There's a pretty powerful disclaimer at the start of The Last Princess: "Incidents and persons portrayed do not reflect historical facts." So then what are we to believe about Yi Deokhye, the subject of this biopic? Was she a royal rebel who bravely snubbed the Japanese emperor's dress code and rallied fingerless Korean workers to rise up against their Japanese oppressors? Did she try to escape her gilded cage and get back to Korea as an act of solidarity with her countrymen? Was she the first to discover the assassination of her father, the king? In truth, much of Hur Jin-ho's costume dram is conjectural; it's a pro-dynastic movie posing as a pro-resistance message. Considering the history we do know, for now I'm okay with that.
And Son Ye-jin makes a convincing princess, struggling to balance her patriotism with her desire to survive. She's got few people in her corner: an adoring servant (Ra Mi-ran), a couple of ineffectual brothers, and a soldier-spy (Park Hae-il) who also doubles as her devoted, sexless romantic interest. She's also got an evil Korean Benedict Arnold (Yun Je-mun) whose sole mission in life is to be her foil, derailing every attempt she makes to escape, to evade, to exalt. As fantasies go, if The Last Princess has any faults, it's that this heinous henchman never gets his just desserts. Director Hur may see this dark detail as a bitter dose of reality. Since so much is already made up, I'm not gonna quibble here. Finally, if Hollywood were more open to performances in foreign tongues, Son's lead turn would definitely have qualified as an Oscar-bait — as she ages from 20s to 70s while screaming, crying, looking fashionable, looking nervous, and ultimately going insane. I was crazy about her in the best way possible.
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