4
This review may contain spoilers
To protect is to . . .
Sageuk dramas can be very formulaic. This one seemed to be poured from the same mould at first glance. Palace intrigue, evil minister and a tragic love story. Check, check and check!
If this drama has a theme then it is the protection of . . things. From the whole kingdom down to individuals. You will hear the word "protect" used more and more as the show progresses. It is the overarching motivation of so many characters. There are painful choices and sacrifices. This resulted in lots of unhappy and vengeful people. Heavy plots abound.
It lightened up a bit when we meet the FL. She is casted as a resourceful traveling merchant. She is all singing and all dancing. It can be a little uncanny when she is up to her trademark mischief, my mind kept overlaying this role with her modern ones. It does settles down after awhile.
On the other hand, the ML, as the Crown Prince, is the polar opposite. He is pretending to be a frivolous dandy while dying slowly inside. He is a patient man, he has been plotting his revenge for 5 years. He thought he has lost the love of his life and then found her again. It gets complicated . . very complicated.
So far so sageuk. If I'm honest, the first half of the show is largely on rails. A grab bag of tropey subplots. It is fun to watch our leads' fall in love all over again. The plot bounces around the usual push-pull and dating shenanigans. Then it got magical, literally.
If the typical palace intrigue is not complicated enough, the writer-nim inserted the OG God of Love into the plot. This is a double edged sword. It allows the drama to deploy fantastical devices like soul swapping. It also provides the show with the ultimate get-out-of-jail card. This can makes it hard to take the serious storyline seriously. The tone can shift with little warning, for better or for worse.
As expected, the storyline is very busy by mid show. Most drama will be happy to run with this all the way to the finale. Our writer-nim said nix to that. He gave us the ultimate twist that started decades ago and technically tied the whole shebang together. I'm not going to spoil it for you. Whether you rejoice or facepalm after the revelation is up to you. I won't judge. ;)
Regardless, the chemistry of our leads is good. They have some very emotional scenes. As usual, the romantic plots have to fight with the angsty ones for attention. When the ML soul swapped with the FL, he has to overlay her mannerisms onto his. He got good at this towards the end. It can be quite uncanny. On the other hand, the FL is less successful. I suppose acting like a macho Crown Prince largely comes down to the swagger. ;)
OBTW, there is a 2CP and they are quite nice, but their romance is very fraught. The 2FL has an exquisite visual. Dare I call it elvish?
The show has issues though. There is a lot of expositions when all the key characters are trying to get on the same page. It can get a bit draggy when the viewer is already up to date. The show rewind everything to the beginning so that we are in no doubt what happened. Of course, this led to another round of expositions between characters. In that sense, the world seems to shrink rather than expands.
While this series is hardly a comedy, they did try to inject some humour. It is a bit of hit and miss . . at least they tried. Most support characters are from central casting. None of these are hanging offences, but not helpful either.
Another thing that k-dramas don't do well is epic scenes. For instance, the antagonist stormed the palace with his private army and it was about 20 men all told. He was supposed to be building this "army" for years. It wasn't badly done but it is hardly epic when compared to similar c-dramas.
Overall, it is not a bad series. The cast made it watchable. The fantasy element gave it a fresh coat of paint. Your mileage will differ depending on your expectations. I do find the OST excellent though, especially the theme song which is in the Pansori style. It is an instant earworm.
This series is decent, the romance is sweet. It just needed something extra to elevates it to classic status. I won't be rewatching it any time soon. The last EP is an easily digestible chunk of fan service so that is an option. Peace.
If this drama has a theme then it is the protection of . . things. From the whole kingdom down to individuals. You will hear the word "protect" used more and more as the show progresses. It is the overarching motivation of so many characters. There are painful choices and sacrifices. This resulted in lots of unhappy and vengeful people. Heavy plots abound.
It lightened up a bit when we meet the FL. She is casted as a resourceful traveling merchant. She is all singing and all dancing. It can be a little uncanny when she is up to her trademark mischief, my mind kept overlaying this role with her modern ones. It does settles down after awhile.
On the other hand, the ML, as the Crown Prince, is the polar opposite. He is pretending to be a frivolous dandy while dying slowly inside. He is a patient man, he has been plotting his revenge for 5 years. He thought he has lost the love of his life and then found her again. It gets complicated . . very complicated.
So far so sageuk. If I'm honest, the first half of the show is largely on rails. A grab bag of tropey subplots. It is fun to watch our leads' fall in love all over again. The plot bounces around the usual push-pull and dating shenanigans. Then it got magical, literally.
If the typical palace intrigue is not complicated enough, the writer-nim inserted the OG God of Love into the plot. This is a double edged sword. It allows the drama to deploy fantastical devices like soul swapping. It also provides the show with the ultimate get-out-of-jail card. This can makes it hard to take the serious storyline seriously. The tone can shift with little warning, for better or for worse.
As expected, the storyline is very busy by mid show. Most drama will be happy to run with this all the way to the finale. Our writer-nim said nix to that. He gave us the ultimate twist that started decades ago and technically tied the whole shebang together. I'm not going to spoil it for you. Whether you rejoice or facepalm after the revelation is up to you. I won't judge. ;)
Regardless, the chemistry of our leads is good. They have some very emotional scenes. As usual, the romantic plots have to fight with the angsty ones for attention. When the ML soul swapped with the FL, he has to overlay her mannerisms onto his. He got good at this towards the end. It can be quite uncanny. On the other hand, the FL is less successful. I suppose acting like a macho Crown Prince largely comes down to the swagger. ;)
OBTW, there is a 2CP and they are quite nice, but their romance is very fraught. The 2FL has an exquisite visual. Dare I call it elvish?
The show has issues though. There is a lot of expositions when all the key characters are trying to get on the same page. It can get a bit draggy when the viewer is already up to date. The show rewind everything to the beginning so that we are in no doubt what happened. Of course, this led to another round of expositions between characters. In that sense, the world seems to shrink rather than expands.
While this series is hardly a comedy, they did try to inject some humour. It is a bit of hit and miss . . at least they tried. Most support characters are from central casting. None of these are hanging offences, but not helpful either.
Another thing that k-dramas don't do well is epic scenes. For instance, the antagonist stormed the palace with his private army and it was about 20 men all told. He was supposed to be building this "army" for years. It wasn't badly done but it is hardly epic when compared to similar c-dramas.
Overall, it is not a bad series. The cast made it watchable. The fantasy element gave it a fresh coat of paint. Your mileage will differ depending on your expectations. I do find the OST excellent though, especially the theme song which is in the Pansori style. It is an instant earworm.
This series is decent, the romance is sweet. It just needed something extra to elevates it to classic status. I won't be rewatching it any time soon. The last EP is an easily digestible chunk of fan service so that is an option. Peace.
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