Rewatching this! I agree with much of @amitra828's review above (minus the stuff about the FL; I cringed whenever she tried to express emotion. Would have much rather had Dong Soo end up with Jin Joo!).
This was one of my first dramas (when I picked dramas by tracking lead actors I liked, and then watching all their dramas, haha; obviously for this one I was on a Ji Chang Wook kick) and one of my first sageuks. It was also my first introduction to the kind of friendship developed so beautifully in many Kdramas. And I loved it.
Yes, it has huge plot holes, many moments where you need to suspend disbelief, the FL struggled to emote (someone dropped the ball with her casting) and the production quality was very bad, as is typical of any pre-2015 drama.
But this kitschy drama succeeded where the beautifully produced My Country: The New Age failed (which went for a similar premise). Not only was that drama super confusing and hard to follow even though it was made in 2019 (I think?), it wanted us to get invested in the ML leads' friendship and the ways they cared about each other and fought for each other despite being on opposite sides of a political conflict. However, their devotion to each other made no sense to me. They spent only a few episodes showing them as friends and the rest of the drama was meant to ride on the connection developed from those few episodes; it just couldn't carry me through the garbage the leads had to go through and the weird frenemy tension they had.
Warrior Baek Dong Soo, instead, spends almost half the drama with our two friends as actual friends before the "betrayal." Suffering together, having adventures together, overcoming obstacles together, and growing up together, with each of them admiring their friend for their unique strengths which they did not possess: e.g. Yeo Woon admires Baek Doo for his candor, relentless optimism, bold creativity, his intense loyalty to those in his life, and most of all, his unflinching belief that he need not be bound by his destiny (Yeo Woon, in contrast, is actually deeply insecure and feels saddled by his destiny and the grip of it holds him in a miserable paralysis; his unbelief is understandable when all of his father figures reinforce that he cannot escape his fate with every chance they get); Dong Soo admires Yeo Woon for his brilliant skills, natural gifting with martial arts, incisive intelligence, and quiet confidence (in contrast, Dong Soo is a late bloomer; he has to work like a dog for everything he does, everything coming from great struggle; it took far more time for Dong Soo to find his sweet spot than Woon and gain the confidence he needed to be an excellent martial artist; because of this, Yeo Woon was an inspiration for Dong Soo; Woon's severity towards him in their sparring battles was his way of believing in Dong Soo, his way of sharpening him to become a better fighter; in addition to this, while they were growing up, Woon always quietly supported Dong Soo, and never gave up on helping him in his endeavors, no matter how crazy they were).
In my first watch, I was enamored with Baek Dong Soo (who is adorable and endearing for the first 2/3s, and truly heroic and compelling in the last 1/3). In my rewatch, I grew in appreciation for Yeo Woon (Yoo Seung Ho was only about 16 or 17 when he played this role!!).
*DETAILED SPOILERS BELOW*
The most heartbreaking part for me that seals my love for this flawed character is the first time Choon sends him on a mission. Horror of horrors, we discover Woon is sent to murder several of his warrior camp friends (cruel Choon; testing Woon to see if he has what it takes to be an assassin). True to his mission, Yeo Woon stabs in succession each of his friends he grew up with and trained alongside; his brutality is sickening. However, the subsequent scene reveals that none of the three boys are actually dead; once the other assassins melt into the night, leaving Woon to finish the gruesome work, the drama shifts perspective. (You slowly discover Woon cleverly initiated the stabbings so he could appear to do his job well while simultaneously protecting his friends by wounding them in places that were not life-threatening.) Woon rushes over to his friends, checking their breathing, tending to their wounds and quietly weeping over them, deeply horrified at what he's done, grieving the cruelty of his fate, and wracked with guilt over his betrayal. This is the most vulnerable we see him. He gradually hardens as he betrays more of his friends and loved ones, descending further down the path of darkness and loneliness, a journey sealed by his guilt. He is trapped by his fate to be an assassin whose identity is found in killing, and yet he never stops choosing the harder path by always fighting the urge to become a cold-blooded murderer: sparing people when no one is watching, secretly showing compassion and tenderness when his job calls for ruthless hate. Aw, Woon-ah! 😭
Yeo Woon never has a robust redemption arc, nor is he ever able to fully break free from his destiny, but his loyalty to Dong Soo (who never gives up on him) does draw out the remnants of his goodness that burst out in fleeting moments of defiance against his fate. As the drama reaches the climax of the 3rd and final part (I think of the drama in three parts as they relate to stages of development and growth in Dong Soo), it's deeply satisfying to watch these two team up--through the strength of their friendship and from opposing sides--to champion and fight for the good.
I'm not a fan of BL, so I'm hesitant to start this since I'm reading similar things on this thread to the thread for The Devil Judge where people insisted it was not a BL; I'm noticing those who usually enjoy BLs also seem to love this (and so with Devil Judge) and see this drama as a decent substitute for a BL.
While it wasn't overt, I felt undertones of romantic tension between the MLs in The Devil Judge and did not agree with those who said what they shared was just friendship. I'm trying to avoid venturing into another drama that feels like a closet BL.
And anyone able to comment on the feel of the chemistry shared by the leads rather than just the overt words and obvious interactions between them? I'm looking for the camaraderie and connection of friendship, not subtle, romantic subtext bubbling suggestively beneath the surface.
So it sounds like the two personalities described here are not so much two personas that the ML displays intentionally when being his Crown Prince self or his hidden identify self, but more the Kill Me, Heal Me and Bad and Crazy route where the alternate personality spontaneously surfaces and controls the character? I'm curious about the distinction because while I could stomach this type of dual personality in Bad and Crazy due to the way it was portrayed, I couldn't make it past the first episode of Kill Me, Heal Me. Am I right about the distinction in how the two personalities are portrayed? And for those who have started this: of the dramas I mentioned in comparison to it, which of them feels most similar to this drama in its portrayal of a dual personality?
Loved Park Ji Hoon in everything else I've seen him in, though. :)
Idk about y'all, but I think we need more people like the FL in real life. She thoroughly reflects upon herself…
Yes, maybe a bit naive; my impression was she got where she was because she was genuinely good at what she did (at least as they portray/write her), so her hard work eventually paid off after many years of showing excellent work and improving in her craft and attracting the attention of the right people through the quality of her work rather than networking her way to the top; the way things go down with the scandal indicates she maybe wasn't actually super adept at the networking, angling and whining and dining required to maintain her status and success. If this is true, the premise that she reaches these heights through her merits may not be realistic to industries like hers; I imagine it's usually more complicated than just becoming successful because you're objectively the best at something? That said, you probably still have to have good skills of some kind to make it in a cutthroat industry (you can't survive long on just "who you know" or being in the right place at the right time--at least, I hope? Maybe I'm too idealistic 😂), and Eun Joo revealed she didn't have the skills.
Whether or not Sam Dal's road to success was realistic, it remains true that cutting corners never pays off. When the time comes for you to deliver on the person you've projected yourself to be (and you haven't done the work to become that person), you won't be able to. And the time of reckoning will come: you will be exposed for the fraud that you are. *shudder* I can't think of many things more genuinely humiliating than that...
is the fixer and bleached hair cafe owner is his partner in crime than it'll be too damn predictable
Ah! Huh, I didn't get those vibes, but maybe you're right. My impression was that Baek Du and Jin Su will move past their frenemy stage to become closer and understand each other better; just my prediction!
I'm glad that it was his dad that said it directly. This way there isn't any miscommunication.
Yes! I anticipate Yong Pil's going to be livid that he went through 8 years of unnecessary heartache because of his dad, and not because he did something wrong and not because Sam Dal had issues with him. So infuriating!
there hasn't been a kdrama character that made me mad in a very long time but eun ju omfg. i genuinely can't with…
When I think about it, sometimes it's refreshing to have villains who are not morally gray at all. And thinking Eun Joo is a bug is at least ONE thing everyone on this thread can agree about. 😏
Geosan County is a real place but according to google it's landlocked which makes no sense within the drama. In…
I wonder if this dialect is Gyeongsang satoori? Based on what I could understand of the article (my Hangul is still pretty limited 😂), that would be my guess.
Why are these characters so frustrating?? Why does Samdal overreact to their kiss and why is Yongpil so clingy…
I do think this show would land more convincingly if they had the leads 10-12 years younger... Thankfully so many of the side/support characters are likeable that they balance out the time with the leads. I don't mind the leads, but so far they're definitely not up there with my favorite lead couples, to be sure.
I was more than half way through ep 1 & I almost dropped it...infact I did, since the drama came out till now…
The FL was introduced so strangely in Episode 1, I agree! It was kind of driving me crazy how mysterious she was, but it gets better and clearer in Episode 3. :) I like how odd she is; she stands out among FLs (as does the ML in this).
This was one of my first dramas (when I picked dramas by tracking lead actors I liked, and then watching all their dramas, haha; obviously for this one I was on a Ji Chang Wook kick) and one of my first sageuks. It was also my first introduction to the kind of friendship developed so beautifully in many Kdramas. And I loved it.
Yes, it has huge plot holes, many moments where you need to suspend disbelief, the FL struggled to emote (someone dropped the ball with her casting) and the production quality was very bad, as is typical of any pre-2015 drama.
But this kitschy drama succeeded where the beautifully produced My Country: The New Age failed (which went for a similar premise). Not only was that drama super confusing and hard to follow even though it was made in 2019 (I think?), it wanted us to get invested in the ML leads' friendship and the ways they cared about each other and fought for each other despite being on opposite sides of a political conflict. However, their devotion to each other made no sense to me. They spent only a few episodes showing them as friends and the rest of the drama was meant to ride on the connection developed from those few episodes; it just couldn't carry me through the garbage the leads had to go through and the weird frenemy tension they had.
Warrior Baek Dong Soo, instead, spends almost half the drama with our two friends as actual friends before the "betrayal." Suffering together, having adventures together, overcoming obstacles together, and growing up together, with each of them admiring their friend for their unique strengths which they did not possess: e.g. Yeo Woon admires Baek Doo for his candor, relentless optimism, bold creativity, his intense loyalty to those in his life, and most of all, his unflinching belief that he need not be bound by his destiny (Yeo Woon, in contrast, is actually deeply insecure and feels saddled by his destiny and the grip of it holds him in a miserable paralysis; his unbelief is understandable when all of his father figures reinforce that he cannot escape his fate with every chance they get); Dong Soo admires Yeo Woon for his brilliant skills, natural gifting with martial arts, incisive intelligence, and quiet confidence (in contrast, Dong Soo is a late bloomer; he has to work like a dog for everything he does, everything coming from great struggle; it took far more time for Dong Soo to find his sweet spot than Woon and gain the confidence he needed to be an excellent martial artist; because of this, Yeo Woon was an inspiration for Dong Soo; Woon's severity towards him in their sparring battles was his way of believing in Dong Soo, his way of sharpening him to become a better fighter; in addition to this, while they were growing up, Woon always quietly supported Dong Soo, and never gave up on helping him in his endeavors, no matter how crazy they were).
In my first watch, I was enamored with Baek Dong Soo (who is adorable and endearing for the first 2/3s, and truly heroic and compelling in the last 1/3). In my rewatch, I grew in appreciation for Yeo Woon (Yoo Seung Ho was only about 16 or 17 when he played this role!!).
*DETAILED SPOILERS BELOW*
The most heartbreaking part for me that seals my love for this flawed character is the first time Choon sends him on a mission. Horror of horrors, we discover Woon is sent to murder several of his warrior camp friends (cruel Choon; testing Woon to see if he has what it takes to be an assassin). True to his mission, Yeo Woon stabs in succession each of his friends he grew up with and trained alongside; his brutality is sickening. However, the subsequent scene reveals that none of the three boys are actually dead; once the other assassins melt into the night, leaving Woon to finish the gruesome work, the drama shifts perspective. (You slowly discover Woon cleverly initiated the stabbings so he could appear to do his job well while simultaneously protecting his friends by wounding them in places that were not life-threatening.) Woon rushes over to his friends, checking their breathing, tending to their wounds and quietly weeping over them, deeply horrified at what he's done, grieving the cruelty of his fate, and wracked with guilt over his betrayal. This is the most vulnerable we see him. He gradually hardens as he betrays more of his friends and loved ones, descending further down the path of darkness and loneliness, a journey sealed by his guilt. He is trapped by his fate to be an assassin whose identity is found in killing, and yet he never stops choosing the harder path by always fighting the urge to become a cold-blooded murderer: sparing people when no one is watching, secretly showing compassion and tenderness when his job calls for ruthless hate. Aw, Woon-ah! 😭
Yeo Woon never has a robust redemption arc, nor is he ever able to fully break free from his destiny, but his loyalty to Dong Soo (who never gives up on him) does draw out the remnants of his goodness that burst out in fleeting moments of defiance against his fate. As the drama reaches the climax of the 3rd and final part (I think of the drama in three parts as they relate to stages of development and growth in Dong Soo), it's deeply satisfying to watch these two team up--through the strength of their friendship and from opposing sides--to champion and fight for the good.
While it wasn't overt, I felt undertones of romantic tension between the MLs in The Devil Judge and did not agree with those who said what they shared was just friendship. I'm trying to avoid venturing into another drama that feels like a closet BL.
And anyone able to comment on the feel of the chemistry shared by the leads rather than just the overt words and obvious interactions between them? I'm looking for the camaraderie and connection of friendship, not subtle, romantic subtext bubbling suggestively beneath the surface.
Loved Park Ji Hoon in everything else I've seen him in, though. :)
Whether or not Sam Dal's road to success was realistic, it remains true that cutting corners never pays off. When the time comes for you to deliver on the person you've projected yourself to be (and you haven't done the work to become that person), you won't be able to. And the time of reckoning will come: you will be exposed for the fraud that you are. *shudder* I can't think of many things more genuinely humiliating than that...