It should also be noted that “A Frozen Flower” is a purely fictional work set sometime in the late Goryeo Dynasty when Goryeo was under the influence of China.

In “A Frozen Flower”, the king of Goryeo (Jin-mo Ju) comes under heavy pressure from neighboring China to produce an heir (his wife is of Chinese descent) or become possibly replaced. The king meanwhile has no interest in women and is incapable of producing an heir because of his homosexuality. The king spends the majority of his time with Hong Lim - his chief royal bodyguard. The king nurtured Hong Lim into the role of his personal bodyguard since they were children. Their relationship has now progressed into a sexual relationship.

One day, the king asks Hong Lim to father a child with the queen. Hong Lim is taken back by this request as he has never been with a women before. The first evening that Hong Lim attempts to conceive a child with the queen he is unable to perform. The second night they attempt to conceive a child things turn out differently. Passion arises between the two and they successfully have sex. Their third night together they find themselves falling for each other. Meanwhile, the king suspects that something has changed within Hong Lim and is willing to do whatever it takes to keep Hong Lim for himself.

“A Frozen Flower” will receive the most attention because of its homosexual angle, but the film contains very little in gay eroticism. There’s one kissing scene between the king and the bodyguard, while the film features numerous graphic sex scenes between the bodyguard and the queen. While the film does open with a prominent gay angle, the film eventually settles on the heterosexual relationship between the bodyguard and queen as the crux of its story.

With a character driven film like “A Frozen Flower” the movie really sinks or swims with the performances of its main actors and in this regard the movie sinks. You can say Jin-mo Ju and In-seong Jo take completely different paths to arrive at the same disappointing destination. Jin-mo Ju opts for the hammy “over-the-top” road, with eyes and veins that constantly appear on the verge of popping. His ultra-charged performance fails to spark any type of onscreen electricity and made me wonder if he didn't watch one too many Al Pacino films. In-seong Jo takes the reserved stoic road and consequently comes across as a robot. The many sex scenes between himself and Ji-hyo Song were surprisingly graphic, but failed to exude a level of eroticism needed to make those scenes work (if you ever wondered what it looks like when robots start humping reference those scenes).

Visually the film is bright and colorful, but occasionally veers close to late night cable TV quality (the dungeon scenes and the countryside horseback scenes in particular). The story is also nothing to write home about sans the gay angle, which gets thrown out the window when the heterosexual relationship develops.

“A Frozen Flower” isn't a terrible film by any stretch of the imagination and I can see how certain fans may enjoy the movie outright. For myself, I found the movie to be disappointing with sub-par acting, a bland script, and visuals that lacked imagination. In retrospect, the film seemed to lack true “heart” to make its story come to life.