Kim Hye Yoon ( as Im Sol ) , Byun Woo Seok ( as Ryu Sung Jae ) and Song Geon Hee ( as Tae Sung ) have found themselves a new fan. I will be paying close attention to their projects from now on.
Kudos to writer Lee Shi Eun and all the people in production. Its just perfect.
The OSTs are beautiful too
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
I binged this in 3 days and if I was to give an overall score only based of my enjoyment while watching then It would be a 9.5/10 but there are some glaring issues ( or red flags maybe) in the story that effected my scoring here. Here is a list of all the goods and bads;THE BAD :
1. a very irresponsible portrayal of sexual assault. In an attempt to run from a loveless marriage Yi Ting drugs and tries to r*pe our male lead and she suffers no consequences. My jaw was on the floor. Shame on writers. This specific plot line is enough for me to not recommend watching this to anyone regardless of how much I loved the rest. There is so many things wrong with this I dont even know what to say... She was a very problematic character as whole. Pathetic ,pretentious and predatory. All the Ps. Viewer discretion is advised
2. Yi Meng, our female lead, is not nearly enough intentional in her decisions given the fact that she had read the script beforehand and knows all the important plot points. First few episodes were fine because she was just learning how this world functions and it was funny but as the story progressed she refused to learn to use the story mechanisms in her advantage. She is so dumb it hurts to watch. At some point a whole new character is added to the story that wasn't even in the original script but she still foolishly refuses to accept that she can try and change her ending insisting that iconic parts will happen regardless whereas Nan Heng, where he uses one of story mechanisms to change an iconic scene in the plot barely a few hours after learning it. Which takes me to my next problem,
3. Nan Heng overpowers Yi Meng in every way possible. He has great martial art skills, ,he is strong and quick thinker, knows politics really well but he is also sympathetic and very heroic. He get so much more done even without reading the script. All while the female lead who has all the cheat codes and prior knowledge is running around like a headless chicken. Oh did I mention that he has great photographic memory?
Funny thing is before Fl gets transported into the script, the drama makers were in a meeting discussing the production where our female lead side have to fight for her right. This scene shows us that we are going to watch a parody of sorts where all common repeated issues of c drama land will be made fun of . Someone in the meeting mentions the fact that the female leads in c dramas are always used as a tool to make the male lead shine . Later, our female lead is reading the script and she is raging at how bad it is because her role is a tragic doormat while all the glory goes to Nan Heng. Although I haven't watched enough C dramas to know the tropes, misogyny is universal and I can see what they're trying to critic. Then They actually go on and repeat the same mistake. All Yi Meng does is making Nan Heng shine.
THE GOOD:
1,Production
I have never seen a historical drama, kdrama or cdrama or anything else, with such a grand production. The set, the outfits. the camera work, the editing, the fighting choreographies etc., were all great. They had huge budget and it was obviously very well spent. Its a feast to the eyes.
2, Music
beautiful and well placed
3, Comedy
Most of time the comedy hashtag in genre section just means cringe but Here I actually busted out laughing which doesn't happen to me alot.
4, Angst and slow burn
It takes alot for the main lead to finally confess their feelings both to themselves and then to each other so when it finally happens its satisfying. After they get together there are many obstacles and set backs and I was surprised how well the angst suited the story when we started with such a light and fun mood. Kudos to both actors playing the main lead they cried and wailed.
5, Layered story telling.
this premise is not anything unique. There are countless dramas where the lead is thrown inside a fictional world and had to fight the plot/writer but for some reason A dream within a dream is a quite fresh story.
As I said before there is hilarious comedy and there is heart wrenching angst but also there is political intrigue, dysfunctional families, unique and powerful friend ships and philosophical themes. There was a few thought provoking ideas there and some memorable dialogues that made me pause and keep replaying it,
Also it has the best ending of dramas with this premise or any drama that I've seen. Very satisfying
Was this review helpful to you?
