Sibellin

Overall Feeling: First of all, I loved this drama. It was more like an experience than a viewing. The acting was so convincing and the character development of the 2 main leads was so unique compared to most C-Dramas. After a while, typical character archetypes in C-Dramas can become a bit tiring but this was the first one for a while that gave me something a little deeper, and it felt so refreshing. A lot of people have called it slow but I really disagree. For me, a slow drama tends to be one that doesn't really have enough legitimate plot to fill all the episodes, so they pad everything out with side character filler, meaning the plot doesn't move forward. TFJ wasn't like that. I think what people consider to be slow is actually just the writers taking time to follow emotional development, not just plot. So if you prefer shows that are very event driven you might be put off by the deep, character focused scenes. But for me I love seeing characters have time to feel, so I was gripped pretty much every episode, which is rare for me because there is usually a point when I start to hit the skip button in your average 40 episode drama.

Romance: This is one of the most beautiful and tragic love stories I've seen for a while BUT if you like your typical steamy/touch her and you die/save the damsel in distress type romance dramas then this is not that. This is the relationship between 2 deeply broken people who are learning to find safety in one another. They don't go overboard with the passion but it felt much more realistic than many. Would I have enjoyed a bit more romance towards the end? Yes. Was I still satisfied with how realistically their love developed? Also yes.

Plot Holes: So I don't know exactly what was going on with some of the episodes. Around halfway through it felt like they shot too much footage and had to be very harsh with the cuts. Especially with the supporting story lines, they felt cut short or forgotten at times. This gave more focus to the leads' story development but lost some of the details from the overall story. Main example that everyone has mentioned is the disappearing princess. Knowing that there are often controversies during shoots in China (often leading to shows getting cut-short or actors being replaced or killed off) I wonder if something happened because the actress gets stabbed and is literally GONE for the rest of the show. Would love to know if there is a reason behind these holes beyond running out of time with the 40 episode max rule? This also meant that some of the side characters that I was generally interested in got sudden and unsatisfying endings. I don't say this often, because 40 episodes is usually too many for most writers, but I think this one could have added 2 more just to wrap everyone's stories up nicely.