just floating through pain and misery

The East Palace (2026)

Part 2: Colour

(Other parts: Framing, Framing (bonus), Light & Shadow, Costuming, Camera Angles & Sound, Bonus)

Colour can be a powerful visual language in itself, one that many shows and films have long made use of. The femme fatale dressed in red, the grim reaper in his black robes, they all evoke certain emotions in us. The East Palace plays with colour, and especially with saturation to create visually distinct and powerful scenery.

The real world and the palace are heavily desaturated. It feels cold, grey, like all colour has been sapped out of it. This is clearly a place that has not known happiness or joy in a long time. In fact, it's a place that is mostly free of emotions whatsoever, where any expression of them is punished and pushed away. If there are colours, they are mainly cool tones like blues and greens.

The realm of Gwi, on the other hand, is oversaturated. It's full of warm colours such as reds, yellows, and purples. It's a volatile, emotionally charged place, where remnants of past grudges fester and bloom.

Different parts of the realm of Gwi are symbolised by different colours: the inner chambers of the palace are mostly red, the outside courtyard is yellow, the home of the soul-eating gwi-mae in the east palace is purple.

The realm of the primordial gwi-mae Gu-cheon makes a deal with is an exception. It's mostly cool, white and grey, but the colour is so overwhelming that it is clearly otherworldly. It shows that this gwi-mae is an entirely different entity from anything we've seen before, a being that is neither good nor bad but something simply beyond our comprehension.

There are scenes where the barriers between the real world and Gwi fade slightly. Whenever Gwi bleeds into the real world, scenes get warmer, yellow tones. Rooms are lit by candles, handprints shine through yellow light onto the paper walls. These are scenes with a strong spiritual presence, where you imagine that strange beings could step through the door at any time.

On the other hand, when the realm of Gwi gets less powerful or is invaded by elements of the real world, it becomes less saturated and some cool tones may be introduced. Saeng-gang's arrow quite literally pierces the veil between the two realms and brings the colours of the real world with it.

While mostly desaturated, the only colour that consistently pops in the real world is red. It's the royal red/magenta of the king's ceremonial robes, which always place him front and center as the most important person in the scene. His colour serves to anchor our gaze onto him at all times.

It's also the colour of SG's hair ribbons, or her jacket when she's more closely/visually allied with the royal family. (I've got another post coming with a breakdown of SG's wardrobe/colours)

Red also refers to spiritual practices or wards, ways to protect or bind in rituals. Note that the reds for these characters are very cooled down compared to the royal reds of the king and SG. While important spiritually, these characters are meant to blend into the scene more.

Part 1.1: Framing (Bonus)

All the fun, creative and inventive ways they used to frame our two leads in the shot!

No real commentary, just enjoying the way they did this :) Why have two people next to each other when you could just... not!

Part 1: Framing

(Other parts: Framing (bonus), Colour, Light & Shadow, Costuming, Camera Angles & Sound, Bonus)

One of the strongest elements of The East Palace is how visually striking it is, without ever feeling gratuitous. Yes, every single shot is a painting, but it also serves to tell the story. The East Palace is the exact opposite of a show made to watch while scrolling. The dialogue is only one element of the story, the visuals are meant to convey the rest.

An important aspect here is the way in which characters are framed and positioned within a shot.

Wide, open shots convey feelings of openness, possibility, uncertainty. Situations are not yet defined, but there is an overwhelming sense that something is about to happen.

At the same time, these wide shots can be used to emphasize the helplessness of the characters. Who are you, small human, in the face of the primordial forces of nature, death and demonkind? To the viewers, the characters in these shots become distant, faceless beings. They are but ants, and you get the sensation that at any point something large will crush them.

Similarly striking are claustrophobic, constricting framings. Characters are quite literally being compressed by the edges of the shot, or by elements of the scenery around them. Visually, this can represent the limits placed on them by their social standing, or lack thereof.

While both the king and the dowager queen are often shown in wide framings that emphasize their power over the court, in these shots the traditions and rules of the royal palace literally constrain their (re)actions. Gu-cheon, on the other hand, is physically being constrained by the king on one side and emotionally by the palace walls on the other. He's stuck between forces that are outside of his control.

For both the king and the dowager queen, claustrophobic shots are also used to represent moments of unstable mental health. The walls are closing in on them, and so is the frame.

Another way to look at the framing of the East Palace is not just where characters are in relation to the camera (small and far away or close and constrained), but how two characters relate to each other in a single frame.

You can tell a lot about characters and their power relations by who is framed high/tall in a shot and who is low/small. In some cases, this is literal: the king and dowager empress are often framed higher because they are the most powerful people in the palace.

In other cases, characters deliberately give another person power over them. The primordial Gwi-mae is much taller than Gu-cheon, on the one hand because it is more powerful, but also because GC has come to bargain with it. He is doubly in a subordinate position, and this is reflected in the way this scene is shot. Similarly, the king deliberately tempts GC into attacking him in the realm of Gwi, thus taking the low ground.

In some cases, high-low framing is used to show that power relations between characters have changed or are reversed. While Saeng-gang is hierarchically in a higher position than Gu-cheon, they are usually framed on even ground. However, when GC is part gwi-mae, he towers over SG when he is choking her. In the second frame, SG is placed above GC, because she has drugged him and he is now fully powerless.

Sometimes, characters that are technically more powerful - the mother of the king & the ak-gwi of the crown prince - are shown in a lower position to symbolize that they have lost their power. They no longer have what it takes to defeat our leads, and are thus no longer a threat.

Part 3: Light and Shadow

(Other parts: Framing, Framing (bonus), Colour, Costuming, Camera Angles & Sound, Bonus)

Light is very important in visual arts. It draws and directs the eye to certain parts of the shot, and gives us a lot of subconscious information. How a character or scene is lit can influence how we feel about them. Can you really trust a character who is always cast in shadows? What does it mean when half of the screen bathes in warm light and the other half is hidden in cool darkness?

As humans, we get a lot of information from the facial expressions of the people around us. They help us understand how someone feels, what they think about us, how we should approach them (or not). The East Palace plays with this by deliberately hiding characters' faces in shadow, taking away that visual information.

It makes the characters mysterious, unpredictable, difficult to parse. It visually puts them at a distance from us, making it hard to empathise with them or understand their motivations. As the prince dies, we cannot see the faces of the king or any of the people around him. We cannot see his grief, his anger, or his disbelief. We are removed from empathising with him, because his humanity is hidden from our view.

Characters whose faces we cannot see turn into just silhouettes. Even those we may have previously cared about and related to become inhuman or otherworldly. It makes us question if we ever really knew them. Is the Gu-cheon who kills the ak-gwi still the man we know? Or has he become a different entity altogether?

Lighting can also quite literally put a character on the spot. It can be a sign of sudden realisation, of scrutiny or paranoia. As Saeng-gang gets closer to the truth of what happened 30 years ago, the king's actions are suddenly thrust into the spotlight again. In the same vein, his failure in handling the plague-village is under scrutiny by GC, who clearly sees the way the ghost(s) of the situation haunt the king.

And, as a bonus: a little study of light and shadow/warm light and cool light when it comes to our leads:

The sheer METAL energy their devotion has

THIS👏IS HOW👏 YOU WRITE👏 A LOVE STORY👏👏👏👏!!!!!!!!!

- The King, and his mother, killed his elder brothers, and everyone that knew, to make him ascend the throne.

- The King killed everybody in a village to stop a pestilence (a heartless but pratical choice), but it turned out that pestilence came from a curse, to which he was the root of.

- The King had a young man kidnapped and threatened to deal with his mess.

- The Queen Dowager framed and killed a pregnant consort out of jealous to make her lose the child and die.

- The Crown Prince killed his two elder brothers, was poisoned by his father the King, turned himself into a evil spirit, haunted the palace and killed his younger brother.

And what... ?

The evil spirit of the Crown Prince has been defeated but the King still rules and remains healthy. All he has to do is take a young woman as his wife and have new kids to replace the dead ones.

His mother is still fine and didn't face much consequences.

Same with the Queen Dowager who went a bit insane but lives to see another day.

The poor guy forced to bleed and die multiple times to face the spirits and clean up the royal mess ended an evil spirit himself (to protect the princess the King was ready to sacrifice) and tied up to an evil place.

So the powerful remained in power, not hold accountable for their crimes.