Interesting and/or Admirable Female Characters

Go Eun-Chan. No other words are necessary.

Jang Hye-Seong, Eo Choon-Shim (Hye-Seong’s mother). JHS has remained a top favourite through long years, and am simply enamoured without end.

Seo Do-Yeon, Seo Do-Yeon’s adoptive mother

(This drama was full of strong and fascinating female characters). 

Kang Gil-Young is beyond amazing! I have loved many a female characters but even amongst them, KGY is special!

尾頭ヒロミ (Ogashira Hiromi; a bureaucrat from the Ministry of Environment, Japan)

She was a marvelous character, and stole my heart the moment she appeared on screen. Plain-faced, poised and proper, she was also cool and collected, reserved, intelligent, efficient, capable, unafraid to voice her opinions, socially “clueless” etc. In a movie with an impressive cast and numerous interesting characters, she stole the show for me. Simply fabulous.

(She gave off vibes of an anime character, which was not at all  surprising given who the writers and directors of the movie were).

Huang Rong: Intelligent, cunning and devious, her beauty and delicate appearance belied a person with the smarts and lack-of-scruples to payback on those accumulated grudges. A devoted, generous and faithful partner.

Mu Nian-Ci: Principled and courageous, yet an ultimately tragic character. 

Tie Xin Lan. She was neither an amazing fighter nor particularly smart when compared to nearly everyone around her, but her love for the brothers, honest, fair and passionate nature, as well as being consistently steadfast in her principles/convictions, were her most admirable qualities. She’s an amazing female lead of a different vein.

Lui Sei-Leong: Principled and kick-a** all the way

Yoo Jae Yi.

All the female characters are fascinating, but only Yoo Jae Yi has my undivided love. Choi Seung Eun performed YJY to perfection. Brava!

Love everyone here, but my special love goes to Cha Hyeon aka Scarlett, and coming second place is Song Ga Gyeong. (A fabulous female characters-centric show, and can’t love it enough).

Han Yeo Jin is fabulous, and I thoroughly loved her compassion, kindness, quirkiness and all around awesomeness!

Dr Jang Gyeo-Ul aka Dr Long-Winter. While JGE might be my favourite, I loved all the other female characters in HP as well.

Jeong Tae-Eul: Everything I could ever want in a strong female lead; she has it in spades.

Yoon Se-Ri: Complex. Competent. Beneath the brash attitude was an abyss of vulnerabilities, but also a well of resilience and the strength to persist and take charge of her own destiny.

I also loved nearly all the other female characters in the show, especially the North Korean ahjummas, and especially the “Rat”’s wife. Most supporting characters were written beautifully. 

Concubine Jing is my absolute favourite in a show filled with interesting and wonderful charactears, and I simply adore her. Such a charismatic and magnificent performance too.

Jung Soo-Young: Awkward and embarrassingly quirky (not to mention dowdy), yet independent-minded and assertive when the-times-called-for-it, she was a refreshingly identifiable character. 

Chae Young-Shin: Courageous, empathetic, positive-minded and generous.

Ko Bok-Shil: Generous, kind-hearted and diligent, yet never a pushover. 

Kim Yun-Hee: Courageous, intelligent, daring, diligent and all-around wonderful character.

Ii Naotora 

The main protagonist of the show - a historical figure shrouded in uncertainty - and a prideful, brash, courageous and determined female character in the show. While I have full admiration for the character, and she was great, I also have extremely strong ambiguous feelings when it came to certain aspects of her characterization and portrayal due to the way the story portrayed the “love story” in the show. I suppose I should blame the writer and not the character.

The two characters below embodied to  a major extent the feminine virtues lauded in Confucian values, “Wise, Good, Obedient, Virtuous” (賢良淑德). If that sounded too parochially patriarchal, they might just be so. No matter the labels, what these women exhibited - and one was even a real historical person with such praises heaped on her - were grace, strengths of character, flexibility and backbones of steel in the face of adversity and misfortunes:

Natsu (夏 殿), sister-in-law of Ono Masatsugu

Haru (春 殿), wife of Imagawa Ujizane