Jewel in the Palace
2003 South Korean television series
Jewel in the Palace (Korean: 대장금; Hanja: 大長今; RR: Daejanggeum) is a 2003 South Korean historical drama television series directed by Lee Byung-hoon. It first aired on MBC from September 15, 2003, to March 23, 2004, where it was the top program with an average viewership rating of 45.8% and a peak of 57.1% (making it the 10th highest rated Korean drama of all time). Produced for US$15 million, it was later exported to 91 countries and has earned US$103.4 million worldwide, being known as one of the primary proponents of the Korean Wave by heightening the spread of Korean culture abroad.
Starring Lee Young-ae in the title role, it tells the tale of an orphaned kitchen cook who went on to become the King's first female physician. In a time when women held little influence in society, young apprentice cook Jang-geum strives to learn the secrets of Korean cooking and medicine to cure the King of his various ailments. It is based on the true story of Janggeum, the first female royal physician of the Joseon period. The main themes are her perseverance and the portrayal of traditional Korean culture, including Korean royal court cuisine and traditional medicine.
Synopsis
The story is set in Korea during the reigns of King Seongjong (1457–1494), King Yeonsangun (1494–1506) and King Jungjong (1506–1544). The epilogue also spans through the reigns of King Injong (1544–1545) and King Myeongjong (1545–1567), with the last scene from March 1550.
At the outset, King Seongjong has ordered the forced suicide by poisoning of his wife, the Deposed Queen Yun, mother of the crown prince (future Yeonsan-gun).
“Jewel in the Palace” enters the record as 2003 South Korean television series. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Jewel, Palace and South can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Jewel in the Palace” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Jewel, Palace and South provides the most credible route into that argument.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q133898. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2003, 2004, 1457 and 1494.
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This entry incorporates text from “Jewel in the Palace” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.