`EMPRESS' COMES ON STRONG.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer

Different countries have different cultural affinities. Nobody does opera quite like the Italians, ballet quite like the Russians, or rock music quite like the, um, French.

Normally, Korea isn't the first country that leaps to mind when you think of Broadway-style musicals. But that could change with a few more shows like ``The Last Empress,'' a $10 million Korean production that's currently midway through its L.A. premiere, having already prompted comparisons with Andrew Lloyd Webber-esque showmanship.

Part of the reason is its heroine, the Empress Min, a larger-than-life figure in Korean history with a cult following comparable to that of Britain's Elizabeth I or Argentina's Eva Peron. Though little-known in the West, she was the powerful matriarch in the late-19th-century of the Lee Dynasty (1392-1910), and presided over Chosun (as the country was then called) as it began its painful turn-of-the-century transition from isolated, feudal kingdom to modernized nation.

But the queen's strong will couldn't halt Imperial Japan's territorial ambitions. Japan invaded its neighbor and assassinated the empress in 1895, opening a wound that was further inflamed by World War II and still has yet to heal fully.

``The Last Empress'' tells this story on a Busby Berkeley scale, in 56 scenes, with a company of 50 singers and dancers decked out in 600 opulent costumes. Performed in Korean with English supertitles, the 2-1/2-hour show has had two brief engagements in New York City. Although director Ho Jin Yun acknowledges the production has lost money so far, he's hoping its New York and L.A. runs will give it a beachhead for future expansion.

And while epic entertainment is the musical's primary purpose, Yun also thinks the show can set a few records straight, both about the empress and about a sensitive chapter of Japanese-Korean relations. Until now, he says, the empress ``was only portrayed as not a good kind of person, because she always had trouble with her father-in-law and she was too strong for a woman at the time.''

Actress Taewon Kim, who alternates the demanding title role with Wonjung Kim (no relation), says her character hardly fits the profile of the meek and martyred Asian woman, a staple of Western popular culture from ``Madame Butterfly'' to ``Miss Saigon.''

``The stereotype of Asian women, Korean women, is that they were quiet, very gentle, not saying anything,'' says Taewon Kim. ``But she was too smart, too strong. The only thing they could do was kill her.''

A classically trained mezzo-soprano who recently played Lady Thiang in the Broadway revival of ``The King and I,'' Taewon Kim moved to the United States with her family when she was 15 and grew up in Flushing, N.Y.

Before she discovered acting, her ambition was to be a pilot. She applied to the Air Force Academy, the Naval Academy and West Point, but couldn't get in because she wasn't a U.S. citizen. Instead, she entered Juilliard on a scholarship.

Though ``The Last Empress'' requires her to spend much of her time in a 40-pound wig, Kim understandably is more concerned about her voice than her hair.

``What happens is, as a singer, my voice gets kind of dry,'' she said recently over coffee in a Koreatown hotel. ``So that's one bad thing, but you can't have everything. I'm a very pushy kind of girl, so I don't (always) take care of my voice.''

Director Yun says that American missionaries first imported Broadway musicals to Korea after World War II. He developed his own love of the form in the 1980s when he came to Manhattan to study at New York University's School of Drama. By 1993, he had founded his own production company, A-Com, and produced his first U.S. musical, a revival of ``Guys and Dolls.''

With its ultra-patriotic themes and stirring, anthemlike melodies, ``The Last Empress'' became a smash in Seoul. How its sensitive subject matter will play to audiences elsewhere in Asia is worth contemplating: Yun plans to take it to Japan and, if possible, North Korea.

``I think this will be the best way to reach other people,'' he says. ``The first thing that needs to be done is to open up all this hidden history and make it known to everybody. And if we show our culture to them and they show theirs to us, that's the beginning of a new and better relationship.''

THE FACTS

What: ``The Last Empress.''

Where: Shubert Theatre, 2020 Avenue of the Stars, Century City.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 3 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday; through Sept. 27.

Tickets: $25 to $60. Call [phone]. For Korean-language ticket sales, call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Empress Min (Wonjong Kim), a towering figure in Korean history, is the central character of the musical production ``The Last Empress.''