This review may contain spoilers
An exploration of life lessons
I now find most Korean dramas offputting because 5 out of 10 dramas will be some melodrama that advances the plot by throwing grenades when a simple lighter would have sufficed. Most are vicious, violent, classist, and demeaning to those who aren't part of the super-rich, mostly though, I'm tired of how the characters are always so damn loud which makes me simultaneously cringe and sigh. Like, seriously, do Koreans not have an inside voice?All that aside, Woo-bin gave an excellent performance and I pray he's cancer free forever because the world needs more kind people like him.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
If you like Joy of Life or Snow Sword Stride, do not miss this
Never have I watched a series that kept the suspense level up as this one and not once could I even imagine what the next episode would bring. Whoever wrote the screenplay should be lauded for giving this such depth and strength. The main and support characters were drawn well although I didn’t much care for the FL, Yingying, who was nothing more than an airhead but I suppose her character was pivotal to the evolution of the ML’s character from a seemingly unperturbed good guy to one who could very well turn into an anti-hero. In all, the storytelling was outstanding and for once, I did not want the 48 episode-long drama to end.A word of caution though, it ends on a cliffhanger and the likelihood of us getting a second season is low. Still, do not allow this to deter you since season one gave us a definitive resolution.
Was this review helpful to you?
Ill-defined and unfunny
I could stare at Lee Jun Ho all day long cos that man is both gorgeous and a talented actor which is why I hope he fires whoever told him to choose King the Land as a follow-up to the enrapturing drama that was The Red Sleeve. I tried so hard to care but I was bored of the excessive and sometimes vulgar display of wealth, likewise the ingrained classism that continues to permeate most K dramas. In addition, there was something so uncomfortably trite about yet another subservient female lead and her equally poor female friends. Like, aren't these showrunners tired of this formula? I certainly am.This is deserving of a 1.5-star rating, however, the site moderators are a bit overwhelmed with the Arab Prince controversy and have been deleting anything below 3.5 stars, so that's what I'll have to rate it.
Was this review helpful to you?
1. Why didn't the Queen have a palace support system in place? After all, she's been TQ for almost 20 years.
2. How could she have been so complacent about the history of the palace that she didn't even know how her husband (the King) ascended the throne?
3. As a mother, what was she doing while her first son was fainting all over the place and the other Grand Princes played truant? Did she not have caretakers who reported to her? And if she didn't, what exactly was she doing with her day? Arrrrrghhh...I'm so mad that these writers imagined everyone would swallow their BS just because they snagged Kim Hye-soo to play the Queen. In addition, if the writers want us to believe that this is a take-charge-no-nonsense Queen then they should show us her antecedents or at the least, her sphere of influence. Is it the Concubines, courtiers, ladies-in-waiting, etc? What power does she wield?
4. What is her relationship with her husband and how on earth do you sit aside and allow him to acquire nine concubines and other companions? More importantly, why didn't she just tell the King that the Crown Prince was ill, and for that matter, why didn't she simply tell her sons their lives were in danger and they needed to shape up and be on alert?
5. With each episode we're drip-fed new info with hardly any forward momentum which I suspect is a consequence of the scriptwriter's attempt at some sort of psych-thriller; however, the story is particularly cruel and vicious in that the lives of these fictional Princes hold little value to the palace machinations. Personally, I feel nothing but disgust that the writer couldn't or wouldn't choose an intelligent method to introduce shock and intrigue without losing its soul.
Finally, I know these gripes might be addressed in time, still, I feel like fewer episodes, a tighter plot, and fast-paced storytelling would have been better.
Was this review helpful to you?
Intense Love is fluffy. The plot is asinine and watching the acting will make you wonder who greenlit this mess.
I stopped at episode 21 (of 24) cos my brain was melting. Watch if none of the above bother you.
Was this review helpful to you?
Meh
I don't begrudge the actors' need to earn money while honing their craft which is what most of these bread-and-butter dramas are basically good for. Qing Luo is extremely basic with a story that loses its plot process a few too many times. I liked the male lead, Liu Xue Yi, who I've seen in other bigger-budget dramas like Legend of the Dragon Pearl and Blood of Youth. He's extremely good looking but sadly he's never really gotten a meaty role that could have propelled him to the level of someone like Yang Yang who has a similar skill set. I don't know if it's his management agency who are derelict in their duties or whether he hasn't just had the luck to be picked for better roles. In any event, his performance here was sorta sweet but unmemorable.The leading lady, Wang Zi Wei, on the other hand, has quite a few dramas where she's played mostly evil or unlikeable characters and to see her play a more harmonious role in QL was quite jarring. This is the risk inherent in playing such roles.
As for the plot, I found it to be a bit run-of-the-mill with no real big reveal or twist. The villains were also rather obvious and once our leads returned to the capital it became a game of whack-a-mole or should I say, whack-an-illness and another would immediately rear its head. I was bored
Was this review helpful to you?
The lead actress can’t act
With increased irritation, I’m trudging through this dense and boring historical drama hoping something remotely interesting happens, however, it’s taking for-fu@king-ver to get plot advancement. It doesn’t help that I seem to have developed an intense dislike for, Sun Li, the lead actress who- with all apologies- can’t act her way out of a paper bag. I’m sorry but Ms Li’s acting is the same in every period drama she’s been in. She always does a doe-eyed ingénue who, despite being unfairly treated, goes through life singing kumbaya and has never met a potential enemy she didn't love. Seriously, who wrote this screenplay? Sigh. I’ll give it a dozen more episodes to see if the pacing and story development move faster otherwise it goes in the dropped category pronto.Was this review helpful to you?
Wuxia done badly
This drama draaaaaaags and has zero propulsion. Everything is foreshadowed. I mean what are the chances that all three male leads just happen to converge at that particular town at that particular moment? Come tf on. I tried so hard to stay with this but it's so fucking boring. Can I also say just how low budget the set design is especially given this is Wuxia and most of the set could have been computer generated? That palace was empty af. Sigh. I just didn't like any of the male leads and I wanted XY to fucking stop smiling in the face of abuse and unending degradation. How was this even a popular book?Was this review helpful to you?
Wasted opportunity
The story lacks emotion, particularly between the major characters. Instead, we get hijinks and slapstick "comedy" where the fat Queen becomes the butt of jokes. She is the epitome of what Hollywood has been doing to overweight actresses. She's either always eating or unintentionally making a fool of herself with no one to tell her the truth.I don't know whether the FL's character and appearance are true to the source material. however, the reality is the main couple failed to communicate for way too long and had very low chemistry. Was it a mistake by the director? Did the scriptwriter not understand how to build up their attraction and just gave up on making it work?
Notwithstanding, it was refreshing to see a woman who wasn't borderline anorexic play the female lead although the styling department failed to utilize her beauty properly. The makeup was horrendous and her clothing styles did her no favors. She looked really lovely whenever she wore those high-waisted dresses made with floaty, airy fabrics rather than the conventional structured layered dresses. Then her beauty really shone through alas, this was done for only two episodes.
Why do I get the feeling that the producers and director intentionally sabotaged this series? Was it done to discourage having a different type of leading lady or did they genuinely not know what to do with Jackie Li's character?
Was this review helpful to you?
Nothing about this series was noteworthy
The most interesting character in this drama was the actual ice rink, others annoyed me to no end, particularly the leads. I can't quite place my finger on the reason I ended up disliking the series but it didn't help that both the first and second leads had zero chemistry. In addition, I've come to dislike the sycophancy in most C dramas, especially when support characters continuously heap praise on the lead stars for either being handsome or talented or rich or having a straight nose or being tall or whatever other characteristics made the studio cast the actor in the first place.It's juvenile and instantly breaks the fourth wall for me. Skate into love felt like a high school drama and even the hockey matches that made the plot somewhat exciting were few and far between which made me lose interest very quickly.
Was this review helpful to you?
Lackluster characters and boring script.
Admittedly, Yanxi Palace raised the bar in that I need all historical dramas to pull me in and keep me engaged and immersed in the lives of the palace characters and it is with that expectation that I went into LOCZH; alas, all I heard were words and words and even more words. The script was so dialogue-heavy with a lot of telling instead of showing that, in many ways, it ended up overshadowing the actual plot. Perhaps if I hadn't seen the perfection that is Yanxi or the witty and eminently watchable 'Love Like the Galaxy' I might have given LOCZH a pass. As it is, I'm just in it to finish it and hopefully move on to something much more entertaining. I do not care if it's historically accurate or whether the creators imagined they could school the audience on a bit of history, whatever their motivation, the execution was lacking.Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
If I could insert a gif it would be one of me sprawled on the floor with a gun to my head because this stupid drama done got on my last nerve. I have nothing but a distaste for the story which btw gets its popularity by riding the BL train of The Untamed (a series I hated). Both ML characters are evil people in pretty packages and despite the writer's attempt to repurpose and repackage them as having turned over new leaves, the havoc and damage they perpetuated were too deep for me to suddenly forgive and forget. They neither deserved my sympathy nor my admiration. The story itself was rather lackluster as in I didn’t care if the armory was ever found nor did I care if our leads got their happy ever after. In fact, I rooted for them to die....the more painful the better.
The acting left much to be desired and their chemistry was absent. There was also a lot of miscommunication.
The supporting characters were caricatures that we’ve seen multiple times in C dramas. Just the same old evil people who must rule the world come hell or high water.
In all, I gave up at episode 24 and immediately felt happier that I wouldn’t have to see Wen Ke Xing’s (Gong Jun) smug, smirking face.
Was this review helpful to you?
It took six months to get through this series.
Xianxia is quintessentially a contrast of light and dark, good and bad, gods and demons, and it is stylistically depicted by monochromatic character and color themes with slight differences in plotlines. If I'm being honest, this genre is my least favorite; notwithstanding, I have seen a couple that are slightly less ridiculous than most with my fave being Love Between Fairy and Devil (LBFAD) and my least fave being this tedious and pretentious Immortal Samasara.Firstly, Yang Zi, the lead actress, is such a one-trick pony who seems content to play different variations of the same "dim and somewhat smart" character which she played not only in IS (Immortal Samsara) but also in Ashes of Love and Legend of the Dragon Pearl. If someone edits clips of her performances in these dramas, I bet you wouldn't know they were three different series.
And therein lies the problem not only with Yang Zi but also with Xianxia as a genre. It's too stylized with little to no room for maneuvering of plots or themes. There's the demons are bad and heavenly beings (HB) are good trope where the heavenly beings fight endlessly for dominance with a side plot of some HB prince who happens to fall in love with some lower HB twig or leaf spirit. Like clockwork, the writer never misses to give us the useless fairy with the baby voice (one of the worst aspects of LBFAD) who later comes into her power after being tossed around and abused by the higher HBs. Toss in a love quadrangle, some men in bad wigs, and the most watered-down set props which, given this is all CGI, seems like a wasted opportunity to liven up an otherwise bleary set of white clouds and grayscale.
Did I mention how much I hate the color and style? Sigh.
Anyway, IS is about a HB prince who falls for a flower; sadly, love is forbidden in heaven and they have to go through three different time periods of heartbreaks and forgotten memories whilst fighting some obscure bad guys who did some bad things. That's all.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Plot holes galore
There's a dearth of good historical palace dramas which is why I latched on to this after it popped up on many lists of dramas to watch. Initially, I liked the plot and how the main leads were introduced to the audience, however, by episode 20, everything felt flat, repetitive, and stupid. In particular, I disliked the actress who played the female lead (a character that seemed to lose brain cells as the drama progressed) who is one of these fluffy, limp noodle actresses who litter the c drama landscape like a weed. She's not pretty and her acting is laughable. Seriously, I wonder how the female industry veterans feel having to watch these no-talent, stick-thin barbies get multiple jobs. Aside from the FL, there were many characters who either overacted (i.e the Emperor) while some were clearly coasting (the guy who played the Crown Prince).Why is it so difficult to find solid palace dramas with smart/intelligent heroines?
Was this review helpful to you?
Some of the worst acting I've ever seen in C Dramaland
Bad acting. Cliche plot. Bad Bad Bad. I feel like punishing myself because I should have known better but no, I kept at it with the hope the acting and story would get better. Reader, it did not.I'm screaming internally
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Was this review helpful to you?
