An S

Well, now watching this I understand where some plot twists from Queen Seon Duk and Faith came from

>The ending was the worst of it all and left me totally unsatisfied
The lead actor broke his leg, so they had to stop the drama (and created a stupid sudden ending). If he hadn't that would have been among the best fantasy dramas

Yes. the 1st episode is a kind of a strange cartoon but one needs to have patience, in the second episode the mad power struggle begins

>He plays Prince Chun Chu, Seon Duk (or Deok Man's) younger brother

Chun Chu is not a prince (member of royal family) and is not Deokman's brother but her nephew.

I agree in general. The female lead is too strong - a real Mary Sue, her awful pathos disguises many plotholes. As to the accusation of pseudo-historicity, you are not quite right. They honestly notify that this drama is just a fiction story very loosely based on facts - like all the other costume dramas. I like it when the sriptwriters know history well and are able to include real historic details, cameos etc. in their plot but shows' aim is to entertain people but not teach them history,

Try Queen Seon Duk and Arthdal Chronicles. They are made by the Six Flying Dragons writers team (have a lot of power struggle, very little romance, complicated intrigues). Among the Chinese costume dramas Nirvana in Fire is a must.

Absolutely agree with you. I expected to see a story of ambitions, power struggle and complicated intrigues but it was a standard Chinese melodrama about a beautiful and kind female lead loved by every man. What a disappointment! But later I found a balm, Korean Queen Seondok, where the character of lady Mishil, cunning and ambitius female ruler, was inspirated by the cruel empress Wu (even the era is the same).

How could the scriptwriters blemish such an interesting plot! The real Wu Zeitian was an interesting character, no doubt, hard-working, cunning, cruel and ambitious female leader. This could have been a story of complicated scheming and power struggle but here she is a naive delicate doe (every woman hates our naive beauty and every man loves her).

The whole plot looks like a botched adaptation of some original story of the female lead's time-travelling and parralell worlds (like Love Lost in Times etc. ). That's why writers create all these memory lapses, magical poisons but all the same they can't cope with all the plot holes of the changed plot.

Bad directing? She was not explained what to play. child of nature or a skillful business-woman. But Eddie and the huskies did a good job, I agree.

But I like it how they turned a trashy BL novel into this masterpiece story of justice and loyalty.

The first version of the novel Nirvana in Fire had been about gay romance but later it was transformed into a bromance because of censorship.

Alas, this is not so good as Startling by Each Step (of the same writer)- worse pacing, plotting, production etc. Really the ending is very weak. But if you are a shipper you'd like it: there are more fluffy romance here.

Me too, the plot goes round in circles. It is really overrated.

I wonder what happened to their baby from the 1st season? Where is he now :) in what parrallel world? As for the 1st season Tan'er, did she stay forever alone on the future?

Some interesting historic comments here: https://bodashiri.tumblr.com/post/137740642551/the-list-of-sfd-historical-info

Every revolution ends with the conflict between revolutionaries.

Agree. She is nice but too grimacing.

Hi. I agree with you in general. For me it was a disappointment too. The production team counted only on girls' fanservice but the story laks logics and real politics. These romantic scenes are so long but there no time to show the motivations and the characters development.

Since this drama is shorter than the Chinese original I’d expected something more dynamic, but on the contrary it is more dragged. You often want to fast-forward all these dead air moments (tears-tears, faces close-ups, landscapes either with sentimental music or in silence or with rhetorics etc.). The production team must have fitted all this romance stuff into 12-15 episodes.