Aramintai

Nothing new here

Another one of those very far removed from reality saeguks where bored court has nothing better to do but to plot against each other inside the palace. It's better filmed than some other of its kind and actors are ok for the most part, but there's nothing new here.

In this one we have a jealous, spiteful grandma, the queen dowager, as the main villain from the get go. She makes no mystery of it. She's playing the kingmaker behind the scenes for her grandsons, like she did for her son, the king, and is not beyond stooping very low against those whom she doesn't like. She hates the current queen, who is FL, for being of nobler birth than her and for not being obedient to her.

Then of course we have the evil minister, who's in cohoots with the grandma.

And last, but not least, a staple of many saeguks - a weak and powerless king, who not only has to obey the ministers lest he be deposed, but he can't even kick out his own scheming mother into fckn retirement to some back palace. His only prowess of note is spawning tons of children with his ever growing harem of concubines.

The concubines can be summed up to basically one character - your typical crazy Asian mother who wants to whip her child into becoming an overachiever and m̶a̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶s̶t̶i̶g̶i̶o̶u̶s̶ ̶u̶n̶i̶v̶e̶r̶s̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶to ̶b̶e̶c̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶a̶g̶e̶r̶...to become a king.

And since the king is so prolific in the field of child making there are many male contenders to the throne, which is the crux of this whole drama - everybody wants to take FL's and her sons place. So through her tenacity and guile she has to protect them against all the schemers (which is basically everybody in the court here) lest they all get deposed and killed like what happened to the previous queen and her sons. That's about it. There's lots of intense drama over borderline makjang bs, so if you're worried about your blood pressure I wouldn't recommend watching this drama.

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Good, but the old TV series were better

Yea, that muted ending and furniture of a protagonist didn't do it for me. Never once was he shown to be actually needed by Toranaga and he wasn't even funny to be his pet clown, because they communicated too seldom here. And many important scenes about the protagonist were cut to make time for a parade of side characters.
And too many times it seemed that Toranaga was just plain lucky and adapting, not megaminding everything ten steps ahead. Yea, he was a ruthless liar who surrounded himself by people he could easily manipulate, but he wasn't omniscient to predict all random things. Like, what happened to his son, or his brother betraying him, or what happened to Mariko.
And speaking of Mariko, she was more of a protagonist in this show than ML or Toranaga combined. MVP, but disappointingly way too suicidal.
My favorite character in this drama is not her though, but Yabushige - the most human and entertaining one to watch. He was squirming on the frying pan for the whole series trying to get the most profit, but failed expectedly :).

Anyway, it's still a good drama. Production quality, especially the costumes were great. Too bad they didn't show the epic battle of Sekigahara, but it wasn't in the book, so ok. I'd give it an 8. But old TV series in terms of the plot and characters were still better, imho.

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Best comedy of 2022!

This short format, fast paced kdrama is not only packed to the brim with sizzling comedy, but also somehow managed to pull off one of the most charming and well done romances I've seen this year, even though it's just one of the subplots going on in it.
The funny lighthearted plot, pacing, acting - everything's excellent.
All the cast did a stellar job and I thoroughly enjoyed watching their hilarious characters navigating through various situations at their chaotic workplace and after it.
It's a very bingable show, a surprisingly great comfort drama and rewatch value is very high. A solid 9, highly recommend!

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