MiyamotoMusashi

American martial art movies are pretty bad unless.they actually cast real martial artists as actors.

That´s a pretty bad representation of the drama considering those scenes make up less than 1% of its running time.

For people who liked Fiery Priest and Chief Kim, it´s a no-brainer to watch this, for people who did not, this won´t get better for them.

Decided to give this a try since SJK is a pretty good actor who usually has a good nose in regards to choosing his projects (or his agent does), but i was still skeptical due to the whole premise and how ridiculous it is (a Korean consigliere goes to Korea to fight a corrupt conglomerate), not knowing that this is writer Park Jae-Bum´s newest project, which explains a lot. All his dramas, especially his last projects, have all a ridiculous premise, which is part of the charm (ex special forces guy turned priest, or con artist turned conglomerate accountant) and already provides a lot of comedic potential. For me the comedy in the first two episodes were on point, the characters are purposely quirky to set the tone of the show, though the music in combination with comedy was a bit overdone, but that´s just nitpicking at this point.
I also like the usage of classical music (recognized Bach, Vivaldi and Haydn iirc).

Anyway, we will see if there is actually going to be a real romance, or just hinted at like his previous two projects.

Definitely a must-see and recommendation for me.

Don´t take it too seriously, you are not supposed to.

Well it´s up to you, better to not waste time if it does not do anything for you. For me it was worth watching because the performance of the main actress is truly exceptional for me, and it had just the right amount of silly to it without going overboard. Other comedic scenes went too far for me (the Head Chef for example).
The usual politics scheming part was average at best, hence why i did not like the second part as much as the first.

I think they are talking about HJ´s identity and childhood lie.

If you were bored in the first half and were not entertained by the funny scenes, second half is only going to be worse.

That does not change the fact that the real So-Yong is clearly different from BH, which is also shown and underlined in the last episode. Some mannerisms switched over (she felt good while cursing) but nevertheless the personalities are still distinct and different. And BH´s personality was the main part of why the king felt attracted to her despite the circumstances apparently contradicting it (which turned out to be wrong anyway).
Another issue is, BH says to the cousin that if he had sincerely loved So-Yong, he should have noticed a clear change in her behavior and personality but he did not, and thus BH claims the cousin only loves the shell, and not what makes So-Yong.
The same can be said for the king then though, who definitely should notice the change in the queen after BH is gone, since it´s supposed to be real love between the king and queen, but such a scene never exists.

He does find out though, but the show does not reveal that he did find out until HJ confesses herself.

Depends on what you are looking for. The first episodes were more entertaining for me personally due to the incredibly funny portrayal of the queen, while the scheme plot line is more relevant in the latter episodes.

Everything posted here by anyone is based on opinion...

And i am saying it did not for me. Whenever the two main characters were shown, it was good to great, everything else for the most part not.

They gave too much importance to it though without executing it well, which i pointed out. The schemes had logical mistakes in them, characters were either made more intelligent or dumber based on the necessity of the story.

I see it as pretty tame.

It´s not just one genre though, if you only regard the comedy romance part of it, ok, i can agree, both the couple romance and comedy was spot on, but it also tries to do the usual court schemes and intricacies at least half the time, and with that it fails. Plus the ending regarding the couple has a fundamental flaw as many people pointed out already.
Most people tend to concentrate on what they liked (prime example CLOY) and just rate it based on that without looking at the negative things. But can´t only judge based on highs and ignore the lows.

And i don´t know about MDL being harsh in a particular way, have rather noticed the opposite.

So, just finished it, would give it a 7.5 probably, at best 8.
There is one main reason to watch this, and also the main reason i would still recommend it, and that´s Shin Hye Sun´s performance. I am not exaggerating, it´s probably in my top 10 drama performances i have ever watched, it was really perfect. The range from masculine mannerisms, to her switch to the dignified So-Yong, to the emotional scenes, it´s really a rare combination of a really interesting role and a perfect actress for it. So in that vein, yes, definitely recommendable, since such a performance is really rare.
The king and his actor was also pretty good, though still overshadowed by Hye-Sun.

Everything else is pretty common and has been done thousand times before, a lot of times better at that. The court shenenigans, the plotting and scheming, the old overacting actors and actresses, the bland secondary characters who more seem like plot devices rather than actual characters (especially the secondary romantic interests), pretty common K-Drama food. The schemes were not particularly intelligent, sometimes even stupid, so there is no reason to watch it for that. Plus there are several logical mistakes or at least questionable implications that the show simply glosses over to keep it lighthearted in the end, including but not exclusively the ending. Plus i think there is some missed potential as well that the "modern person travels back in time to court" trope offers but here it mostly remained unused.
The comedy in regards to So-Yong/Bang-Hwan was spot on, it really managed to walk the tight rope between being silly and funny without getting too silly, something that can´t be said for some other comedic scenes (the Royal Head Chef for example, or the naive kid from the Kim Clan as well).

So 9.0 is definitely overrated considering how great and much more intricately planned other dramas with such a rating are, but the performance of Shin Hye-Sun is 10/10.

Nope, you are completely right. A lot of things did not make sense logically or were too simplified like you said.

100% agree, the only exceptional thing in this drama was her acting, really great

Don´t let the rating keep you from watching this, another case where i really do not understand how people can rate such a movie like this. It´s basically a Korean Tarantino-style dark humor flick with great A-class actors.

The first paragraph is not criticism, i was just surprised since i think many drama viewers already know about the legend of Hong Gil Dong (basically Korean Robin Hood), it´s a warning for people who immediately expect him to be that since he clearly was not. He was someone who looked out for himself at first, than only for his family and friends and ignored any wrongdoing otherwise, until he finally grew into HGD, and him surviving basically mirrored that development.

I am talking about overacting of villains (anybody not called king and his mistress were really bad) plus like i said, many coincidences happening to drive the narrative that really stretched the suspense of disbelief.

If that does not apply to you, it´s a good thing, it did not for me though.

Well, i think the thing that happened in episode 15/16 really is, the least, controversial.

This was a pretty bad movie, the rating is too high.
Pretty nonsensical plot that makes you doubt the intelligence of the characters.
Besides the acting of the main character, which was arguably good, pretty clichéd and over the top acting, especially the old dudes, which is very out of the place. Really surprised with how many roles these guys get with that level of acting.

And the concept is failing on every level. It´s basically a futile attempt to spice up a very lackluster narrative that has been done thousand of times before, and done better before, so that it can pretend it did something new, while completely disregarding and disrespecting the source of that concept, quantum physics, since everything he said seemed like a poor attempt to draw parallels between certain events or feelings and actual aspects of QP, which, if you know even the basics, does not fit anyway.
I would expect to at least cover the basics if you want to incorporate something, but here that´s not the case. And i do get that the main character, who draws these supposed parallels, is not supposed to be educated and just took a philosophy out of something he casually read, but this does not excuse using such a concept, heck even naming the movie after it, and then hardly knowing something about it.

4/10.