This review may contain spoilers
Gender bender romance worthy of a Disney fairytale
First off, I want to admit that the sole reason I decided to watch this 10-year-old drama (after failing to bring myself to watch the first episode once and then trying again a couple of months later) was Park Bo Gum. I simply wanted to enjoy his acting skills and charisma. And the reason I managed to finish it without dropping it midway was exactly the same. There, I said it.
My first gripe with this drama is the casting, namely their choice of the female lead actress. Other than the fact that she was too young both for the character and for a romantic role in general, my biggest problem with her is that, simply put, physically speaking she could never in a million years pass off as a male. Only if every single person who came across her suffered from a brain concussion or sudden blindness could it be considered convincing that they would buy her as a man. The only believable reaction to meeting our cross-dressing FL was the SML's, whose sole reason for falling in love with her was that he was apparently something of an expert in female anatomy and was able to tell right away that she was a woman in disguise.
Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that a gender-bender drama has to cast a particularly masculine-looking FL. I am simply saying that, at the very least, do not cast an extremely cute-faced sixteen-year-old with obvious feminine features and a high-pitched voice and expect us to accept that people genuinely believe she is a man.
When it comes to the story, as a gender-bender set during the Joseon era, the plot certainly had its fair share of clichés, but somehow its predictability was sweet and funny at first. You found yourself watching in anticipation of certain events, waiting to see how the characters would react. A lot may have been predictable in both the romantic and political storylines, but predictability itself was never my issue. Rather, my issue lay in the specific details of the plot, the character development, and the overall pacing of the show.
For example, we knew the ML would start developing feelings for the cross-dressing FL while still believing her to be a man (I guess he was blind, deaf, and dumb, but anyhow). We knew he would struggle with his feelings, only to eventually come to terms with them before learning her true identity, although I have to say that moment felt incredibly anticlimactic. We knew she would constantly be in danger of being exposed and that people who knew her secret would repeatedly come to her rescue, though the number of times this scenario occurred may have exceeded expectations, but more on that later.
As for the political plotline, let's be honest: political intrigue and court struggles in Joseon-era sageuk dramas almost always follow the same formula and rely on the same unmistakable tropes — a puppet or weak king, corrupt officials, an evil Queen Dowager, powerful ministers plotting poisonings, assassinations, and political marriages to secure power for their families, and so on. There is nothing inherently wrong with clichés, but if you choose to use them, then the details need to be believable and engaging. Smart characters should make smart moves, and the story should not constantly create problems only to solve them through luck, chance encounters, or the miraculous skills of an unbelievably talented portrait artist.
As for the romance between the main leads, while it is easy to understand how she fell for the handsome, kind, and fun prince, his attraction to her, especially early on and up until the point where he began accepting his "faux BL" feelings, never felt convincing enough in my opinion. For a Crown Prince and heir to the throne to come to terms with the possibility that he might be attracted to a eunuch of all people, we needed more than casual banter and sudden, unexplained bouts of jealousy.
Other dramas such as Coffee Prince or the Japanese Hana Kimi, while far from perfect, at least worked hard to provide enough buildup to sell viewers on the emotional attraction and inner conflict experienced by the male lead while struggling with feelings for someone he believed to be male. In this drama, however, it mostly happened because she was cute and pretty, with a bubbly personality and a tendency to talk back to him before learning of his identity as Crown Prince.
The progression of their romance during the first quarter of the drama was not necessarily too fast in terms of the overall timeline, but it lacked the emotional groundwork needed to make it convincing. And when it came to the long-awaited reveal of her true gender, I felt it happened rather quickly and somewhat anticlimactically.
I know I am not alone in thinking that one of the most frustrating aspects of the romance in this drama was how ridiculously implausible their rendezvous and romantic moments felt. And I am not just saying this as a longtime viewer of sageuk dramas, but as a viewer of this very drama. In a world where all it takes is shouting "여봐라!" for servants waiting outside the chambers to immediately come running in, and where characters constantly bump into one another by chance within palace walls, are we really expected to believe that the palace suddenly becomes a haven of privacy whenever the romance requires it?
Apparently, the Joseon palace — a place full of paper walls and servants wandering every corner — somehow had countless secret spots where the Crown Prince could whisper words of love to his eunuch, hold hands, give piggyback rides, and exchange back hugs in complete privacy.
There was one scene in particular that had me screaming at the screen: the Crown Prince was literally sitting on the grass next to her, having a romantic conversation while she leaned on his shoulder, with only a parasol hiding them from servants standing mere feet away. Are we supposed to believe the other side of the parasol was magically devoid of onlookers, and that everyone nearby had suddenly developed hearing problems?
Scenes like this repeated so often that they genuinely started to get on my nerves. I kept expecting rumors about the Crown Prince's sexuality to spiral out of control and become a major scandal, but somehow they mostly never did.
Ironically, whenever the writers needed to solve a problem they themselves had created, they always relied on either our hopelessly smitten SML or the Crown Prince's friend and bodyguard to save the day. And it almost always happened in exactly the same way: they would conveniently happen to overhear a conversation through closed doors or stumble across someone just moments before disaster struck.
The sheer number of convenient coincidences in this drama could fill entire volumes. The writers seemed to decide, depending on the needs of the plot, that walls either didn't exist at all or that wide open spaces provided perfect privacy.
And don't even get me started on the political intrigue, which became the main focus during the final third of the drama, because that provided some truly eye-rolling moments.
For starters, almost all of the criminal masterminds and palace officials were anything but smart or conniving. They openly discussed conspiracies, met their spies in public, and generally behaved like complete idiots incapable of successfully carrying out any scheme.
Even the evil Queen's backup baby plan made little sense. If she needed an alternative prince in case she gave birth to a princess, why keep the pregnant court lady inside her own chambers rather than hiding her somewhere discreet until the child was born?
And once again, the same issue resurfaced: the absurd number of conveniently placed witnesses to vital moments stretched even my willingly suspended disbelief beyond its limits.
The pursuit of both the rebels and our FL was equally laughable. The drama wanted us to believe she was constantly in danger of being recognized and captured outside the palace, only for her to successfully re-enter the palace once disguised as a magistrate and once as a medical assistant.
The second time, during the final episode, she was literally wandering around the palace without a care in the world while wearing nothing more than a simple face mask. The fact that her enemies somehow knew she was inside the palace and still failed to catch her was honestly hilarious.
Another issue was the pacing. The way major conflicts were developed and then resolved during the final stretch of the finale highlighted the drama's weaknesses in this regard. The biggest obstacles facing the prince — the Premier, the Queen, the mystery surrounding the late Queen Mother's death, and the rebel faction — were all wrapped up within minutes, mostly through the same repetitive tactics of characters catching others in the act or conveniently recovering forgotten memories.
It felt rushed, as though the writers suddenly remembered all the loose ends they had left hanging and scrambled to tie them up before the credits rolled.
The characters themselves were, for the most part, well written on paper, especially in the beginning. We were introduced to both leads along with their tragic backstories and childhood traumas.
The prince remained true to his character throughout and underwent decent character development, maturing into a worthy man, loyal friend, and just ruler, despite occasional moments of childishness brought on by lovesickness.
The FL, on the other hand, started out as a somewhat vague but independent character and ended up as a helpless damsel in distress. Initially, she is portrayed as a relationship advisor and matchmaker who understands human emotions well. Like the ML, she carries emotional scars, having been separated from her mother and forced to disguise herself as a boy for reasons she never understood.
This upbringing shaped her into a feisty and independent person who was not afraid of the world around her.
However, the more the story progressed and the more romantic the relationship became, the more her personality seemed to disappear. Very little remained of the strong and self-reliant character we initially met, and she gradually transformed into a weak, emotional, and often helpless damsel in distress.
The side characters fared somewhat better. The prince's best friend and bodyguard, torn between loyalty to his friend and loyalty to his cause, gave me the only scene in the entire drama that genuinely moved me to tears, which says quite a lot. Of course, Park Bo Gum's marvelous acting skills certainly helped.
As I mentioned earlier, the SML fell in love with the FL even faster than the ML did, and eventually his character became little more than a convenient tool to rescue the leads whenever necessary.
The drama dragged quite a bit at times. I found the prince's sister's storyline completely unnecessary, and honestly, if the endless slow-motion shots of characters staring into the distance or gazing at one another had been reduced — many of which I shamelessly fast-forwarded through — this drama could easily have fit into sixteen episodes, perhaps even twelve, and likely would have benefited greatly from the tighter pacing.
Would I watch it again? Probably not.
Do I regret watching it? Also no, because I got to enjoy Park Bo Gum's acting and bask in his charisma.
My first gripe with this drama is the casting, namely their choice of the female lead actress. Other than the fact that she was too young both for the character and for a romantic role in general, my biggest problem with her is that, simply put, physically speaking she could never in a million years pass off as a male. Only if every single person who came across her suffered from a brain concussion or sudden blindness could it be considered convincing that they would buy her as a man. The only believable reaction to meeting our cross-dressing FL was the SML's, whose sole reason for falling in love with her was that he was apparently something of an expert in female anatomy and was able to tell right away that she was a woman in disguise.
Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that a gender-bender drama has to cast a particularly masculine-looking FL. I am simply saying that, at the very least, do not cast an extremely cute-faced sixteen-year-old with obvious feminine features and a high-pitched voice and expect us to accept that people genuinely believe she is a man.
When it comes to the story, as a gender-bender set during the Joseon era, the plot certainly had its fair share of clichés, but somehow its predictability was sweet and funny at first. You found yourself watching in anticipation of certain events, waiting to see how the characters would react. A lot may have been predictable in both the romantic and political storylines, but predictability itself was never my issue. Rather, my issue lay in the specific details of the plot, the character development, and the overall pacing of the show.
For example, we knew the ML would start developing feelings for the cross-dressing FL while still believing her to be a man (I guess he was blind, deaf, and dumb, but anyhow). We knew he would struggle with his feelings, only to eventually come to terms with them before learning her true identity, although I have to say that moment felt incredibly anticlimactic. We knew she would constantly be in danger of being exposed and that people who knew her secret would repeatedly come to her rescue, though the number of times this scenario occurred may have exceeded expectations, but more on that later.
As for the political plotline, let's be honest: political intrigue and court struggles in Joseon-era sageuk dramas almost always follow the same formula and rely on the same unmistakable tropes — a puppet or weak king, corrupt officials, an evil Queen Dowager, powerful ministers plotting poisonings, assassinations, and political marriages to secure power for their families, and so on. There is nothing inherently wrong with clichés, but if you choose to use them, then the details need to be believable and engaging. Smart characters should make smart moves, and the story should not constantly create problems only to solve them through luck, chance encounters, or the miraculous skills of an unbelievably talented portrait artist.
As for the romance between the main leads, while it is easy to understand how she fell for the handsome, kind, and fun prince, his attraction to her, especially early on and up until the point where he began accepting his "faux BL" feelings, never felt convincing enough in my opinion. For a Crown Prince and heir to the throne to come to terms with the possibility that he might be attracted to a eunuch of all people, we needed more than casual banter and sudden, unexplained bouts of jealousy.
Other dramas such as Coffee Prince or the Japanese Hana Kimi, while far from perfect, at least worked hard to provide enough buildup to sell viewers on the emotional attraction and inner conflict experienced by the male lead while struggling with feelings for someone he believed to be male. In this drama, however, it mostly happened because she was cute and pretty, with a bubbly personality and a tendency to talk back to him before learning of his identity as Crown Prince.
The progression of their romance during the first quarter of the drama was not necessarily too fast in terms of the overall timeline, but it lacked the emotional groundwork needed to make it convincing. And when it came to the long-awaited reveal of her true gender, I felt it happened rather quickly and somewhat anticlimactically.
I know I am not alone in thinking that one of the most frustrating aspects of the romance in this drama was how ridiculously implausible their rendezvous and romantic moments felt. And I am not just saying this as a longtime viewer of sageuk dramas, but as a viewer of this very drama. In a world where all it takes is shouting "여봐라!" for servants waiting outside the chambers to immediately come running in, and where characters constantly bump into one another by chance within palace walls, are we really expected to believe that the palace suddenly becomes a haven of privacy whenever the romance requires it?
Apparently, the Joseon palace — a place full of paper walls and servants wandering every corner — somehow had countless secret spots where the Crown Prince could whisper words of love to his eunuch, hold hands, give piggyback rides, and exchange back hugs in complete privacy.
There was one scene in particular that had me screaming at the screen: the Crown Prince was literally sitting on the grass next to her, having a romantic conversation while she leaned on his shoulder, with only a parasol hiding them from servants standing mere feet away. Are we supposed to believe the other side of the parasol was magically devoid of onlookers, and that everyone nearby had suddenly developed hearing problems?
Scenes like this repeated so often that they genuinely started to get on my nerves. I kept expecting rumors about the Crown Prince's sexuality to spiral out of control and become a major scandal, but somehow they mostly never did.
Ironically, whenever the writers needed to solve a problem they themselves had created, they always relied on either our hopelessly smitten SML or the Crown Prince's friend and bodyguard to save the day. And it almost always happened in exactly the same way: they would conveniently happen to overhear a conversation through closed doors or stumble across someone just moments before disaster struck.
The sheer number of convenient coincidences in this drama could fill entire volumes. The writers seemed to decide, depending on the needs of the plot, that walls either didn't exist at all or that wide open spaces provided perfect privacy.
And don't even get me started on the political intrigue, which became the main focus during the final third of the drama, because that provided some truly eye-rolling moments.
For starters, almost all of the criminal masterminds and palace officials were anything but smart or conniving. They openly discussed conspiracies, met their spies in public, and generally behaved like complete idiots incapable of successfully carrying out any scheme.
Even the evil Queen's backup baby plan made little sense. If she needed an alternative prince in case she gave birth to a princess, why keep the pregnant court lady inside her own chambers rather than hiding her somewhere discreet until the child was born?
And once again, the same issue resurfaced: the absurd number of conveniently placed witnesses to vital moments stretched even my willingly suspended disbelief beyond its limits.
The pursuit of both the rebels and our FL was equally laughable. The drama wanted us to believe she was constantly in danger of being recognized and captured outside the palace, only for her to successfully re-enter the palace once disguised as a magistrate and once as a medical assistant.
The second time, during the final episode, she was literally wandering around the palace without a care in the world while wearing nothing more than a simple face mask. The fact that her enemies somehow knew she was inside the palace and still failed to catch her was honestly hilarious.
Another issue was the pacing. The way major conflicts were developed and then resolved during the final stretch of the finale highlighted the drama's weaknesses in this regard. The biggest obstacles facing the prince — the Premier, the Queen, the mystery surrounding the late Queen Mother's death, and the rebel faction — were all wrapped up within minutes, mostly through the same repetitive tactics of characters catching others in the act or conveniently recovering forgotten memories.
It felt rushed, as though the writers suddenly remembered all the loose ends they had left hanging and scrambled to tie them up before the credits rolled.
The characters themselves were, for the most part, well written on paper, especially in the beginning. We were introduced to both leads along with their tragic backstories and childhood traumas.
The prince remained true to his character throughout and underwent decent character development, maturing into a worthy man, loyal friend, and just ruler, despite occasional moments of childishness brought on by lovesickness.
The FL, on the other hand, started out as a somewhat vague but independent character and ended up as a helpless damsel in distress. Initially, she is portrayed as a relationship advisor and matchmaker who understands human emotions well. Like the ML, she carries emotional scars, having been separated from her mother and forced to disguise herself as a boy for reasons she never understood.
This upbringing shaped her into a feisty and independent person who was not afraid of the world around her.
However, the more the story progressed and the more romantic the relationship became, the more her personality seemed to disappear. Very little remained of the strong and self-reliant character we initially met, and she gradually transformed into a weak, emotional, and often helpless damsel in distress.
The side characters fared somewhat better. The prince's best friend and bodyguard, torn between loyalty to his friend and loyalty to his cause, gave me the only scene in the entire drama that genuinely moved me to tears, which says quite a lot. Of course, Park Bo Gum's marvelous acting skills certainly helped.
As I mentioned earlier, the SML fell in love with the FL even faster than the ML did, and eventually his character became little more than a convenient tool to rescue the leads whenever necessary.
The drama dragged quite a bit at times. I found the prince's sister's storyline completely unnecessary, and honestly, if the endless slow-motion shots of characters staring into the distance or gazing at one another had been reduced — many of which I shamelessly fast-forwarded through — this drama could easily have fit into sixteen episodes, perhaps even twelve, and likely would have benefited greatly from the tighter pacing.
Would I watch it again? Probably not.
Do I regret watching it? Also no, because I got to enjoy Park Bo Gum's acting and bask in his charisma.
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