The people aren't very fond of him because he has demarcated a good portion of Seoul as his personal hunting area, and the clowns make great use of his illicit affair with the courtesan Nok-su (Seuong-Yeon Kang) in their stage act. He lives in the rather large shadow of his father, and is prone to both violent outbursts and infantile freak-outs, sometimes simultaneously. When we meet the king, it's obvious why the citizenry eventually turned against him.
In a crawl at the start of the film, it's been explained to us that The King and the Clown is set during the Chosun Dynasty, and it begins in 1504, two years before King Yeonsan (Jin-yeng Jeong, Hi! Dharma) is going to be removed from his throne. There, the pair joins up with a trio of ratty street performers and start putting on shows satirizing Korea's tyrannical king. Jang-sang can't take seeing his friend exploited, so they break away and head to Seoul. This has led their greedy ringmaster to try to make extra money by pimping the fair-faced minstrel out to men in the villages they stop in.
Gong-gil is an androgynous beauty, and in the routines he and Jang-sang perform together-a vaudevillian mix of bawdy jokes and acrobatics-Gong-gil often plays a feminine role. The story concerns itself with two performers, Jang-sang (Woo-seong Kam, Spider Forest) and Gong-gil (Jung-gi Lee, My Girl), who are forced to leave their traveling troupe after a run-in with the boss. Art Service has put together a three-disc DVD package that capitalizes on The King and the Clown's popularity while also giving the movie the appropriate red carpet treatment. This gripping costume drama is brimming with a unique charm, with original characters and a special setting that will likely be new to most viewers. In viewing the region 3 limited edition release of the movie, it's easy to see why. The King and the Clown, was a sensation upon its release in Korea in 2005, becoming the country's highest grossing film that year.
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