Tamra, the Island ~ Is This Gold Seaweed? I’m Gonna Be Rich!

“Tamra, the Island” is an old but gold 2009 Korean drama series, with 16 episodes, categorized as Romance, Comedy, Rom-Com, Family, Historical fiction, Historical Period, Costume and Period, and Adventure; streaming on Viki and Tubi TV.

• The K-drama is based on a manhwa (Korean comic) of the same name. The story may be fictional, but the female divers are real. Tamra Island is now called Jeju Island, and it is a popular destination for tourists and Koreans.
• “Tamra, the Island” is exciting, entertaining, and educational. It is the ideal introduction for a viewer unfamiliar with the history and culture of ancient Korea and the wonderful world of historical Korean drama.

SUMMARY: A female diver who has never known anything about the outside world rescues a blonde, blue-eyed European male who washed up on shore after a shipwreck. She hides him in a cave and protects him because foreigners are not welcome. They became good friends, and because of him, she developed the courage to leave home, hoping to travel and see the rest of the world. What an adventure!

♦ How Far Would You Go to Escape an Arranged Marriage?

In “Tamra, the Island”, Jang Beo-Jin causes trouble almost everywhere she goes, but she’s not a troublemaker. Her intentions are never evil. She’s innocent, tenderhearted, naive, industrious, hardworking, a good learner, and has a lot of admirable personality traits. Jang Beo-Jin does fall short in one area, though. Even though her mother is the head haenyeo (female diver), she’s not very good at diving. Not only is she a terrible diver, but she’s ugly! That’s what everybody tells her. It’s going to be hard for her to get a husband.

But what else can she do? All of the women on the island are divers. Where could she go? They are not allowed to leave the island. They live and die there. That’s just the way it is. Nothing ever changes except for this one time when … WHOA! SHE FOUND GOLD SEAWEED ON THE BEACH! Yippee! Her family’s going to be rich. Wait! Looks like there’s some more. Jang Beo-Jin is going to collect it all and take it home. Everybody in the village will be jealous.

YIKES! The gold seaweed is attached to … something … ??? … something or someone with blue eyes. They are eyes, right? (O.o) 

The first gold seaweed she picked up was just a wig. It appears the other gold seaweed is attached to a blonde-haired, blue-eyed foreigner, and he’s shocked, surprised, and frightened. But then he notices that the young girl doesn’t act like she wants to hurt him. She seemed to be examining him because she was so curious. But there’s a language barrier, so it’s kind of hard to communicate. Nevertheless, Jang Beo-Jin tries her best.

Jang Beo-Jin thinks this “strange looking man or demon or … whatever” might be hungry. So she gets him something to eat. Jang Beo-Jin is friends with an old man on the island, and when he smelled the food, he joined them. He told Jang Beo-Jin that if the blue-eyed man is caught, he’ll be killed. WHAT??!! She can’t let that happen. The blue-eyed man doesn’t seem to be dangerous. He didn’t try to hurt her.

Why does he have to die? It’s simple. Foreigners are not welcome. They might go back to where they came from, tell others about the island, and then come take over using violence and force. It’s not an unreasonable fear, but it is rather aggressive and excessive xenophobia. Joseon had strict isolationist policies. Jang Beo-Jin decided right then that she was going to protect him, no matter what.

Him WHO? How did the blue-eyed man end up on Tamra anyway? His name is William J. Spencer, a British aristocrat who is running away from home. His mother arranged a marriage for him, and he had to get away! Fortunately, he had a good friend, Ahn Kawamura, who was heading to Japan. He jumped on the ship and left with him, intending to get as far away from his family and “that woman” he was supposed to marry.

Only … there was a storm, a shipwreck, he fell overboard, washed up on the beach, and when he opened his eyes, he was looking at Jang Beo-Jin.

♦ He was Shipwrecked, But Why Are You Here?

Park Kyu is a young, handsome, and intelligent Joseon nobleman who has been exiled to Tamra Island. That’s where they send noblemen who have committed crimes or other misdeeds. He’s been charged with sexual harassment. Ah! A lecherous ladies’ man? Not quite. That’s his cover story. He’s actually a secret royal inspector on an undercover mission for the king. Someone has been stealing goods that were supposed to be sent to the king. It is a sophisticated, organized criminal operation.

As part of his “punishment”, he is required to live with the low-class villagers and is placed in the home of the Jang family, where Jang Beo-jin lives. Their first encounters with each other put them at odds.  It wasn’t intentional, but Jang Beo-jin had caused trouble. For her “punishment”, her mother made her fully responsible for looking after “Mr. Exile”. Of course, in between doing that “job”, she had to make sure that she helped the secret foreigner.

Park Kyu was trying to investigate and became suspicious of Jang Beo-jin because she sneaked around a lot. One time, he followed her and discovered that she was hiding foreigners – William J. Spencer, and his friend, Ahn Kawamura. Initially, Park Kyu suspected that they might be part of the criminal organization. But he soon realized that they ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. He could have arrested them, since he was a government official. Instead, he told them to stay hidden and get off the island as fast as they could.

OK! It was just a slight kerfuffle.  Park Kyu had already come up with a plan of action.

• IF the foreigners stayed hidden and then left without anyone knowing,
• IF Jang Beo-jin didn’t get into trouble or cause him any trouble,
• THEN Park Kyu could continue pretending to be “Mr. Exile” and quietly continue the secret investigation.

If only everything in life went according to plan.

Main Characters:

• Jang Beo-Jin (played by Seo Woo, “The King’s Daughter, Soo Baek-Hyang”, “Cinderella’s Stepsister”)
• William J. Spencer (played by Pierre Deporte – Actor and Model, born in France)
• Park Kyu (played by Lim Ju-Hwan, “Project Wolf Hunting”, “The Game: Towards Zero”, “The Bride of Habaek”, “Shine or Go Crazy”)
• Seo Rin (played by Kim Min-Joo, “Go! Mrs. Go!” (aka “Saving Mrs. Go Bong Shil”)
• Ahn Kawamura (played by Lee Sun-Ho, “Woman in a Veil”*)

*A TBR (To Be Reviewed) K-drama soap opera (100+ episodes) on Viki.

Where to Watch (Originally 20 episodes, but cut to 16 due to low ratings. Viki has 16 episodes, but Tubi TV has 21 episodes.)

Viewership and Rating:

My personal rating is 9.5 out of 10 stars.

The plot for “Tamra, the Island” is very interesting. The main character lived in a small world. Nobody on her island was ever allowed to leave, especially not the female divers. So you can only imagine all of the various emotions she must have felt the first time she saw a human being who looked nothing like her. Just finding the poor lost soul started the main female lead on an adventure she would have never imagined. Her experiences after that only got better. Sometimes scary or frightening, but still better than being a bad diver.

This Korean drama series had a fantastic cast. The good guys were really good, and the bad guys were really bad. The support characters provided awesome support; plus, they had interesting back-stories of their own. The scenery, especially the underwater scenery, was unbelievable. It was an excellent blend of adventure, comedy, and drama. It had the typical romantic love triangle trope, and it was a great recreation of the Joseon Era – costumes, setting, etc.

I think my 9.5 rating is fair. I don’t know what’s wrong with the rest of the viewers. LOL.

LINKS OF INTEREST:

Tamra, The Island 2009 Korean Drama Review | Kdrama Love

Tamra the Island (MBC 2009) | thundie’s prattle

[REVIEW] TAMRA THE ISLAND | Korean Delights

TRAILER/TEASER:

YTKISS. “[Tamra, the Island] Park Kyu falls in love.” YouTube, 16 Nov. 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQyZtPcWCpc.

♦