alon-luna

ok ty- i asked because ive been seeing some out of context subtitles in some
of the shows ive been watching, so i just wanted to check

plus i have a paid subscription, im not watching this illegally or from any of the unofficial sites or anything.

agreed about the fantasy tag. this is also my reason for not being able to watch weightlifting fairy kimbok joo (even if i really want to and like the leads) i just cant believe the physical part or something.

i havent seen the other scenes you mentioned yet, just this one and the MLs in the end (or second to the ending episode) - which i disliked even more. i commented them bcoz i saw the clips somewhere in youtube or instagram and was a bit surprised, plus i already has poj in my tbw list.

anyway, thanks for taking my criticism so well, even of you dont agree you were pretty civil about it

its really not a big deal anyway, just an opposing opinion about a part of a series.

wait i thought she was asked to go there by his assistant
when he bumped into her…

ill have to
watch it again

some of the song/ost lyrics are weird and out of context- one song actually said “cross your legs for 3 years”.., or something like that..,

can anyone tell me if wen yifan really told
sangyan in episode 4 that “his zipper was open and we were all talking about it”? it just struck me as really out of context.

why was he in that hotel and not his private residence when he was
sick? why was she also in that very same place?

wait, does anyone actually expect top tier acting from this? it just strikes me as a typical fairy tale idol drama- like princess hours or even the heirs, etc?

This isn’t a xianxia or superhero or magical
girl movie, that’s why i find her supposedly being stronger than him unbelievable- i never said i expected her to not put up a good fight or show any skills or even not be able to win the fight. I just wanted to see it believably executed, that is all.

The scene where he strikes her elbow looks just like that to me- it does not look like she blocked it completely with her knife and even if she did- obviously some part of her arm was hit with a force that sent her flying. she was even holding her arm after that…that should have rendered one arm injured or at least less fluid. even if he couldn’t see her when she jumped on top of him it still doesn’t explain why it looked like
he was having a hard time getting her off with her tiny arms pressing down on him

I don’t know what to expect, but when i was watching it- they made it look like that rabbit juddy hopps from zootopia able to defeat that carabao boss of hers but even that rabbit had to use strategy in a very short ring fight with a rhino (a long drawn out fight would have ended differently) that’s the reality.

i know people like this drama, and that’s fine- im not saying i wont like it for other reasons…i just don’t like this part of it cuz it’s not just a romance, it’s also half a war drama so i have these expectations…and they are using fight techniques that require brute strength - the jumping in the air with the hammers was taken from Thor or even Sif, but chanyu really does not have the physique to pull it off…now if she fought differently* or employed different techniques or skills, it could have worked. im not trying to rain on anyone’s parade here- we will just have to agree to disagree.

I think she fights just as aggressively as he does (even on the defensive) so I’m not really buying how he’d burn out more or faster than her…but let’s just agree to disagree then…

i will have to find other things to enjoy about this drama; tbh the fight scenes wouldn’t have bugged me
so much if the drama wasn’t half a war movie, so my expectations are much higher for the fight scenes than if it were a different genre.

she kicks him with both feet using her whole body weight and he steps back a few feet - believable because she used her whole body…but this is a much bigger guy so it makes sense that it wouldn’t send him flying that much, just a few feet back.

He strikes her using that warhammer on her elbow with enough force to send her flying several feet away…but her elbow and ability to swing is not affected. she gets up like it was nothing…not believable

she uses that fire trick and while it affects one eye, it does not completely blind him. she then jumps on him, trying to use both* arms with knives and her body weight to keep him down and he’s grunting in difficulty- not believable, wasnt it already established that the force of her weight is not enough to move him that much? this is going against the previous scene where she at least had the momentum/force of the flying two leg kick in the air.

she cuts him in the arm which makes him bleed ( the show does not specify that she cut his artery open) it just shows she hurt his arm. not believable… again why is it that her arm was not affected when he used the full force of his hammer earlier, but her knife slashing is effective?

end scene- she hits him using the war hammer, which sends him flying- the same amount if distance he sent her flying earlier that did bit affect her… not believable because again, they are not the same weight, he could send her flying several feet but what exactly can make her do the same? and even if it happened, how come he couldn’t get back up like she did? his arm?

thats what i meant by the choreography being selective.

i only talked about endurance because the poster* above* mentioned it, that it was a test of her endurance, not physical strength! i didn’t see endurance, i saw plot armor and this isn’t supposed to be a magical girl show

the problem is that you’re (not you specifically but the writers) are trying to convince me that this TINY girl has this 300 kg strength…and heres the thing, even if i could accept that- theres nothing that can convince me that the other guy does not have the strength of 600kg to counteract that…he’s supposed to be dumb but that one fight didn’t showcase how this was used against him.

I hate how ugly the male lead looks in his no-holds-barred duel with the other assassin in episode 8. Lighting effects are also so bad - they don’t highlight his handsome features to his advantage…

He’s bleeding and covered up in too much blood. Weak and too exaggerated….i mean, he was only wounded once or twice. They don’t know how to use the proper lighting and angles, and his armor looks ugly and cheap,

He’s a general so he should have better armor. And a cape that flows with the wind. His hair should also be fixed and not out of place in a fight.

in fact, they shouldn’t have had such a long, drawn out bloody fight between the two killers…they should have just shown a few gravity defying slo mo jumps, maybe just a scratch or two. They can convey how challenging the fight was for him with just a few shots.His ponytail should come undone at the end (in front of the female lead) and there should be a nice windy effect that makes it flow along with his cape.

And most importantly, the lighting should be fixed so we can see everything in glorious detail.

From the start, he hits her full force on her elbow with that huge hammer… but it does no* damage* to her and she can swing just fine.

The fire did affect his other eye, but look what happens after that…Instead of using his lack of vision to her advantage (maybe kill him guerilla style) they chose to have her jump on him and press down on him with both her knives- this move does not require him to have both eyes…its a move where logically, the stronger one would have the advantage- but look, he’s basically struggling and grunting against her - someone with not even half his weight…when he should have easily been able to throw her off. I don’t think experience in killing pigs would necessarily translate to being able to kill a seasoned fighter that easily.

Later, she swings at him with her ax across his chest which he* does feel (you see, when he swings at her with his ax and she goes flying, she gets back up and feels just fine, despite coughing up blood for dramatic effect, i guess) and then she slashes at him several times on his arms…which again does* affect him…this is one of the closing parts of the fight.

I think you and i saw the same fight scene but interpreted it very differently.

Unfortunately, i could not appreciate it as much as i wanted to , because what i saw was how picky the fight choreographer was when choosing which blows affected which fighter.

He can strike that huge thing but it won’t affect her arms, but when she does it, it suddenly becomes realistic. She wont feel a full strike to her elbows and being thrown about like a ragdoll but he* will* feel* the fire and her ax strikes and her knife blows…

People who criticize the fight scenes are not disregarding the ‘style’ or emotional impact the writers are trying to convey…nor do we expect hyper realism in a drama. Obviously a lot of these cdramas have these dramatic angles and fancy moves. You talk about endurance and getting back up every time she receives a blow… but does that not apply to her opponent* as well?

Is he not supposed to also have some level of formidable endurance (not to mention far more experience than her in the battlefield?) so he is just strong but somehow lacks the same level of endurance that she has? is he supposed to wear down just like that? strength but none of her magical endurance?

That’s just my point…the fight does not convey ‘proof of growth’ or even that the opponent underestimated her…it just shows that she has magical endurance plot armor, which for some reason, the other, more experienced fighter does not. That was all that was needed to mentally make him lose his composure? I guess im supposed to cheer for her because she’s a girl, but that’s not how it works for me- i like to see a bit of COMMON SENSE in it, regardless if the one i am rooting for is male or female that is all.

Even her hair stays intact while shes tossed around. .. and then then when male lead comes in and carries her off hair comes undone so they can have this hair commercial moment

despite my criticism of her fight scenes…they actually look
even more convincing than his, which is ironic because he’s supposed to be trained in combat…but it felt like they were so focused on making him look good (which he does already)…in his fight scene in episode 39
they even tried to make his flowing
cape look pretty instead of focusing on other details

I respect ur opinion; I guess it just would have been more believable for me if she were trained as a skilled fighter who had to use her speed and smarts (to make up for the lack of strength- kind of like how IP man does it or the ladies in crouching tiger because they are physically smaller (im not expecting such sophisticated fight scenes btw- just something that uses a similar logic)…but I saw none of that in her duel…this Shi Hu guy should have had more experience and strength than her, should have posed a bigger challenge at the least…but no matter how he sent her flying, she didnt even look ruffled- hair all fixed with that one scratch across her face. I don’t think the her fire trick caused him to lose as he still seemed fine after that…it really looked like they showed him suddenly losing in the latter half of the duel with no convincing set up. They were both just striking each other with hammers ( something that doesn’t require any martial art related skill but does put the stronger opponent at an advantage) and then he suddenly started losing in the last part…

Overall, Chanyu seems like a pretty likable character and is a strong female lead in other ways, but I didnt like her fight scenes- her victories in this area seemed hollow to me…i feel like I was supposed to root for her as an underdog but couldn’t, because she suddenly had this plot armor that made her win in an unbelievable way.

I’m going to watch this since she’s a generally a likeable character…and probably for the romance instead.

in POJ, is the male character somehow diminished? i mean, do the writers make him flat or less capable to make the FL shine?

I had issues with Prisoner of Beauty- while i liked it overall, they dumbed down the ML so that the FL could show her smarts. This wouldn’t have been a problem
for me if he was really not supposed to be a capable warrior but the story emphasized that he was suppose to be very good at what he did, but they didnt show it.

i hope they didn’t do the same
thing here

agree that she’s too thin here…that said, what i like about min young is that she’s one of the few actresses that admitted she had surgery- i heard somewhere that a lot of actors/actesses have the surgery but they never admit

also, i saw some of her bts (after the drama was released) and she looks healthier there

overall good, but not great…i kind of wish the killer turned out to be more surprising…although in crime noir, the killers are usually obvious. i thought every actor/actress played their part (what they were given) well.

what do u mean? what did this character say to make u uncomfortable?