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This drama has taken first place as my all time favorite historical drama...
I've been waiting for this drama for quite a while since seeing the trailer and the promotions and WOW. I guess I have an eye for incredible dramas. This one easily takes place as one of the best dramas of the year. I was beyond amazed for 1hr the detail given about the story & characters portrayed by an unbelievable cast of top actors young or old. The details that were put toward the location, set design, graphics & outfits esp Mawang, and the aura A++they didn't skimp. I won't lie some spoilers, but only in a story setup details.The storyline was so tragic from the beginning, how these two kids that just met and fell in love will have this destiny filled with heartbreak. It's basically star-crossed lovers but also fated lovers. I loved every minute of it.
The general plot is interesting with different elements of Korean folklore, fantasy, good vs evil, and of course, romance. However, the drama seems to have forgotten some of the side storylines that they introduced and never go back to tell us more. For example, how did ML become the richest man as an astrologer with no family support? It doesn't quite make sense. I would like to know how ML's bodyguard came to follow him, and what's the backstory of the gisaeng who wanted the king and the royal family dead. Although I like the happy ending for the leads, it does seem a little anti-climatic. Do we really need to end it with the palace power struggle and give us an open ending? Why waste the last few minutes on those bad guys still hunting down FL?
The biggest strengths of this drama is the cast and their great acting. It's no surprise that the veteran actors are great. Our young leads also did a very respectable job and I believe in their joy and heartaches. I am happy to see that she's grown up to be such a fine actress and I've enjoyed her acting here. I haven't seen any of her modern dramas though. I've seen Ahn Hyo Seop in "Abyss ". He has definitely grown as an actor as well, and this might be the best performance I've seen him. I also like his acting here, though he's not used well in the second half of the drama. However, I am especially impressed with our villain's second prince, Kwak Shi Yang. What a great performance by him that I feel bad for his suffering because of Ma Wang.
I absolutely loved the ending. I was happy that Cheon Gi and Ha Ram can finally just be together and be happy. Also, I loved the kinda cliffhanger where the two princes fight. Who knows maybe they are setting up for a spin off? One following Prince Yang Myung?
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Trigger Warning
I was fine with the drama until about halfway through. Was it innovative? No, but I enjoyed many of the painting scenes (as unrealistic as they were). The FML was supposed to be an assertive strong female character, but she just came across as having plot armor or FML Halo. Where none of her actions resulted in logical consequences because everyone loves her. Fine... I still went along with drama. Until the ML (possessed) tries to kill the FML by choking her to death. TWICE! Both times the FML reacts by brushing the incident off. She makes no attempts to protect herself and instead justifies his behavior by saying he wasn't himself (classic domestic abuse victim behavior). It was very disappointing to watch. After the ML discovers he is possessed and that he's attempted to kill her twice already, he still chooses to be alone with the FML with no contingency plan in case the demon takes over his body again. Those two attempts on her life are never really addressed and the drama plays the concerns of the SML for her life as a sign of his jealousy. The message is all very alarming and toxic.Vond je deze recentie nuttig?
must see for lovers of historical-fantasy dramas
As a lover of historical dramas I'm suspicious to talk, but if you are looking for a historical drama with fantasy, amazing cinematography and a love story that makes your heart flutters, go for it.I was seduced by the fantasy plot and by the beauty of the deities and the story behind them. The cast was amazing, and all of them could portray very well the emotions of their characters, expecially the female main lead, who acts was simply superb.
It's a story that make your heart both happy and boken in the same time and it will make you want to know how it's going to end and if it's possible to have a happy ending.
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Pain is temporary
A poor fantasy that failed to establish a reasonable foundation from the very beginning, it even did a worse job with its brittle world building. The low budget visual effects weren't helping its case either. The cast may seems to be fine on the surface but the characters were as one dimensional as they could come. Its second biggest selling point after fantasy is the romance, of which was the least appealing aspect of the drama. By the end, I couldn't care the slightest about either of the leads and their fate. A cheap Chinese knock off fantasy with gods and dragons would have been better than this.Vond je deze recentie nuttig?
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They are destined lovers because Goddess basically screwed their fate !
HR/CG : They are destined lovers because Goddess basically screwed their fate and made YM the balancer which can be killed by Devil due to all these feelings not needed confusion. At places the story feels like 2 different shows, with the Yul and family feud and court angle v/s the love story I feel has no substantial impact as to why it is so heart wrenching on mere basis of that one fine day they went to a peach garden and played around as Kids.I do get CG only friend as a blind kid was HR so she missed him, HR might have had friends but all got lost. Their adult selves why did they fall in love on basis of nostalgia holds no impactful ground for me , I mean I dunno I feel the connection isnt properly developed.
Mostly this happened because first half of the series focusses on CG and painting academy comedy with dashes of emotional lines and more comedy. HR was shown so good in the first 2/3 episodes then he fell flat. He was literally shown as this puppet master controlling the entire chain of events for the wrongdoings to his family, down the line it was reduced to jealously and Push and Pull game.
YUL - YM is seen as this villain which he isn't , he has to shuffle and keep them all alive and the nation alive all at once, they all have 1 responsibility , he has 1000 and then being called a Wretch....and some agree with it? MAKES me sad. His story is properly fleshed out as compared so I feel he is the hero trying to manage and save the day which being the target of everyone while others are trying to kill him.
We have a Hwacha / An Old man with his head inside a plank, A ring with the bones of Balance God warding off Mawang and Sam Shin and Tiger Goddess protecting everyone. Tiger Goddess makes the most sense at some cases I feel. Yul is trying to save everyone and CG has only one track mind , meanwhile HR wants to Kill the royal family by making them against each other including Yul. They are frenemies but I still feel Yul is the most pressurized. This friendship, that unrequited Love , the pressure to be the non consensual Crown Prince he has a burden not every can see. HR has a mission with or without the devil inside him, its complex. CG is the game changer though but she is bias heavily so, but then again she doesn't know the backstage drama, all she reacts on is what she is seeing. But the word wretch of a Man was Harsh!!!!
Also draw a divine painting?? How to draw that, is there a SOP somewhere makes no head or tail duh. There were some people who questioned Yul's sense of how is he to decide the painting s are divine or not. CG can draw but not everyone can decrypt her sensibility in paintings, Yul has some divine decryption power to dechiper those, I think he has a good eye for stuff beyond normal human comprehension. Also she needs a vessel/painting to seal the Devil, if Grandpa King was the one whose body had the devil so his painting was used, why is not HR now? Or why wont it be Grand Prince later if he manages to buy Mawang from Haram???
Story is brilliant but there is some disconnection here tbh. Still awsome lol.
FML needs to work more on acting , she falls slightly short IMO.
FINAL VERDICT:
A Blind man was able to walk see and tie up a horse without knowing where he fell down, Time is being wasted on not so imp characters, A highly guarded prison can have visitors easily? What on earth....
Sam Shin and one more Goddess are worthless in front of a Sealed Demon Lord? Don't you not Cultivate???Do you not have successors? Was Sam Shin Born Old??? I mean WHAT????
The entire 15th episode should have been named YES I AM READY TO SEAL MAWANG...That is what we have been hearing for 10+episodes WORK ON IT......
Hwacha Human's son is the Street HAT Painter,...Wow Would have liked his backstory to be seen more than the BrotheL Lady who IMO is a bigger backstabber than Evil Shaman who for the lack of better words was ambitious and only supported the King or Person who helped her ........Arghhhhh
Hwacha becomes the God of PAinting eho resembles Grandpa HA , Grandpa HA resided in that Jade ring which helped in controlling and existence of MW in a Human Body...OK.....
If the reason of MW not being able to be sealed last time was the RING! Then that very RING also existed with Mommy HA when HARAM was born and MW was first sealed, then why is it a Hurdle Now?LOgic Lost in Painting too??/
RED MOON was not the relevant one, but the Entrance of 5th planet from Sun was, Assuming it is not Jupiter They would have had to wait for 1000 yrs for next apt SEAL DATE??? Was the Grandpa King and Current King rule time period 1000 yrs? Do Moon and Planet have irregular schedule? WHAT???
HARAM ride a Horse being blind in a jungle, got thrown off the horse and fainted, The Horse was tied up to a Tree? WHo tied It? A ghost????
HR was able to see Grandpa Gandolf err Grandpa HA, Was it a Dream or Reality? WHY IS IT SO INCONSISTENT....DANG IT!!!!
Demon Herpes took 5 years and more still was not able to fully spread and kill JH ...Wonderful.
King was still alive with terminal illness
MW curse was reversed on CG, but his injury was still implemented on JH????
Sam Shin basically pushed MW inside the Painting and they live together now inside the Vessel whose powers were bargained with Hwacha who absorbed them and is now the new GOD OF PAINTING....OKAY???? Now He is Birth/Death/Painting God???? Then was Grandpa Ha Painting/WATER Sensor God????
The magical beings were not explained properly, the people don't know their own Mythology and the Outside the country parameters don't match Up.I mean Yul and others took A boat to reach the place where CG/HR stay with their Kid and the servant after 5 years and HR/CG took only a Horse RIDE and rode to the outskirts to visit their Peach Garden where the OldLady who was around 60 back then is still alive at almost 85 yrs????? Peach have elixir of Life???
Boat water ways and Horse Garden Way have same distance??? WHAT??? Did they not Leave the Capital that they have Urban legends cooked and whispered amongst the capital people????? MAKES NO SENSE
YUL Will be the MVP of this show IMO, While everyone kept throwing tantrums and called him a worthless man, HE Grew Up, left his own desires and became the Bigger Man that everyone needed to stabilize their own lives. HE OF ALL PEOPLE DESERVES A HEA TOO!!!!
Main leads wrapped up alright and with a Cutie patootie Kid but I Need a S2 to see Yul and Grand Prince Saga tie up properly too.
Initial rating was 9 reducing it to 7 because it had no plot after 6 episodes to flesh out properly. AHHHHH Such a wasted opportunity where Fantasy was made a Gumbo....
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Only watch if you don’t have anything to watch
I’m kinda disappointed in this drama. The quality is not on par with the hype, rating. I like Kim Yoojung that’s why I watched this drama, and even her cannot save the drama.There’s a lot of holes in the story line, for a fantasy drama it lacks a lot of aspects. The female heroine character is unbearable, always act recklessly without thinking. Ahn Hyo-seop is very bad at acting as blind person. At some point in drama he didn’t even bother to act like blind person. The chemistry between main characters are pretty non-existent. The only good thing about this drama is the soundtracks, songs are good.
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Strong start, weak ending
I was super excited for this historic drama. The leads were actors/tresses I follow so I was looking forward to their pairing.Story:
The beginning story telling, CGI, and acting was really good, so I had high hopes. Was also surprised by episode 6 the main leads shared a kissed so early on! So, the drama felt a bit different in how they were telling the story.
Where it felt it went down hill was somewhere in the middle. It felt there were missing scenes and the flow of the story telling felt off, especially around the love story between the ML's. There were a lot of push and pull from the male lead and out of no where he gave her a ring and confessed his love for her, it just felt out of no where and didn't feel very smooth. It left me feeling like I missed an episode or something.
There were also some plots hole, like the sha min from the start keeps referring to the divine bowl and that it was the bowl that will seal ma wang, but the ended up he was sealed in the royal portrait? There were no mention of it towards the end and it left me confused. It was also more confusing to why the royal portrait of the old reigning king be what seals ma wang, why not a portrait of the ML?
Acting:
I thought the actor/ress acted well, there were some instances where I thought the male lead could do better acting blind, but other than that they expressed their characters emotion well.
I was pleased that it was an overall happy ending for the main characters and tied up some details. The last scene shows the infighting between 2nd lead and his brother I don't think there will be a 2nd season and was meant to show what happens to the evil brother. I do believe base on Korean history, the 2nd prince does become king so, yeah.
Would I rewatch it? Probably not the whole thing but some scenes earlier in the show.
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Definitely a must see KDrama
Episide 1 definitely caught my attention and since then, I kept waiting to see the next episodes. The plot is different from the othe other KDramas that I have seen so far. I enjoyed watching each episodes; it never disappoints me. I love the story. Great cliffhangers on each episode, it made me wish for a faster week so that I can watch the next one.Kim Yoo-jung, Ahn Hyo-seop and Gong Myung are amazing; the entire casts are great.
The other things I love seeing in this show are the paintings and details of the techniques based on how the painters use the diff types of brush; this even made me want to start painting ? Overall, I love this KDrama.
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Strong start, awful middle, and strong finish
I won’t lie and say I’m not disappointed with how this drama turned out, because I was initially extremely interested in this drama and couldn’t wait for next week to come faster. While the drama has a strong start with an amazing cast, music, and special effects, the storyline starts dragging and repeating itself midway through. This loss in momentum is the main reason why I and so many other people ended up rating this drama a lot lower than it should have been rated. Additionally, the romance fell extremely flat for me, and while there wasn’t much character development and interaction, the leads seemed to have fallen in love almost instantly due to the one day they spent together as kids and a few strange encounters when they were 20 years older. This led to a lot of unclear character motivations since all laws of logic were pointing to the fact that they shouldn’t be this attached to one another after having met just a handful of times. Ignoring all that, I did think that the drama had a very strong finish. The last episode, while extremely cheesy at the end, was intense, heartwarming, and quite satisfying. I was not expecting much at that point and was actually pleasantly surprised. All in all, I’d only recommend this drama for those who can’t get enough of Kim Yoo Jung and Ahn Hyo Seop (like me!) or otherwise enjoy strangely paced historical fantasy with a million plot holes. Everything about this drama screamed perfect, and it’s a shame that the repetitive and dragged out writing had to let the drama down like that.Vond je deze recentie nuttig?
Too Good To Be True
I had high expectations on this drama.It started out great, but ended up crappy. I was disappointed with FL's character, there was no character development. Her character confused me that it started to annoy me. She's too gullible, naive, and childlike. Imo it's not a good pair with ML & 2nd ML's characters.
As for the romance part, idk, I'm not feeling the chemistry. It felt forced, and I feel like the drama can continue with just a subtle touch of romance.
There are still questions left unanswered, but I guess that's how historical dramas work. Though I was really surprised with the ending huh, it's a new concept of open ending lol
Still, kudos to all the casts especially to Kwak Shiyang & Gong Myung!
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Overall I feel satisfied, because during this drama there are many moral messages that we can apply in our lives today.In addition, the background music is very suitable with the acting scenes of the actors/actresses, no wonder if in several episodes I was carried away crying and moved. And yes, as I watched in the last part, I thought that this drama was not finished or it could be said that there might be a season two, ohh I can't wait.. You have to finish this first or you will regret it :*
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Thank you.
This is really good. I loved it and I will go back to rewatch it. The fantasy was all there! I love Ha Ram and Hong Chun Ki. This is a must-watch... I don't want to give any of this story away but it was absolutely wanted to make someone focus on every single minute.1. Kim Yoo Jung whose character is Hong Chun Ki was absolutely believable in this role. She was awesome playing this character. I would like to see her more.
2. Ahn Hyo Seop whose character is Ha Ram, wow what a handsome man this one is. This is my first time seeing this actor I want to see more of him in other dramas. I will be added some of his drama.
3. Gong Myung who played Prince Yang Myung / Lee Yul did really well in his role. He was a softy.
The visuals were great and on fire! The location set was great. The costumes, I loved. The Martial artist had that little fantasy to it and I loved it. Everyone did great in the drama...all the support actor/actresses Thank You. To the Screenwriter... I applaud you.
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