Park Yong-woo (박용우)

Actor Park Yong-woo and Jo An have denied their breakup!

Somehow Park Yong-woo and Jo An's relationship have been rumored to have ended!

Many people thought that the two actors broke up in the beginning of this month. Jo An is currently in the drama, "Jejoongwon" and "Jolly Widows". Because of her close frienship with her costar...More

SBS TV series "Jejoongwon" is set during the latter era of the Joseon Dynasty -- a time period never before handled in a Korean drama. It also revolves around Jejoongwon which is the first hospital in South Korea's history to use Western medicine. These elements topped with the collaboration of its scenarist Lee Ki-won, writer of MBC's hit medical series "White Tower", and producer Hong Chang-wook, who garnered a strong fanbase through his SBS drama "The Scale of Providence", leaves little space for hasty presumptions. 10Asia visited the set of "Jejoongwon" a week ahead of its premiere to get a closer look and a better understanding of the medical-historical drama.

Actors Sean Richard and Park Yong-woo act out a scene for SBS TV series "Jejoongwon" on set at the broadcaster's studio in Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province of South Korea on December 30, 2009. [Chae Ki-won/10Asia]

A blond man sits at the door of a woman's room. He has an unidentifiable hose-like object stuck in one of his ears. A man sitting next to him says, "A tenth of 30 centimeters down from the neck, then another tenth of 30 centimeters to the left". That is when the woman sitting on the other side of the door starts moving. She places her hand, holding a stethoscope, to the chest of another woman whose jacket is undone. When the woman places the stethoscope to the other woman in accordance with the Korean man's directions, the blond man from the United States gives his diagnose of the patient's presumed illness.

This sight where three people -- American and Korean, male and female -- cling to this single lady brought up in a good family, helps us predict what "Jejoongwon" will show its viewers. Such a scene is from times when a married woman from a good family would get beaten up by her husband for reading a book. Yoo Suk-ran (played by Han Hye-jin), who learns English and medicine, plays the friend of such a woman in the drama and will remark, "The King himself said discrimination no longer exists regarding status", although the world has yet to accept freedom of status. The same situation will apply to foreigner Allen (Sean Richard) who has come from the U.S. to spread Western medicine and Hwang Jung (Park Yong-woo) who learns medicine from Allen whilst concealing the he is actually of low status with his occupation as a butcher. That is how "Jejoongwon", through a single scene, portrayed the medicine, the time period and the way people live during such times....More