Thundering Waters

T H U N D E R I N G
W A T E R S
by Elfriede Walkenhorst
* Drakenstaat Film Group
* In Collaboration With
* Guglib Yeonghwa Hyeobhoe
starring
* Karl Andrecht as Ansgar von Langenburg
* Um Ki-joon as Admiral Park Sung-keun
* Kwon Yu-ri as Princess Park Jung-yeon
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The film opens to a gray ocean and a stormy dark sky.  A tall ship, in the far distance, labors under the breath of a snarling wind.  The drum, like the voice of thunder, rumbles to the accompaniment of an orchestral sea, the steady creak of ropes and wood.  An exotic instrument begins to pluck out its tune, our first clue that this is not the sun-blessed seas of the Cerulean nor the tempest-tossed Celtican coast.  The ship, her sails white, crashes through a wave, foam blasting from under the gilded dragon figurehead - not the traditional southern Draken, but a maned serpentine dragon from Akaina.
As the scene shifts and the drums pick up their tempo, we see the crew, clad in dense woolen jackets and trousers against the cold.  Their dark hair, pale skin and epicanthal folds remind us once again that this is not the traditional sea-tale from our childhoods, filled with singing pirates on the roaring main.  The five-flowered flag of Joseon snaps in the breeze; but under it stands a more familiar figure, shock-red hair and darker tan standing out among his shorter companions.  He wears, though, the same woolen jacket, though stitched with fine golden thread.  This concession to locale only goes so far, however, for he pulls down a battered three-cornered hat over his brow.  
He is Ansgar von Langenburg.
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History largely forgot Ansgar von Langenburg for centuries, though in recent decades his legendary deeds have drawn more attention.  Here in Draken, he is hardly a household name.  In Joseon, where he lived for most of two decades prior to his death in 1757, he is slightly better-known but still enigmatic.
This changes with Thundering Waters, a four-part miniseries produced in 2019 by director Hildebrand Zimmerman, in conjunction with Joseon's Guglib Yeonghwa Hyeobhoe, telling the tale of Ansgar's exile.
Early details on Ansgar's life are unclear.  Born in approximately 1710, he grew up in a small well-to-do family on the northwest Draken coast.  Although he carried the von Langenburg name, he was widely believed illegitimate, along with two of his seven siblings.  His father arranged for him to train as a naval officer in the Prussian Navy, although historians believe he might have served in some of the other Princely navies for several years.  He developed a reputation as a headstrong and insubbordinate junior officer, often making the right decisions but winning few friends.
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Having established our hero, the film cuts back to 1735.  A young Karl Andrecht, perfectly-cast as Ansgar von Langenburg, drinks in a harbor-side tavern with his brother officers, playing a bit of dice and ignoring the attentions of the barmaid (a Megan Fox cameo); when teased by his friends, he informs them he's got another alternative, and excuses himself.
In a roguish fashion, he nabs a ladder and uses it to climb a roof, scale a gap to the walls of a castle, and reach another high window, where he is greeted by Tiziana, the daughter of the local baron.  Before he can properly start any of the vigorous activities she suggests, there is the quiet creak of a door and the sound of drawn steel.  Baron von Häfner was lying in wait.  Upon spotting her wrathful father, Tiziana instantly pretends to struggle, making the scene look quite bad for Ansgar.
In order to avoid parental wrath, Ansgar falls out the window, breaking first his wrist and then an ankle in his attempt to evade pursuit.  In a final humiliation, he slips and falls off a roof into a horse-trough, resurfacing only to see his borrowed ladder falling slowly down towards his head.
The scene immediately shifts to his court-martial.  Although Baron von Häfner scowls from on side of the court, the charge is merely theft of the ladder, which wins him thirty lashes and discharge from the Navy without pay.
For those true afficianados of Draken occultic history - yes, it really was that Tiziana von Häfner, who would be hanged in 1749 for murdering and cannibalizing a total of seventeen lovers during bizarre occultic ceremonies, under the impression that she was trying to become the dragon goddess of the eclipse.  Knowing that, I think Ansgar got off pretty light.
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Cast out of the navy, Ansgar wins a horse from a Liotainian during a game of dice, and, acting on the advice of one of his few remaining friends, rides north (his wrist and ankle still splinted) to join one of the sides in the Forty Years War.  His initial request to the Celticans for an officer slot is rejected with an impolite "we don't hire southern scum."  (Historical note: Ansgar did apparently serve in the Celtican Navy briefly during the Forty Years War, but was employed solely as captain of a prison hulk which never left harbor.  The miniseries skips this unglamorous period.)
Travelling ever-further north, Ansgar continues seeking a job - almost any job - in one of the warring navies.  His skill at dice (possibly due to cheating) barely keeps him solvent until he at last ends up, penniless, in one of the ports on the Encircled Sea, sleeping in the stable of a dismal Firoccan tavern and bouncing unruly guests.  Oh, and his trusty horse died.
While things look bleak, Ansgar's fortunes are about to change.  A foreigner comes into the tavern looking to hire sailors, and in very broken Firoccan, tells Ansgar that he has bought a ship to fight in the northern wars.
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I didn't hear of the Great Northern War in school.  Like Ansgar von Langenburg, it's largely been forgotten and ignored outside of the countries it most affected - which in fact was much of northern Zamoroziet.  The Forty Years War is still remembered for the creation of Arkadyetsiya and the re-drawing of borders across the Rift Valley.  But alongside it, on the northern shores of the Encircled Sea, a coalition of the Northern Bols (now Aukustia, Prem-Bol, and arguably Kyslev) fought to aid the western Bols by attacking the northern Picts, principally Pictfearr and Eirenn, in 1720.  The island kingdom of Joseon, having suffered prior defeats by their now-traditional enemies, joined the war in 1727 as an ally of the Picts.  Nearly a dozen other countries enter or exit the war as it rages on, until the final defeat of the Northern Bols in the 1750s.
The Kingdom of Joseon remained engaged throughout the conflict, but like most of the combatants, suffered in the aftermath due to a plague and famine (which largely set the stage for their later defeats by Aukustia in the late 1700s and early 1800s).  Necessity, however, saw them modernize their army and navy, depending on Pictish gold, foreign expertise, and a small number of talented but forgotten local commanders.
Thundering Waters dramatizes Ansgar von Langenburg's steady journey north, but much of this period in his life remains somewhat shrouded in uncertainty.  His personnal letters to friends and family, archived at the Draken Seafarer's Museum, certainly hint at a desperate and despondent man, never more than one or two uncertain meals away from an inglorious end.
Nevertheless, in early 1737, Ansgar signed on as the first officer of a Joseon warship, the Bul-gae (Firedog), either a Firoccan East Dengfengman or an Eirennach frigate - records are unclear - sold to Joseon as the Great Northern War dragged along.  Although listed as the first officer, Ansgar was actually the captain, since the Joseonite captain had only commanded a war-junk, and had no idea how to manage a square-rigged ship like the Bul-Gae.  Ansgar, although never having commanded before, proved his worth; his luck began to change.
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As episode two of Thundering Waters begins, we return to the same scene that opened episode one - a Joseon ship, the Bul-Gae, with Ansgar in command.  He sweeps the horizon with his battered telescope, and sees, in the distance, masts and sails.  A Bolish fleet cruising off the coast of Pictfearr has waited to ambush the Bul-Gae, sailing north to Joseon with a loan of two hundred pounds of Valpoan gold.
Ansgar's difficulties are significant.  His ship is undermanned, with a hundred Joseon sailors and a smattering of foreigners; there is no hope in fighting.  Worse, Ansgar can't speak Hangugeo; his orders have to be passed on by a tipsy Liotainian whose translation skills leaves much to be desired.
Although Bul-Gae outruns the Bolish ships using a combination of foul weather and darkness, Ansgar worries that he hasn't seen the last of the fleet.  He redoubles his efforts to learn the Hangugeo terms, constantly grilling both his half-drunken translator, the Bul-gae's captain, and some of the native crew.
Further encounters with the Bolish ships give Ansgar more ability to test his mettle against an enemy.  His hastily-learned and broken Hangugeo allows him to persist when a long-range shot wounds and incapacitates his translator.  (From this scene, we get the meme-worthy subtitles, "Take you that that over there now, and now make that more like that right here now!")  Copious amounts of profanity and wild arm gestures successfully get the crew to evade the Bols once again, coaxing Bul-gae into port at her final destination.
As a reward, Ansgar is removed from the frigate, but handed an alternative prize - command of a training school in Wonsan.  While Joseon has no shortage of courageous and skilled sailors, they are well-practiced in junks, and not the square-rigged ships-of-the-line now used by the navies.  The foreigners, used as advisors, teach their skills to the native fishermen.
Coming ashore for the first time, Ansgar is bewildered by the alien land; barely able to speak the language, hardly able to eat the food he is served.  A crowd moving along the waterfront nearly tramples him, the mob screaming mockery at a man tied to a yak.
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Admiral Park Sung-keun, like Ansgar von Langenburg, largely disappears into history outside his native land - but he is worthy of recognition as one of the most skilled naval commanders of all time.  Historians point to his track record: he is undefeated across an astounding sixty battles.
By 1737, Park had already won the majority of those battles, culminating in the Battle of Yeonpyeong in 1733 - his war-junks and a small force of frigates pulling out a shocking underdog victory against the larger Aukustian fleet.  Though he came from a noble family, his birth was relatively humble - the son of a registered scholar - and he trained for the Joseon military, fighting pirates between 1702 and 1724, cruising as far as the Anitkabir coast.  For his loyalty and ability, despite the state of his rather impoverished family, he was given a wife by royal decree, one of King Ryu Moo-ryong's daughters.
When Joseon entered the Great Northern War, Admiral Park served as second-in-command of the Wangsil Haegun, and delivered several quick blows to the Aukustian enemies, culminating in the Battle of Yeonpyeong (1733).  Although he expertly used Joseon's existing fleet of cannon-armed junks to masterful effect, he called for the purchase of square-rigged warships, such as those used by the navies of Aukustia and Prem-Bol.
Jealousy followed Admiral Park's success at Yeonpyeong, and his rivals agitated for his removal, manufacturing various charges against him.  Ultimately, he was punished being tied to a yak and dragged through the streets of Wonsan, mocked by royal edict.  As a tough old seaman, he survived, being placed in the ignominious role of a mere sentry upon the gates of the Naval Academy he himself had ordered constructed.
His rival and replacement, Admiral Kim Jung-un, sailed out in late 1737 to fight Prem-Bol's navy, and met with catastrophe at the First Battle of Changrin-do.  The Joseonite Navy that Admiral Park had built was destroyed in an afternoon, with the survivors fleeing into the harbor at Yeosu, where they were blockaded.
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Episode Three opens with Ansgar von Langenburg in command of Joseon's Naval Academy where he struggles to teach young officers the details of square-rig ship handling, even though they lack any ship to train on.  Emerging from his office one snowy night, he finds several senior officers throwing snowballs at a sentry, who stoically ignores the assault.  Ansgar, offended on the man's behalf, chases the three officers away, then interviews the sentry - who invites him to his house for dinner.
Ansgar, expecting the old sentry to live in a hovel, accepts with some reluctance, instead finding himself in a small mansion.  The bewildered Ansgar discovers the sentry is in truth the much-demoted, but still loyal Admiral (Private) Park Sung-keun.  Ansgar is introduced to Park's ailing wife, Princess Ji-won, and his daughter Jung-yeon.
In spite of the cultural differences between them, Ansgar develops a deep respect for the talented old admiral (and develops something else for Jung-yeon).  Ansgar's friendship with Park has some political costs for him, as Park's enemies become his own.  But Park is at his lowest point, and once again begins his rise.
With Admiral Kim's defeat at Changrin-do, Park is suddenly thrust back into the spotlight - the magic admiral who can fix what has gone wrong, which his internal enemies have mishandled and destroyed.  The remains of Joseon's badly-battered navy is trapped at Yeosu, and Park takes a fleet of five outdated war-junks to try to join them.  Once again supreme commander of the fleet, Park appoints Ansgar von Langenburg as his flag captain.
Park, with only five war-junks, masterminds the Battle of Sogimdok in order to reach the remnants of the Joseon fleet.  Two of his junks are expended as fireships, causing utter chaos in Prem-Bol's blockading squadron.  Ansgar volunteers to command one of the fireships and successfully crashes it into Prem-Bol's ship-of-the-line Blessing of Devana.  After some minor misadventures in a small boat (which, from Ansgar's letters, was perhaps the closest he ever came to actually dying), he rejoins Admiral Park at Yeosu.  Park greets Ansgar with the honorific 'son,' informally adopting him into his family, and appoints him commander of the flagship.
In spite of the Battle of Sogimdok, the Bols still blockade the smaller Joseon fleet, and retain the upper hand.  Once again, however, Park shows his skill as one of the most magnificent naval commanders of any age, encouraging the despondent sailors of the defeated fleet, preparing battered ships for sea, and organizing a cunning plan for the escape of his ships.  The Bolish commander, Prince-Admiral Alexander Bozhkov (no slouch as a naval tactician himself), realizes the wily old Park needs to be defeated; he launches a complicated multi-pronged attack on Yeosu, by land and sea.
Pressed to within a hair of defeat, Park rolls the dice on an epic gamble.  On a snowy night in sub-arctic darkness, the Joseon Navy emerges from the fjord of Yeosu and crashes through the lines of the Bolish blockading squadron.  Aboard the flagship, Ansgar once again proves his worth - and his toughness, as he is wounded twice by Bolish musketry.  But our hero survives, as does the fleet, which escapes the Bolish pursuit.
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Like his eternal nemesis Admiral Park, Prince-Admiral Bozhkov really deserves more recognition.  I fear Thundering Waters did his legacy a grave disservice, casting the septagenarian Oleg Kovhelya to play a villainous role.  Historically, Bozhkov was twenty-eight (the same age as Ansgar von Langenburg).  Paintings show a devilishly handsome man with a charismatic smile and sad eyes. Period sources call him "the last Knight of the Bols" and talk about how noblewomen in the Bolish court fought for the chance to dance with him.  I don't mean metaphorical fighting, either - two noble ladies once took their disagreement outside and stabbed each other, with one dying from her injuries.
Unfortunately, historians find his battle-record unexceptional - nine naval battles, winning three, not particularly marking him as a commander blessed with greatness.  His record, though, bears re-examination.  Three of his defeats (Sogimdok, Yeosu, and Noryang) were at the hands of Park Sung-keun, while at the remaining three (Haeju, Telika, and Pomorie) he faced overwhelming forces.  Indeed, only at Pomorie did he actually surrender.  His victories - particularly Changrin-do and Popina - were won in the face of superior numbers, and of all Park Sung-keun's numerous opponents, he came closest to actually defeating Joseon's champion, and the only one to survive multiple encounters.
Come on, Prem-Bol!  Make me a miniseries about Bozhkov with high production values, and perhaps Henry Cavill to play Bozhkov.  After Kovhelya's portrayal in Thundering Waters, I think he deserves it.
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The fourth episode of Thundering Waters begins with the return of the Joseon fleet from the Battle of Yeosu.  Wounded Ansgar von Langenburg is carried ashore for healing at the palace of Admiral Park, where Park's daughter Jung-yeon helps care for him.  The couple shares a few tender moments, and Admiral Park, acknowledging events, recommends that Jung-yeon and Ansgar marry.  The marriage cements Ansgar's integration into Joseon society, as the Joseon sailors begin calling Ansgar "Captain Park Ans-gar," according him the same respect as Park Sung-keun's own sons.
(A historical note - Admiral Park had four sons, three of whom survived to adulthood.  The three sons served faithfully during their father's campaigns, and the eldest, Park Joon-gi, played a prominent role in the Battles of Sogimdok, Yeosu, and Noryang.  However, the sons all have minor roles in Thundering Waters, largely restricted to Joon-gi emphasizing his protective big brother instincts prior to Ansgar's marriage to Jung-yeon.)
Once Ansgar recovers from his wounds, he returns to command the Joseon flagship.  Admiral Park is swiftly rebuilding the sailing fleet in preparation for the summer, when the Bols are once again expected to attack.  The fleet is not yet ready, however, when King Ryu Moo-ryong's army wins the Battle of Geumdae River against the Aukustians.  This places the Eastern Bols in a critical situation, facing a complete stalemate on land; they call Prem-Bol to send an army by sea.  Thus begins the lead-up to the Battle of Noryang.
Though the Northern Bols are also hard-pressed in their campaigns against the Pictfearri and Eirennach, they scrounge up ten thousand men to go to Aukustia, guarded by Prince-Admiral Bozhkov's fleet, itself freshly-reinforced.  The Aukustian fleet, under Bogomil Bogdanović (who has the utterly terrifying nickname 'Black-Souled Impaler') joins Prince-Admiral Bozhkov, doubling the odds against Joseon's still-fragile navy.
Admiral Park, acknowledging that the times are dire, sets sail with his own fleet; Ansgar once again commands his father-in-law's flagship, while Park Joon-yi commands the reserve frigates.  They encounter the Bolish convoy once at sea, but Admiral Park does not order the attack; he instead waits until the Bolish squadron has to pass through the narrow Strait of Noryang, where he has laid a trap for the Bols.
Before leaving port, Park sent his eldest son Joon-gi with some of Joseon's war-junks to Noryang, where Joon-gi's men stretch a steel chain across the strait, and place cannons on the heights.  As the Bolish fleet approaches, they find their way blocked by the chain.  Parties of seamen are sent in small boats to try to cut the chain, but the coastal cannons, and the Joseon junks, protect the chain.  Meanwhile, a strong wind builds to the northwest, preventing the Bolish fleet from sailing away and pressing their ships toward the rocky coast.
Admiral Park appears to trap the united Bolish squadrons, and their heavily-loaded transports, against the combination of the land, defensive batteries, and the steel chain.  Although outnumbered two to one, he carefully pushes forward his attack.  Pushed into increasingly crowded waters, the Bolish ships run afoul of each other and cannot bring all of their cannon to bear on their attackers.  Many of the troop transports are forced to run ashore, and the soldiers are thrown into freezing dark waters with orders to swim ashore and attack the coastal cannons with the bayonet - their muskets inoperative due to the water.  To the immortal credit of the Prem-Bol infantry, the desperate freezing troops manage to overwhelm one of the nine batteries.
Prince-Admiral Bozhkov, in a supreme feat of seamanship, manages to escape the trap with some of his ships, after a brutal fight with Park's own battle-line.  The Black-Souled Impaler, Bogomil Bogdanović, is less fortunate, as his flagship is eventually overrun by the Joseon flagship.  Ansgar von Langenburg leads a boarding party onto the deck of the enemy ship in order to quell the last resistance; rather than surrender, Bogdanović jumps overboard, to drown with hundreds of his own men.
As the battle closes, however, a familiar face becomes conspicuously absent.  Admiral Park, at the height of the battle with Bozhkov's escaping contingent, was mortally wounded.  He pressed Ansgar to conceal his death and carry his battle-standard to victory.  
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The Battle of Noryang did not end the Great Northern War, which dragged on for another fifteen years. In 1743, Prem-Bol's army was crushed during an invasion of Pictfearr.  As Arkadyetsiya slowly formed in western Zamoroziet, the Northern Bols tried to hang on in the futile hope that they would receive promised help - but that help never came.  In 1752, an allied fleet forced Prince-Admiral Bozhkov's surrender at the Battle of Pomorie; Ansgar von Langenburg was present as the second-ranking admiral of the Joseon Navy, and accepted the surrender of Bozhkov's sword.
The war ended with a chain of disasters: famine, plagues, and an unusually harsh winter caused mass starvation not only in Prem-Bol and Aukustia, the ostensible losers in the war, but also in Joseon, numbered among the victors. In 1754, Prince-Admiral Bozhkov died during a famine in Prem-Bol; on his tombstone, he ordered the fatalistic epitaph "The deer learned war; the wolves starve."
Ansgar von Langenburg survived the Smallpox Plague of 1752-1753, but his wife Jung-yeon and one of their three children did not.  Their deaths, and Ansgar's own illness, left him in a slow depression.  A visit back to Draken in 1756, asking for charity shipments of food to the suffering in both Joseon and their former Bolish enemies, resulted in a case of heat-stroke.  He returned to Joseon and died in 1757.  In tribute to his deeds, the Ryu Dynasty had his body buried alongside Park Jung-yeon in the Imperial Cemetary; to this day, he remains one of three foreigners to receive this honor.
Ansgar's two surviving children received both Draken and Joseon names.  His daughter remained in Joseon, retaining her name Park Hye-kyo, but Ansgar's son returned to Draken in 1760, using the name Konrad von Langenburg; he conducted dozens of mapping expeditions into Kijana, where he was killed in 1789.
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Production of Thundering Waters ultimately took nearly two decades.  The project began as the brainchild of a young Hildebrand Zimmerman, who is descended from Ansgar von Langenburg (via his son Konrad) on his mother's side.  Zimmerman initially proposed the project back in 1998, but failed to get funding.  Only in 2016 after Zimmerman wrote and directed smash hits Kandersteg, Black Dragon, and Fairie Queen: Wild Hunt did he find the support and funding he needed to bring Thundering Waters to fruition.  
As is typical of Zimmerman's work, the filmography and writing is excellent.  Longtime fans will adore the tight character-driven story, and the witty humor slipped in between the cracks.
For those of you who loved Karl Andrecht's portrayal of a roguish handsome-and-he-knows-it hero in Kandersteg, Andrecht really ups his game when he starts playing von Langenburg.  Langenburg studied Hangugeo for his role, and reportedly put a lot of his own struggles into episode 1, where Langenburg tries to learn from the hard-drinking translator.
Although the miniseries received high praise from critics, it suffered in terms of viewership by competing with King of the Bounty Hunters, which shared a time slot with Thundering Waters.  Once the miniseries came to DFG's new online streaming service two months ago, however, it's gathered one of the highest viewer numbers on the platform.  I highly recommend you take the time to watch through it, and learn a little more about one of Draken's most forgotten heroes.
Category:Films
Category:Joseon
Category:Drakenstaat
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