I wouldn’t call this drama flawless — there are a lot of serious weaknesses, but I would say that it’s pretty good — in some aspects.
I’ll begin with the drawbacks. First of all, there are a lot of moments that look staged and unnatural, remembering you that you’re just watching a film and making it difficult to be completely absorbed. This also includes over- and under acting of actors in some scenes. Besides, the drama, being a comedy, has a plenty of moments which are intended to be funny, but in reality are rather cringy and don’t fit in the situations.
Now let’s move to the plus points. Although the beginning of Hwarang seems a little boring to me, it gets more and more intriguing and grasping as the story unfolds. The plot can be considered one of the greatest merits of the drama, because it’s very dynamic and not lengthy at all. It has a few lines which are very entertaining to follow: the King’s one, Sun Woo’s one, Ban Ryu’s one, Han Sung and his brother’s one. All these thought-provoking plot lines explore different problems like what makes a real king, the ability to sacrifice, the justice in a ranked society, what is more important — friendship and family or social status. Another advantage is that the characters, having the chemistry between them, look real and make you empathise them. They change and develop a lot during the story. There are also some ambiguous characters which can behave indecently and then do some good deeds, and you just don’t know what attitude to have towards them. Such characters are always interesting to watch, as you can’t exactly predict what they can do in the future and if they turn out to be “good” or “bad”.
Finally, I need to mention beautiful soundtracks which made watching more enjoyable.