I was hesitant to start this drama since its release, and only until now I decided to give it a chance. I know it is loved by many and I think I can understand why, including the very interesting universe created, the characters and the story. However, I consider that some small things could have been better executed, starting with its length. I must clarify that here I will only talk about the first part.

First of all, regarding the acting, I think it was mostly good, the actors and actresses managed to do a good job. I admit that at the beginning the performance of the female protagonist did not convince me, her 3 or 4 face expressions did not make me connect with what she was trying to convey, but later on I developed a liking for her performance, no shame to the actress, I think it had more to do with the direction.

Regarding the universe created I think it is quite coherent and although at times it seemed to break its own rules for the convenience of the plot, they managed to give it a more or less good justification. And in this aspect I would like to highlight the CGI and the effects, which in my opinion were quite good and the budget used is understood. Budget that seems to me that was too little for the costumes, because although I am not a person who is fixated on clothes, I did not like the costumes in this drama.

Now regarding the chemistry between our leads, I think at some point it seemed to come out of nowhere, from the beginning we knew they would be together but the build up of their relationship was not what I expected, I even came to think there was more chemistry between Mu-deok and Seo Yul.

Something to mention, talking now about the length of the drama and also the length of the episodes, is that in many moments I felt like I was watching fillers and stories that although some were enjoyable and pure comedy didn't do much to move the plot forward, and if it hadn't been there it wouldn't have mattered.

I liked the characters, but I think they did very little justice to the women in this kdrama, as they seem to only revolve around the men even though they supposedly have equal or more impressive powers than them. Especially what they did with Naksu was criminal, and I still don't want to talk about how they completely forgot that she was powerful and they did reduced her to just being Jang Uk's companion, but that's already for part 2. However, in part 1 I think they could have given her powers more of a part, like how are you going to introduce me to an assassin that everyone fears and then reduce her to just being a maid in the whole drama? But well...

Finally, it was a little strange that the antagonists always had the upper hand but never did anything big enough, which didn't feel as natural, it seemed like they were just waiting to be caught. Also, when the climax of the story came and the major problem that they were warning us about from the beginning was unleashed it was resolved in a simple way and therefore didn't feel as threatening as they wanted to sell it, although I understand that they wanted to lay the groundwork for the next part.

Leaving these details aside, I agree that this kdrama is pure entertainment, the fight scenes are very flashy and every time they unsheathed the swords had me in chokehold. I enjoyed the story and I think the job was well done, just maybe it could have been a bit better.

Would I recommend it? Of course I would, as long as you are a person who enjoys watching a kinda slow story build up.


(I think I’ve fallen in love with Lee Jae Wook)