MadelineMaureen

I feel there were characters in this drama that were supposed to be more fleshed out but got pushed to the side. We never found out why Ha Ram's people followed him/had their own reasons for revenge. There was just parts of it that felt very half hearted from the writing side of things. I don't know if their stories got cut in the editing process, but there was a serious lack of character motivation for the majority of the characters. It was pretty & cute, but very underdeveloped with storytelling.
It...just felt very shallow...and surface level with everything. Like they wanted to have all the plots(revenge, secret identity, fated love, divine powers, love triangle etc etc.) and ended up with tbh a bit of a mess because they didn't really fully develop them. It's kind of like if 'Moon Embracing the Sun' & 'Iljimae' got put in a blinder or like they tried to do one of those long Chinese epic deity dramas but realized halfway through they have half the runtime.

I wanted more communication from the FL & ML, cause like idk about you but if the person I loved tried to kill me on multiple occasions I would need a minute to process that. Or just more effort on their part to work through the trauma of hurting the one you love/being hurt by the one you love. Because honestly, at times it felt very toxic and abusive. Take out the supernatural elements and that's a classic abusive relationship. SOoooo um yeah, I would have liked that aspect to have more weight to it. The whole 'I can't touch you without awakening a literal inner demon' thing isn't exactly the best set-up for a romantic drama without more tension on the part of the leads. Where was the longing? I saw glimpses, but by the midway point it was jst very casual(?).

Hwacha isn't Ha Ram's ancestor, & Ma Wang isn't from Ha Ram's family. Ha Ram was in a weakened state during the rain ceremony & was technically speaking "killed" in the process. Because Ha Ram had divine powers from his father's side he was the perfect vessel for Ma Wang to burrow into. Ha Ram would have died had Ma Wang not inhabited his body when he did. I believe the water pulling him out was his ancestor.
Ha Ram's is descended from a water god. aka the guy in the cell, the man who told him to break the ring.
Hwacha is a like a goblin whose source of power comes from paintings. Because the painting of the King had both Ma Wang & Sam Shin's energy in it when Hawcha absorbed the painting he became a deity. Ma Wang(death) and Sam Shin(life) are two sides of the same coin. Yin and Yang, to have balance you need both. But when Ma Wang inhabits a human vessel that balance is thrown off because he reaps destruction unchecked.
Ma Wang's power is in his eyes. He can corrupt/control/curse someone with just eye contact. Which is why Sam Shin "takes" them and gives them to Chun Ki. They loose there power when not connected to Ma Wang's spirit.
As an add on Chun Ki was born with sight, but was cursed by Ma Wang when he cursed the Hong family to never paint again. Her father lost his mind(he also made eye contact with Ma Wang) and she lost her sight. Thus rendering the Hong family to not be able to paint. Which is why she gets her sight back. The curse was broken. I believe that had her father lived he would have regained his mind as well.

it honestly was a priceless moment in my drama watching history. Like accidently walking into a drama class or group of people LARPing. Because there wasn't even final sound editing in this cut you only hear dialogue and some music cues and what noises were shot practically. so you have this big bombastic music and the lady is swinging a sword half a football field away while staring intensely at guy with eyeliner lighting on his face. and then it cuts to people in front of a blue screen.
The eyes are all altered in post so think of the scene with the ML trying to take his eyes back from the FL....but with no SFX. so two brown eyed people looking at each other, in EXTREME close up. One with fear and the other nefarious intent....and back and forth and back and forth with only the noise of the actors...

it was up for hours on viki. But it aired the correct edit in Korea.

Omg someone gave Viki the unedited cut. Cause it's all blue screen and no color correction on eyes/lighting. I'm dead yall. I can't stop laughing. Like, only things that were practically shot are showing up so yeah...seriously can't stop laughing.

like a tall glass of milk....

I was excited too and then I realized it didn't just have the same name as a movie but was based on the same story and will have to pass. Hopefully the youtubers will create nice fmv without all the triggering bits. cause it's a hard pass for me with this type of content. And with this being a show instead of a movie it will be drawn out more.

Honestly going to be hard to look at the scenes with them in same shot(blinding beauty). They are really nice to look at aren't they? Seriously, if they continue to be the leads I'm going to have to watch each episode twice because I wont be able to focus on the subtitles and my Mandarin listening skills truly lack. And by 'lack' I mean it's non existent.

I really wanted a coming out of OZ moment for them in the modern/real world. Like seeing the "real" versions of the "characters" in her story. As though she kind of cast the people around her like when you dream...every person you see in a dream is someone you have actually seen irl type of thing. There is a lot to play with story-wise if they choose to. I wouldn't want them to go too far down the 'The Eternal Love' rabbit whole. aka constantly starting from square one with character development.(though I do love TEL)

yeah not sure why. I'm not as familiar with the Thai entertainment industry so I can only speculate reasons. That honeymoon photoshoot/pictorial with Aom as so good.

Anyone else sad that because of the climate we aren't going to have endless random winter coats throughout(all seasons) the show? I could never tell what time of year it was supposed to be because they were wearing coats 24/7/365. Please tell me other ppl found the coats(mainly the ML's) just as funny.

it looks like they made the connection between the SFL and the other Panda blood employee more obvious and in your face. The whole point of that side story was to show how innocent the FL was in believing the best in everyone. If she is as oblivious to what's going on in this version as the Chinese version she's not innocent and sweet she's just stupid. I also so forgot how very soapy some Thai dramas can be. Not my favorite filming/acting technique. But I do like Aom so I'm a bit bummed by that trailer ngl.

I was like (in the voice of Edna from The Incredibles) "Yes ML, give me nothing....!"
Seriously toward the end I was confused if he even wanted to be in the same room as her in some scenes. I've seen this type of character played well before & I've also seen it played much worse...but darn I forgot how frustrating it is when the FL is all bubbly and relatable(like shows emotions, has inner thoughts that most of us would have if we only had mircoexpressions to go off of in a relationship) and the ML is a cardboard cut out of a brick wall of nothingness. Like my dude is barely even giving mirco-expressions...he's expressions are on the subatomic level. I can't tell if it's the actor or the direction because I haven't seen any of his other work. The subs/sound was out of sync so I was able to actually look at his face a lot more than normal so like where was the emotion?

okay so I wasn't loosing my mind then. I was like I know it's been a while since 8th grade biology, but I remember that O-neg can only receive O-neg. And all other blood types have multiple donor options.
I can't remember if O-neg is common or just that O in general is the common blood type in America. But I do remember O-neg being a common(most sought after) in emergency situations.
I also remember that if two people have different blood types(can't remember specifics) and they get pregnant that the mother needs to take a special type of shot to make sure the baby is okay because of the two different blood types. Like the mom can't have the babies blood and vice versa. Am I remembering that right?

This is really helpful. I don't watch a lot of melos because the "unjustness"/miscommunication of some parts frustrate me. So having it plotted out helps me get over the bumps & also now I know when to slip in an episode or two of a rom com or lighter drama. I'm a sympathetic crier so I can't do multiple hours in a row of sadish things without having the puffiest of faces in the morning. Thank you so much for this post!

I thought it had more to do with him breaking quarantine? Was that not it?

my dude...she literally went to prison for blackmail. I'm not thinking she's going to be having a comeback anytime soon on national tv. she's a vj/bj(broadcast jockey) now so I think the only way you are going to see her is to pay to watch her streams.

My guess is it has something to do with the mess she made of her career with just a few sns posts. there was the one with the rising sun flag. The time she went after her own fans for asking questions about her art. I don't know who she pissed off behind the scenes but she's been labeled with an "attituded problem" and her social media presence has not helped her at all. It's likely no one wants to work with someone with as much bad PR as she has gotten.

the WeTV link in mydrama list has good quality & subbed. It's going to take a bit longer for the finally few because there is a paywall by episode 15. I think this will go away in the coming weeks. But can't go wrong with dramacool unless you really can't with pop ups.

There actually have been very young graduates from Ivy schools. But I think MIT's youngest enrollment is like 14ish. Eugenie Carys de Silva got her Master's degree from Harvard at age 13. aka she had finish undergrad at age 11(she also got her PhD at 15). So not as out there as you think just very very rare.