different time periods, but the male lead is loosely based on one of the cruelest rulers in Korean history.
Let’s break down the real-life history that informs Bon Appetit, Your Majesty, and how the K-drama makes the smart choice to move away from explicitly depicting a historical tyrant.
Bon Appetit, Your Majesty’s Joseon Dynasty setting
Ji-yeong is on her way home to Korea from France after winning a prestigious culinary competition when she takes an unexpected detour: to Joseon-era Korea. The details of the time slip don’t really matter, though they involve a solar eclipse, a well-timed flight, and a Joseon-era text Ji-yeong is bringing home for her academic father. What matters is the result: our very modern protagonist is stranded in Korean history. Once there, she must use her culinary skills to survive under the rule of the fictional King Lee Heon.
The Joseon Dynasty, which spanned over 500 years, from 1392 to 1910, is a popular setting for Korean dramas. Different periods of the dynasty have been depicted in series like The Red Sleeve (primarily set in the late 18th century) and Mr. Sunshine (primarily set in the early 20th century), and reimagined in genre stories like zombie drama Kingdom (primarily set in an alternate version of the early 17th century). One of the foundational dramas of the Korean wave, 2003’s Jewel in the Palace (primarily set in the early 16th century), is based on the true story of Jang-geum, the first female royal physician of the Joseon era. This era overlaps with the historical timeline of Bon Appetit, Your Majesty.
Bon Appetit, Your Majesty is an alternate version of Joseon history, but is ostensibly set during the reign of Yeonsangun, which took place at the turn of the 16th century, from 1494 to 1506.
Is Bon Appetit, Your Majesty based on a manhwa?
Like many Korean dramas, Bon Appetit, Your Majesty is based on an existing story, though not a manhwa, aka Korean comic. The series is adapted from a web novel called Surviving as Yeonsangun’s Chef, written by Park Guk-jae. The story follows Ji-yeong, as she travels back into time and becomes the royal cook for King Yeonsan, a real-life historical figure.
So far, the series’ biggest change to the web novel source material is in the name of the titular tyrant. Park’s novel uses real-life ruler Yeonsangun as one of the main characters. However, the Netflix series has changed the name of the character to King Lee Heon, distancing the story from the real-life history.
How the real-life King Yeonsan inspired the character of King Lee Heon
Bon Appetit, Your Majesty changes the name of its Joseon Era ruler to a fictional figure, but the web novel character is loosely based on Yeonsangun, one of the most notorious rulers of the Joseon Dynasty.
Like the fictional character of King Lee Heon (also known as Yi Heon) in Bon Appetit, Your Majesty, King Yeonsan’s mother was executed when he was young. Yeonsangun grew up thinking Queen Jeonghyeon, his father’s third wife, was his mother. He learned his biological mother was actually the Deposed Queen Yun, his father’s second wife, during the early years of his reign. Queen Yun had died by forced poisoning, after being exiled for violent behavior. When King Yeonsan tried to posthumously restore her titles, he was met with resistance. He sentenced to death, or murdered himself, those he saw as complicit in his mother’s death.
This wasn’t the only reason King Yeonsan hurt and/or murdered people. As a ruler, he was known for his brutal suppression of free speech and education. He closed the royal university Sungkyunkwan and converted it into one of his personal pleasure grounds. Under Yeonsangun’s reign, he had hundreds of girls and women kidnapped from across the peninsula, to be presented to him as “entertainers.” This systemic rounding up of women is depicted in the first few episodes of Bon Appetit, Your Majesty.
Yeonsangun banned the use of Hangul, the written Korean language, following its use by commoners to criticize him via public posters. He also tried to dismantle the influence of Buddhism in Joseon, closing the temple Wongaksa, and attempting to abolish the system of head monasteries and examinations. He suppressed and/or killed many of those who protested his actions. For questioning his reign, King Yeonsan ordered two bloody purges of the politically powerful Sarim scholar class. After 12 years of rule, King Yeonsan was overthrown by a group of nobles and officials, and replaced by his younger half-brother. He died after two months in exile.
In changing the main character’s name, Bon Appetit, Your Majesty creates distance between the real-life ruler and the fictional King Lee Heon. It’s a smart decision, as Bon Appetit, Your Majesty is not primarily interested in telling an historical story. Rather, it seeks to tell an escapist and entertaining love story using a historical setting as a fantasy backdrop. However, certain plot elements, such as the systemic round-up of women and the seizure and destruction of homes for royal hunting grounds, are pulled from real-life history.
For those interested, the historical figure of King Yeonsan has been depicted more explicitly elsewhere in Korean media history, such as in the 1961 film Prince Yeonsan, the 2005 film The King and the Clown, and the 2015 film The Treacherous.
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