Kannadin

Can't argue with you on that point... I haven't read the original material.

Your first answer, as well as lanya's and the previous comment that was erased is missing the point of my initial comment which I detailed in my following answer so I won't repeat what I already wrote. Your second answer is more on point and while I agree when you write:

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"What I disagree with, though, is the idea that a breakthrough hit automatically means an actor should only take main lead roles from that point onward. That's not really how the industry works. A successful breakout project creates opportunities, but what matters just as much is what comes after it: the quality of the projects chosen, the directors, the scripts, the genres, and the long-term career strategy.

In fact, choosing a more serious historical drama with heavier and more tragic themes can be a much smarter career move than simply taking the first available main lead role. Not every lead role is equally valuable, and not every supporting role is a downgrade. Strategy matters."

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The truth of it is... while it's theoretically true, most actors who have a breakout role tend to stick to first lead roles. Rare are those who are going to still go for 2nd lead roles unless the whole casting is made of A list stars ... This is regardless of how the role has been written, i.e the 2nd role being more interesting or not.

As someone who got bullied through middle school (though not as much and as terrible as the bullying I've seen in countless K and J dramas)..I have to say... NO WONDER people love this drama. It is SO SATISFYING to see. Almost wish this could exist IRL.

What I mean is they just confirmed the cast officially but it probably was confirmed months ago. It's just that these press releases are timed to have the best effect.

Announcing that Heo Nam Jun is part of the cast as he's enjoying the same type of rise that Byun Woo Seok has gone through ( i.e a drama which success people didn't expect that steadily got more viewers through word of mouth and a character that viewers just love) is bound to raise more interest for the drama in question.

If they had confirmed the cast before the success of My Royal Nemesis, lots of people wouldn't necessarily have tuned it. Heo Nam Jun is the current "it" guy that everyone is talking about so it makes sense to confirm his casting now.

BUT, his agency would probably have not accepted A lead role for this drama instead of THE lead role ( doesn't matter that his character is a fan favorite, he's not the main love interest and that's it) if he had been casted now. They would have waited carefully for his next project as a lead. He probably signed the contract for this drama before MRN aired.

EDIT: Btw, I guess you can't put the same drama twice in your "drama challenge" because MRN does countain of truck of doom already...

They just announced the cast, but it probably had been decided WAY BEFORE. Otherwise I doubt Heo Nam Jun would have taken a 2ML role. It's fine.... Probably one of his last role as a 2ML. He's only gonna get lead roles from now on. Next time, the only chance he acts as an 2ML again is he acts next to Hyun Bin or Lee Dong Wook.

I think it depends on the size of the operation and on how difficult the operation is. In my country, most operations are done locally for teeth. I did 4 heavy operations with local anesthesia... BUT for my wisdom teeth, all of them had to be removed in my case and they did general anesthesia back then... That was more than 20 years ago though, so I'm not really sure my country's current health system would still go for general anesthesia this time.

EDIT: Also Se Gye is filthy rich, and hospitals in SK aren't free, he can afford to pay for general anesthesia... I don't think people with less money are given a choice.

Close to the end and I couldn't help but spoil myself the ending because the Empress was really getting on my nerves...Sadly, I think her ending is a bit too easy given all the harm she's done... I can't forgive her for ruining her second son's marriage just because she's a b*** basically. The one who should have been consort ended up being a concubine and the other who is the official consort, is now stuck in a loveless marriage for life... Ultimately, there's still the possibility of divorce but the humiliation it would bring on her family probably forces the poor girl to stay in that marriage.

The Empress didn't deserve any of her children.

Better that than what happened with "Let's Eat" Season 3 where the main actor had to leave DURING filming. The whole series had to be shortened and since he had postponed his enlistment date several times already there was no recourse possible which completed butchered the last season.

I remember I was waiting for the last season to finish before starting the series, only to read the ridiculous amount of complaints from viewers and deciding that I wasn't going to bother.

Lol that's for dramas in general but that wasn't what the original commenter was hinting at.

Ha! All that philosophy about Qi An is all great but let's be real here. This is an Isekai... A genre which is written mostly by men for men ( women tend to prefer reincarnation plots for some reason). And what type of story do you usually get? Some looser IRL enters a new world in which he can finally reach his full potential and while IRL women usually ignored him, in this foreign land, they all literally ovulate at his sight because now, he's powerful and handsome, the best of the best, women all want to sleep with him and other men all want to BE him.

I'm not familiar with the novel, but Qi An IRL ended up doing a job that wasn't what he aspired to. His life, while not the worse, was definitely not the one he wished for. BUT in this new world, he quickly rises to the top and fights for justice... just like what he truly wanted to do in real life.

No need to dive more into it. It's a classic male fantasy, just like having the perfect boyfriend who always do or say the right thing and is always supportive of the FL AND has only ever fallen for ONE specific girl is a classic female fantasy.

As for the rest.. I personally think there's no need for romance in this adaptation. I'd rather they removed it all together. I thought the romance aspect was the weakest thing in the first season. Also Tian Xi Wei has gotten a bit too big since this drama aired... I don't think her agency would accept giving her such a small role again... And nobody likes a hero that goes from one woman to the other, even if it's only one per season. Makes you wonder if he truly likes any of them.

Maybe it's interesting characterwise... But it doesn't change the fact that most viewers would HATE it to the point of dropping the show so better avoid this whole mess and just not bother with romance at all.

Well I've been to Korea... And I don't know for the truck of doom but from my experience, if you're living in Seoul, which is where most of this story is taking place, you're more likely to be run over by a food delivery scooter than a white truck though.

Lol I know some people already had mobile phones but the majority of people didn't. Got my first one when I was in my first year of high school... That was... in 2001 if I'm not mistaken and even then, it wasn't that widespread.

There's ONE trope that I wish K dramas would stop doing: Please. I'm tired of the phone not working, no power left nonsense. Keep a fudging power bank in your bag. It's not that expensive, you can buy one for less than $30.

These phones are never working when you need them to. Or set your fudging story in the early 90s, back then phones were only at home so it made sense that you wouldn't be able to pick them up if you were elsewhere.

I find this particular trope even more annoying than the truck of doom.

The spidey sense: Well you have a point here. I myself have forgotten it. Maybe it only works on physical danger and not the other type?

For the second point... I've answered you below in your previous comment.

Agree with your comment except for the comments about the length. Honestly I'm glad there's no longer any standard so to speak.

A long time ago, that was either 16 episodes for weekly dramas and 50 episodes for weekenders... (I know some series were 24 episodes or 30 even... Or talking about Jumong up to 80 episodes but I'm gonna focus on the generality).

Often you could feel the length but one also has to mention that episodes were shorter on average i.e back in the early 2000s, 55 to 1h on average with exceptionally, episodes going up to 1h 20 min for their first or finale.

Now episodes are longer... So having less episodes doesn't necessarily mean we're losing that much in terms of length.

It seems we've moved to a standard 12 episodes for most shows... but again longer episodes. Let's say the episodes are 1h15mn ... That's 20 minutes longer than the average length of the early 2000s so basically 3 episodes today would be the equivalent of 4 episodes back then... So 16 episodes back in the early 2000s would be the equivalent of 12 episodes today.

Not much of a change... The issue is more in the pacing. I've personally mentioned it a lot but I wish K dramas did like C dramas and went down to 40/45 mn per episodes. They have longer series in terms of episodes... and in terms of overall length, C dramas tend to be longer, yet it doesn't feel that long when watching.

The perception of time as far as I'm concerned is biased based on the length of the episodes. The angst feels overly long and dragged because instead of being dispatched in small doses through 3 separate episodes, you get more than 2 hours of suffering which is tedious. If you get 3 episodes mostly angsty but with a couple of light hearted scenes, it makes the whole thing more bearable because the length doesn't allow the angst to be overwhelming... When you condense everything in two episodes though, even if the number of light hearted scenes and angst is the same, the way you feel as a viewer is different, it feels like there's way more angst even if it's not necessarily the case.

To finish, this drama is 14 episodes... which means they haven't "forced" themselves to stick to the 12 episodes current average... as far as I'm concerned, it means they've made sure they have time to properly tell their story...

Also let's not forget that the final episode also has the option to be slightly longer than the others if needs be.

We can't know if this drama is too short until next week... but I'm gonna trust the writers.

Nah Se gye is fighting... They've hinted at it when we see him being questioned at the police station. He's hinted that somebody is behind his misfortune and proposed a deal with the policeman... We've never seen the aftermath of that. Also, a couple of episodes again while talking with his secretary they mentioned the fact that they're gathering evidence but that now wasn't the right time to use them or that they didn't enough at the moment. Just like the grandpa... He's been doing his own thing... The drama has hinted at it but hasn't shown anything concrete yet. This is probably going to happen next week though I think we would have been less frustrated even we knew a bit more about what Se Gye and the GrandPa have been doing in the shadows.

Also, better be prepared and let your enemy think he's won so that he let down his guard and leaves you more incriminating evidences than fight out-front and miss the "surprise effect" just saying'

Doesn't mean I enjoyed episode 12 but I can see the writer's logic behind.

I understand the last two episodes were frustrating but err... you know it's 14 episodes? Everybody's reacting like this drama now sucks erasing all the weeks with great written episodes and claiming the drama has gone to sheep when there's still 2 episodes left. Also as frustrating as it is, there's something called " payoff", you need to go down, in order to go up. Without a bit of frustration, there won't be relief and joy at the victory against the villain or at wha's gonna happen with the whole reincarnation thing.

I don't mind people throwing this drama under the bus but let's wait for the ending shall we?

Actually I don't think you should bother with the English title. The title 멋진 신세계 means literally " Wonderful New World" - Meochin ShinSegye

It plays with both Se Gye's name " World" and Seo Ri's last name " Shin" which means new.

These puns are lost in translation. I doubt you should bother with the English title.

I'm sorry. Still 100% sure the Grandpa is faking it. He's just realized Mun Do is way more ruthless than he thought so he's probably paid his doctor to pretend he's got memory loss.

Even being 100% sure, I'm still annoyed.

I know that you do need drama in a drama but I'm getting a bit tired of all the angst. Arguably, last week wasn't that terrible... sure there was some dramatic moments, but overall it was pretty sweet. This week though the balance is way more into the angst with very little sweetness.. and that sheepy preview...

This was putting a smile on my face every week... now I'm just glad my week is so busy I don't have time to get impatient until the next episode comes out.

Hopefully they do a Lovely Runner and AT LEAST episode 14 is gonna be 100% silly and sweet except for the first 5 minutes. I'm still liking the show, but I do feel they haven't managed to balance the silly/sweet moments with the angst properly since episode 11. We do need the drama to get a resolution but somehow the switch in tone is so drastic that it does feel like being "slapped by reality" as a viewer.

The antagonists are annoying but the drama gives them so little screentime overall that I don't get overly annoyed. Still I hope we get rid of all the angst and drama tomorrow. There's plenty to cover next week with the whole soul/swapping reincarnation stuffs so let's not add more Mundo on top. That would be him overstaying his welcome.