On June 28th i got a chance to go and see Hwarang. I received two free vouchers from K-supports that i could use anytime during the month of June. I admit at the time i got the tickets i knew nothing about this musical other than it was in only Korea. The theater is located in Hyehwa and wasn’t too hard to find. Before going to the theater we stopped and grabbed some Indian food at my favorite Indian restaurant in Hyehwa called Indian Kali. The owners are amazing and the food is so good so i completely recommend it! Anyways back to the review.
The performance started at 3 p.m. but the ticket booth only opens up 1 hour before the show. The theater isn’t too hard to find go out of exit 2 and walk straight. You will walk past Slowfood restaurant, Seoul national open university, and a public school. As soon as you pass the public school take a left hand turn. (You have gone too far if you have come to a main road with a cross walk sign.) Walk down this road for about 3-4 mins. You will see the signs on the outside with a really pretty cafe attached to it.
When we went and waited in line their was already a pretty long line waiting. So I stood in line with my boyfriend and talked while we waited for the booth to open. While standing in line my boyfriend asked “Why is everyone in this line woman?” I admit i didn’t really know anything about the play so i googled it and realized. The reason that almost 95% of the people in line are woman is because the show only has 5 k-popish good looking guys in it. I admit when i read about the show i started laughing and then had to explain to him why he is one of the only 3 guys in the line. Thankfully he is pretty amazing and didn’t mind and still stayed to watch the show with me.
It’s was already 3:15 by now and we didn’t move, i was wondering if something was wrong. Well we finally start moving when we got to the counter the lady gave us two tickets she just wrote some numbers on. The most unoffical tickets in the world. She explained that the machine is broken and at the end of the show they will give us the real ticket stubs if we want them.
We didn’t have much time to do anything after we got the tickets so we decided to make our way up to the 3rd floor and see if we could use the bathroom, and look around before the show started.
When you go upstairs you see tons of photos of all the cast members. Honestly while looking through all the photos me and my boyfriend got even more confused what the show was really about. The descriptions online of the show is pretty vague and doesn’t help you figure out what the show is about.
You also get to see their little gift shop area which is a table with a look book on it. But you get to see the cast members for that performance day. This is one of m favorite things to look at. Honestly when you see someone in a photo they usually look nothing like they do on a stage. (However in this instant a lot of them looked very much the same. Well except the guy in the middle, he grew his hair out). We finally got to go into the theater about 5 mins before the show time. I figured they were running late with many things today. Our seats weren’t bad they were the 4th row on the side. The theater itself is relatively small and cozy. Yet i strongly recommend that you bring a light sweater with you because they do pump the AC out for the actors. (You can see how much they sweat!) Also this ended up being another one of those performances that you aren’t allowed to take pictures during until the very end of the show.
Well now to talk about the show. There are 5 main character in the show Yuo, Parang, Munno, Gwallang, and Daham. In case you didn’t get it in the beginning they are the K-pop actors of our show. I should tell you a little more about them:
Yuo actually seems to be out to prove himself capable and also to escape from his Tiger Mother (a mother who wants to do everything for her son and be very very active in his life and decisions). Parang is a bet stuck up and thinks he is better than everyone he’s self centered and egotistical, you actually hate him a lot in the beginning of the show but grow to like him towards the end. Munno is very naive and cute he always tries to solve everyone’s problems and you can tell he has great dreams in him. He also is one of the true Hwarang descendants and came from a mountain village. Gwallang is next, he is a very very rich boy who has spent his life sheltered and protected. he was actually forced into joining the group by his father. (he has more of a story but let me finish introducing everyone). Last is Daham he is actually very innocent and does imagine that his sole purpose in life is to protect Gwallang.
Yup and Parang almost immediately clash with one another in the show. They pretty much stay this way for most of the play except for the very end when you find out that Yuo’s father dies. Munno stays pretty up beat and naive all the way through the show. Gwallang and Daham… ohhh the story that goes on their. They are like a couple that isn’t a couple. If you didn’t know any better you would really assume that that are dating the whole performance. Even at one point Gwallang leans in to kiss Daham, yet doesn’t.
The performance was actually really good though. It has funny parts, sad parts, and a whole bunch of k-popish man dancing. Even my boyfriend admitted it wasn’t that bad. In all it’s not a show i would put on the top of my list unless you are out with a group of girl friends and want to have some fun. I don’t think my boyfriend enjoyed the shirtless dancing part of the show. Tickets are about 40,000 but if you walk around hyehwa you will see tons of people walking around with little laminated cards with tickets to shows. This ends up making the show only about 20,000.
On a side note after the performance my boyfriends parents threw me a semi surprise birthday party. I swear they are the cutest family!
Kimchi Teaching 
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