THE ROYAL TAILOR | 상의원 (South Korea, 2014)
Directed by: Lee Won-suk
Starring: Han Suk-kyu, Ko Soo, Park Shin-hye, Yoo Yeon-seok

Two years after his anarchic comedy How to Use Guys with Secret Tips, Lee Won-suk returns with his second feature, an ambitious, big-budget period drama about the clash between tradition and modernity in the royal court of 18th-century Korea. After serving the court for three decades, the king’s tailor Jo Dol-seok (Han Suk-kyu) is on the brink of rising to the rank of nobleman. But his life's dream is threatened with the sudden appearance of young, handsome, and carefree “designer” Lee Gong-jin whose radical fashion ideas quickly earn the Queen's favor. Unlike most films about the power of art (and music), Lee lets Jo Sang-gyeong’s striking costume designs speak for themselves, without resorting to reaction shots or exposition. The film's traditional costumes took as much as six months to create, at a cost just shy of $1 million. A playful, fresh, and daring reinvention of one of Korea’s most conservative film genres.