This review may contain spoilers
Solid show, lots of drawbacks.
Decent story, but doesn't tap into anything serious in terms of world building or depth, just a simple royalty woes and Queen/King being an angry power hungry person, as it deviates from the romance towards the royalty/politics side it loses its original charm and early selling points.
Doesn't delve that far into royalty, just the King's family, the Crown Prince and that one irrelevant evil dude who is the Queen's father. Makes me question if the royalty part was even necessary to the story, especially when it just becomes dissolved in the end.
The plotline of the fire is kinda iffy, they make it too vague on what really happened for far too long, you can guess what happens but they don't make it clear enough on time. Her motivations for doing so aren't fully revealed till way later as well, and even then I'm not convinced given her character development. They didn't really get into the daughter-father relationship of the Queen too and didn't let us digest it, alongside the Queen and future King. The Queen doesn't face any reparations for what she did, which makes the whole set up kind of pointless. They try to lean into the empathetic side after having her appear as angry and power driven the whole time, and kind of making her one-dimensional in terms of that. Seungyeon does an amazing job portraying this one dimension, but they could've done way more to develop her character, instead of just making her an opposition to the Crown Prince for the sake of it.
The relationship between IU and The Crown Prince is solid, classic contract marriage trope, nothing out of the ordinary. Their chemistry isn't that crazy, especially with the sudden "let's break up" trope appearing, despite less than an episode later reversing it, then what was the point? Why not just tell him your plan? Kind of an annoying trope with kdramas but nonetheless something you have to accept. IU truly proves herself as one of the greatest actresses with her subtle actions selling you more and more upon her character, to where you are convinced they are two separate people altogether. This further highlights BWS's shortcomings, where he remains far too stoic and unfased alongside lackluster acting and facial expressions throughout. A combination of weak direction and acting make all these characters far too simple or one-dimensional, lacking that true depth and mutli-facetedness to create memorable characters. The other characters are forgettable, such as the Prime Minister, where they just spam the Queen and PM yelling over things and being angry, and not getting further into their inspirations and motivations really besides "love" and "power/sacrifice".
For the PM, they take far too long to properly reveal his intentions, when it is so easily predictable since early on. Late villains will always be poor as they do not have time to marinate, and his demise is decent. He teeters between trying to be good and bad too much and it makes his evilness convoluted, and it is far too obvious that he will lose.
The royalty/monarchy in modern times is very underutilised, for such an intriguing concept its barely delved into, once again making me question if it was even necessary, or if it was to just draw in audiences through a novel concept.
The final four episode stretch firmly deviates from the original ambience of the show, of a more light hearted romance brewing from an originally contract marriage, and their relationship is poorly done throughout the final episodes. This kdrama utilises a lot of common tropes and doesn't really add anything new towards them, or present them within the unique setting well enough to properly overlook them.
The music isn't really prevalent bar the main OST, which is amazing, but is used far too often with leads to a lack of additional immersion and emotional investment towards the drama. This is a simple drama for beginners or people looking for feel-good romances without too much melancholy, but there is definitely other romances I would recommend.
Doesn't delve that far into royalty, just the King's family, the Crown Prince and that one irrelevant evil dude who is the Queen's father. Makes me question if the royalty part was even necessary to the story, especially when it just becomes dissolved in the end.
The plotline of the fire is kinda iffy, they make it too vague on what really happened for far too long, you can guess what happens but they don't make it clear enough on time. Her motivations for doing so aren't fully revealed till way later as well, and even then I'm not convinced given her character development. They didn't really get into the daughter-father relationship of the Queen too and didn't let us digest it, alongside the Queen and future King. The Queen doesn't face any reparations for what she did, which makes the whole set up kind of pointless. They try to lean into the empathetic side after having her appear as angry and power driven the whole time, and kind of making her one-dimensional in terms of that. Seungyeon does an amazing job portraying this one dimension, but they could've done way more to develop her character, instead of just making her an opposition to the Crown Prince for the sake of it.
The relationship between IU and The Crown Prince is solid, classic contract marriage trope, nothing out of the ordinary. Their chemistry isn't that crazy, especially with the sudden "let's break up" trope appearing, despite less than an episode later reversing it, then what was the point? Why not just tell him your plan? Kind of an annoying trope with kdramas but nonetheless something you have to accept. IU truly proves herself as one of the greatest actresses with her subtle actions selling you more and more upon her character, to where you are convinced they are two separate people altogether. This further highlights BWS's shortcomings, where he remains far too stoic and unfased alongside lackluster acting and facial expressions throughout. A combination of weak direction and acting make all these characters far too simple or one-dimensional, lacking that true depth and mutli-facetedness to create memorable characters. The other characters are forgettable, such as the Prime Minister, where they just spam the Queen and PM yelling over things and being angry, and not getting further into their inspirations and motivations really besides "love" and "power/sacrifice".
For the PM, they take far too long to properly reveal his intentions, when it is so easily predictable since early on. Late villains will always be poor as they do not have time to marinate, and his demise is decent. He teeters between trying to be good and bad too much and it makes his evilness convoluted, and it is far too obvious that he will lose.
The royalty/monarchy in modern times is very underutilised, for such an intriguing concept its barely delved into, once again making me question if it was even necessary, or if it was to just draw in audiences through a novel concept.
The final four episode stretch firmly deviates from the original ambience of the show, of a more light hearted romance brewing from an originally contract marriage, and their relationship is poorly done throughout the final episodes. This kdrama utilises a lot of common tropes and doesn't really add anything new towards them, or present them within the unique setting well enough to properly overlook them.
The music isn't really prevalent bar the main OST, which is amazing, but is used far too often with leads to a lack of additional immersion and emotional investment towards the drama. This is a simple drama for beginners or people looking for feel-good romances without too much melancholy, but there is definitely other romances I would recommend.
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