Nelly
Canada
Flawed but good!
OVERALL
An imperfect drama that still much better than average! Watch it if 1) you want some perfectly balanced romance and palace drama, 2) you like smart and strong female leads. Maybe think twice about it if 1) you can't stand surreal or incoherent plot elements, 2) you're looking for lots of smexy scenes.
THE STORY
The first 20 mins or so of this drama are absolutely horrid. Luckily, it was a good day when I was watching and I decided to skip and keep going. If I hadn't, I would have missed a quite good drama!
The Good
- Female lead is so cool! Of course, we get more and more of these female characters that are smart, pretty, skilled, and everything you could ever wish for. It's almost becoming a cliché. But it's fine by me, I like that!
- Although a historical, this drama is pretty generous with the romantic scenes. Lots of cute, fun and tension-filled scenes here. Sure, most of them aren't realistic because they would never happen at that time, but it's fine by me. I like that!
- The fact that Male lead doesn't know Female lead is his childhood crush means we actually get a "falling in love" storyline and that's great because I hate the "I liked you when I was 10, so let's get married" romance.
- There aren't any hateful characters in this drama. All the characters, villains included, are quite likeable. They're likeable because they're well written, not because they're all nice and you can root for them. But still, it counts!
- Last but not least, this drama is just filled with action. It's one thing after another, which totally makes it binge worthy!
The Bad
- Top of the list is the absolute worst of the drama: the ancient-plastic-surgery plot device. Female lead getting a new face and a new life in that time is weird enough (makes zero sense), add to it 1) the fact that Female lead before and after surgery act like two different people, 2) Female lead honestly struggles too little with the fact that she literally became someone else, which is not realistic, 3) everyone just takes in the news like people wake up with a different voice and body every day, 4) there's just a lot of drama that should have come with this that doesn't and makes the plot device kind of useless?
- The OTP is cute, okay. I actually liked them a lot. But the writers of this drama obviously never heard of "show, don't tell", because once the leads get together, we don't see them in love, we just see them talking about being in love. ALL. THE. TIME. It's not too cool.
- I'm not too much about realism in dramas, I care more about a good storyline and a concern for social issues like gender equality. Still, when there're just too many things that feel unrealistic, things you know would never happen back in the day, it kind of becomes...a bit annoying.
- The ending feels a bit lackluster, in my opinion. Nice, but bland and too easy. The final showdown seems like a cheaper version of Nirvana in Fire's. Which reminds me that many scenes in this drama feel like they were taken from other dramas. Mm...
THE ACTING
Good! I always say there're four kind of performances: amazing/impressive, good/memorable, lackluster/not distracting, terrible/ruining the show. Here I think the two leads fitted the good/memorable category. I liked Female lead more than Male lead, but he was also okay. They had pretty good chemistry, which totally made up for the cringe "I love you" scenes the writers would throw at them. The rest of the cast was good too, especially the king and the 2nd (or is it the 3rd?) love interest of Female lead, LYQ.
THE MUSIC
Also quite memorable! I'm not sure it's playlist material yet, but I was vibing with it!
REWATCH VALUE
Honestly, pretty high. This dramas has all you can ask for when in the mood for rewatching a drama: it has romance, palace drama, war, medical situations, and a whole lot of adventure! I'm sure I'll be rewatching it sooner or later, but skipping the beginning :)
An imperfect drama that still much better than average! Watch it if 1) you want some perfectly balanced romance and palace drama, 2) you like smart and strong female leads. Maybe think twice about it if 1) you can't stand surreal or incoherent plot elements, 2) you're looking for lots of smexy scenes.
THE STORY
The first 20 mins or so of this drama are absolutely horrid. Luckily, it was a good day when I was watching and I decided to skip and keep going. If I hadn't, I would have missed a quite good drama!
The Good
- Female lead is so cool! Of course, we get more and more of these female characters that are smart, pretty, skilled, and everything you could ever wish for. It's almost becoming a cliché. But it's fine by me, I like that!
- Although a historical, this drama is pretty generous with the romantic scenes. Lots of cute, fun and tension-filled scenes here. Sure, most of them aren't realistic because they would never happen at that time, but it's fine by me. I like that!
- The fact that Male lead doesn't know Female lead is his childhood crush means we actually get a "falling in love" storyline and that's great because I hate the "I liked you when I was 10, so let's get married" romance.
- There aren't any hateful characters in this drama. All the characters, villains included, are quite likeable. They're likeable because they're well written, not because they're all nice and you can root for them. But still, it counts!
- Last but not least, this drama is just filled with action. It's one thing after another, which totally makes it binge worthy!
The Bad
- Top of the list is the absolute worst of the drama: the ancient-plastic-surgery plot device. Female lead getting a new face and a new life in that time is weird enough (makes zero sense), add to it 1) the fact that Female lead before and after surgery act like two different people, 2) Female lead honestly struggles too little with the fact that she literally became someone else, which is not realistic, 3) everyone just takes in the news like people wake up with a different voice and body every day, 4) there's just a lot of drama that should have come with this that doesn't and makes the plot device kind of useless?
- The OTP is cute, okay. I actually liked them a lot. But the writers of this drama obviously never heard of "show, don't tell", because once the leads get together, we don't see them in love, we just see them talking about being in love. ALL. THE. TIME. It's not too cool.
- I'm not too much about realism in dramas, I care more about a good storyline and a concern for social issues like gender equality. Still, when there're just too many things that feel unrealistic, things you know would never happen back in the day, it kind of becomes...a bit annoying.
- The ending feels a bit lackluster, in my opinion. Nice, but bland and too easy. The final showdown seems like a cheaper version of Nirvana in Fire's. Which reminds me that many scenes in this drama feel like they were taken from other dramas. Mm...
THE ACTING
Good! I always say there're four kind of performances: amazing/impressive, good/memorable, lackluster/not distracting, terrible/ruining the show. Here I think the two leads fitted the good/memorable category. I liked Female lead more than Male lead, but he was also okay. They had pretty good chemistry, which totally made up for the cringe "I love you" scenes the writers would throw at them. The rest of the cast was good too, especially the king and the 2nd (or is it the 3rd?) love interest of Female lead, LYQ.
THE MUSIC
Also quite memorable! I'm not sure it's playlist material yet, but I was vibing with it!
REWATCH VALUE
Honestly, pretty high. This dramas has all you can ask for when in the mood for rewatching a drama: it has romance, palace drama, war, medical situations, and a whole lot of adventure! I'm sure I'll be rewatching it sooner or later, but skipping the beginning :)
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