The Scholar Who Walks the Night

The Stars Being The 2nd Leads

Dipped in straightaway for Kim Soeun, left the whimsical pool with both Kim Soeun and her Vampire boyfriend.

What makes The Scholar Who Walks the Night standout is its ability to blend historical setting with supernatural horror (yes it is based on a manhwa). The presence of vampires (allegedly) in Joseon era is a refreshing twist. From the dimly lit palaces to the haunting underground Vampire? lairs, the production is hauntingly beautiful. The lore surrounding the vampires, particularly the dynamics between the male lead, the 2nd female lead and the villain, adds an extra spiciness to the plot. Gwi the Vampire isn’t just a mindless monster—he’s a manipulative force of power, thriving in the politics of the palace, making him one of the most iconic K-drama villains, and he is hot as hell.

But where the story shines in world-building, it fails in in the presence of the main leads. The romance between him and the female lead is meant to be the heart of the drama, but instead, it often drags, overshadowed by the much more intense dynamic between Gwi and Hyeryung (2nd female lead). Had the drama given more weight to their relationship, exploring Hyeryung’s tragic fate with greater depth, it could have made for a richer emotional payoff.

Despite this flaw (though it is a major since the leads could not compete with the overflowing chemistry between the 2nd made-up couple), The Scholar Who Walks the Night remains an entertaining watch for those who love historical fantasy with a darker edge. It’s not perfect—the main romance (of the 1st leads) falls flat, and the pacing sometimes stumbles—but the mesmerizing visuals, chilling performances (especially from Lee Soohyuk and Kim Soeun), and the refreshing supernatural take on the Joseon era are something that makes this drama rewatchable. Though, I only keep rewatching the scenes of Gwi and Hyeryung and nothing else and it proves that sometimes, the villains and side characters are the real stars of the show.

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Entertaining But Average

I wanted to watch because Lee Joon Gi really left an impression on me from flower of evil. I’m happy to say that he didn’t disappoint. He plays a heroic vampire brilliantly and some of his monologues in the last few episodes were pretty solid.

The script is flawed. Though the main plot of vampires in Joseon era and the political struggle between humans and vampires is really interesting, the delivery is quite weak. 20 episodes felt too long for such a plot and I could tell they were really prologuing issues despite clear solutions; therefore, it felt stupid. I couldn’t take the problems seriously.

The characters didn’t seem to really have a plan which disappointed me because they were supposed to be leaders of this time. On top of this, the female lead’s character is extremely unbearable. Though i don’t mind the classic ‘damsel in distress’ arc, the girl should be worth risking your life for, right?

The female character has no charm. She seems to be the most useless person in the drama who just moves according to what plot demands. Characters around her treat her like a child. She’s so slow, painfully naive and just… clueless. It just baffles me how terrible they wrote her character. She’s not filled in on the most basic plot line even halfway through the drama, that’s just how irrelevant her presence is. It’s just a convenience that Sung Yeol fell for her.

For the positives, I do really appreciate some scenes because it feeds my vampire fantasy. Also, oh my god, the villain has to be the best character I’ve ever seen. Gwi shines throughout, his presence is bold. He is so attractive. I loved him.

Overall it’s average but some of it was memorable.

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Vampires in Joseon

This drama falls into the so-bad-is-good category for me. I love vampires, Lee Joon Gi and Lee Soo Hyuk was such a good villain that you almost end up rooting for him, and it has a couple of great supporting actresses in Jang Hee Jin and Kim So Eun.

Let's face it: the plot makes no sense most of the time and the production (mainly the practical effects), editing and music were bad. Still... You've got vampires fighting their beast and trying to maintain their humanity, literal and figurative bloodbaths and an emo vampire who was trouble tying up his robes and loves eyeliner.

The actors are too good for the script and they're what saves the day in this drama. If they'd had a better production (the high-speed running is hilarious, for example) and script this would have been an epic drama with this cast. The premise is good, but it's hard not to see the plotholes.

The romance part is a stereotype and Lee Yoo Bi doesn't have much to do with her character. She's most of the time kept in the dark and others make choices in her place, she then decides to keep secrets, noble sacrifices... nothing we haven't seen before but infuriating none the less.

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Struggles Halfway Through - But Otherwise Decent

I love the supernatural, especially vampires, so it was obvious that I would check out this drama. I liked the idea of a female character (Yang Seon) gaining some form of economic independence, by cross-dressing and selling illegal books for a living - and a handsome vampire (Sung Yeol) whose turning was very traumatic. I was interested in seeing how these two characters would introduced to another, and how their lives would intertwine.

Somehow, I feel like they are not very compatible, even later on. Yang Seon is, to put it mildy, an idiot. I know female characters are usually written this way, but it becomes very infuriating as the series goes on. It makes sense for her not to know anything in the beginning, as she's just a regular person with no knowledge on vampires or their existence. However, this continues to be a thing throughout the whole drama. The viewers and all the other characters know everything, while Yang Seon struggles to keep up. The immediate moment she learns something new, the viewer is introduced to a new "secret," so Yang Seon is behind once again! It's stupid! If I hear her say "sunbaenim" one more time...

The writers seem to prefer to use Yang Seon as a plot device rather than a character of her own. This is especially evident halfway through the drama, where everything becomes very chaotic. Plot points are introduced and resolved within the same episode, and they do this several times! Yang Seon learns something new, she gets herself into danger, Sung Yeol saves her. Rinse and repeat for multiple episodes. I'm normally very good at staying focused, but at some points I was just looking at the screen once in a while to catch up while doing something else. The only redeeming episodes were the last 2-4 as the plot seems to pick up again.

Besides my furious disposition towards the FL, I actually like all the other characters. Sung Yeol and his crew are well-written characters. Gwi is a well-rounded villain and quite entertaining on his own. Sometimes, just being evil is good enough when it comes to writing. There is some very good character development that I feel makes this drama worth a watch. This is not the worst vampire-themed series I've seen.

I agree with others about the music choices. Be ready to hear the same three tracks used in every scene.

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I was curious at first and thinked this is gonna be best Drama but i've watched one by one eps the plot was not unpredictable. All are good except the story. I love the music, acting, and i got the feeling but at the end of story when they got all of 3 way to kill Gwi, they need 120 years to make that plan but they didn't used that plan to kill Gwi. It was so easy to killed him by sunlight and bombed the underground's castle. They shouldn't needed to wait 120 years if they did it. I just said this Drama had overpowered Enemy but they killed him easily without the plan they habe made in 120 years

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heavy court drama, leads lack romantic chemistry, but Lee Soo Hyuk steals every scene

With a trio of handsome leads (Lee Joon Gi, Lee Soo Hyuk, Shim Chang Min) This should be a 10/10 , but it fell short .The story should have centered around the male leads, making it a bromance drama- because none of the romances are worth the screen time they are given (no shade thrown at the male leads for this, as they hold up thier end adequately ).
As the villain ,Lee Soo Hyuk's charisma is off the charts & is immensely fascinating to watch every sneer, grunt, smirk. He completely sells his character & the way he takes control of his scenes is mesmerizing. Lee Joon Gi spends too much time in "Clark Kent" mode, lazily half awake until he goes into beast mode & that's when you remember how skilled an actor he is. The fight scenes between Lee Joon Gi & Lee Soo Hyuk are a great deal of fun to watch. But the drama as a whole was not a winner for me
because:
1) too much political court drama- boring & scenes & issues felt recycled
2)female lead; Lee Yoo Bi -is not written well & poorly directed as she looks & acts & has the mentality of a puppy in a 12 year old girls' body . Her supposedly romantic scenes are all weird because even though they are careful with how Lee Joon Gi shows affection for her,(he IS 120 years old) she's so young & innocent that it feels just a tad bit creepy & wrong as she is too wide eyed & a bit brain vacant. (but really, imagine the male lead gazing into the face of a golden retriever puppy-yup weird, right !?)
The real romance killer : Lee Joon Gi frequently refering to her as the "child" [English subtitles]
3) plot cycling: they keep revisiting the same issues
4) 1 year time skip at end, before the end
5) idiot side character told multiple times to watch & take care of female lead & he does absolutely nothing
6) 2nd female lead wears a literal weapon (holding up her hair) but 3/4 times forgets that
7) the handsome deer in the headlights king is a bad friend & easily deceived. he waffles in his loyalties.
8)Bland happy ending-yes main couple they end up together- but

**spoilers*
(in what capacity it's not clear. seemed he was still a vampire, so the obstacles of disproportionate life spans & needing blood to sustain his life still apply)

Problem with "great love" as a plot device motivator for a character is that as of ep. 6 I had to ask: WHY is Sung Yeol not pursuing Choi Hye-ryung, ( Myung-hee's present-day doppelgänger that he's been pining for )if he loved her so much & so was in misery for SO long missing her-how is it that he gives up so easily - like he must have had very shallow feelings in the first place. Yet he forms this attachment to Lee Yoo Bi's character super fast. It makes sense that he would want to protect her (as he is naturally very protective of all humans) but beyond that, does he find her clumsy, bumbling, childish clownish actions endearing ? you would think his affection would be that of an uncle then. so no, the romance does not create warm fuzzies, nor are there any swoon worthy moments
but just watching Lee Soo Hyuk emote with every fiber of his being was kinda worth watching this drama at least once :P

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Story is quite interesting, full of secrets and politic too. Acting is good. Still watching, will update the review once finished watching this.

UPDATE: I like lee joon gi's acting here.
Lee Yu Bi is cute, but the acting is okay lah. Not too good and also not too bad,
but quite different from the webtoon's character.

The story itself is great, and makes sense even though it's a fantasy story.
There is no unnecessary misunderstanding, i like how the lead female really trust lead male.
However, some parts are not explained here and make u guess it yourself, for eg why Kim Sung-yeol didn't want to fight the vampire king in the beginning and kept trying to find the secret book, well, i guess it because he doesn't drink human's blood so often so he is weak? etc.

Even though it has flaws, but i really like the story and lee joon gi really bring Kim Sung-yeol character alive. I don't get bored watching this too even though it has 20 episodes. The ending even though is ambiguous but i am satisfied and i will just view it as a happy ending.

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Female Lead Idiocy

It was a good start, i was pretty excited for a vampire drama seeing as they were pretty limited. I think all the characters did good and the acting was as good as it could be.

However, as the show continued I started becoming irritated with the FL, not even the actress, more so how they wrote the character. There is no reason she should be this stupid, like read the room woman. She has encountered ML countless times in his vampire form and exerting strength that isn't humanely possible but still goes around all confused on this and that. Not to mention everyone is trying so hard to protect her but she does everything out her way to make that protection invalid. ML really tried at least three to four times to send her away because Gwi (the main antagonist) knew her scent but each time she kept her family from leaving until it ended up with her father dead because she left a damn shoes in the house.

Like that’s why you’re suppose to be wearing the damn shit, no sense why he gave her shoes as a gift because she didn’t have any and yet she never wears it and carries it around like a trophy, simply ridiculous. And after that scene I never saw the shoes again or even her remembering it. It even pained me some more when she ran off into the palace because she didn’t know if ML was still alive,and then said she was being impulsive because she loved him knowing that he had to buy her slave contract and everything to even get her out of the palace in the first place, but i digress. Nothing could be worse than when the rogue vampire had killed everyone and ML finally had him down to kill him and she starts screaming not to kill the vampire, and now the vampire is of use to Gwi. After that scene I couldn’t deal at all anymore, it was ridiculous. I’ve seen countless dramas with female leads that are a bit of airheads but this honestly takes the cake. Semi high rating is only for the actors and team who helped put together this foolery despite the questionable character setups.

I barely remember any of the music in this, it was pretty forgettable.
The chemistry between the leads was hardly what I would call swoon worthy.

Sad I had to drop this after basically being at the end, but I couldn't stomach the cringe and the stupidity any longer.

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Although I became quite the fan of Joon-gi and was excited to watch all his historical ones ! However this one was a bit painful to get through and so I dropped it. It just goes to show that a drama cannot be carried off by just one great actor. While Joon-gi was a great character and he acted well. The villain was just not capturing enough to actually feel much of the scare or angst or whatever you can feel while watching a drama. I could not connect with the story although it was an interesting take on vampires. The chemistry between the lead pair was also severely lacking. So disappointed that I could not get myself to finish this one.

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