This review may contain spoilers
Had potential but sadly writing is a mess
If I could I guess I would put it more in a 5.75 rating for me.
Things I liked about this drama:
- Acting
- Action scenes
- Cinematography (some truly beautiful landscapes/locations)
- Music
- Ambience
- Premise of the story on paper
Sadly all this kind of goes partially down the drain when the plot and its execution are like in here. Not sure what they were going for. I feel they had enough time to make it way more cohesive and developed. Sometimes I need to remind myself that many films manage to portray a cohesive plot and quite developed characters in way less time than many kdramas, what puts things into perspective every once in a while like in this case.
This is true in this drama considering it was slow at times, especially the first couple of episodes. When I say slow I mean meaningless nothingness or silence ambience scene that adds nothing to the plot, characters or ambience.
This drama was full of ups and downs for me, the first couple of episodes I found them a bit boring and dragged, then it became more interesting from episode 3 to 5 more or less when the Snow Man and the whole mystery of the disappearance of children is introduced, but then it's kind of left to the side for some back and forth plot in the middle and picked up again towards episode 8-10 to then have a quite messy and anti-climactic end in episode 11.
There are too many plotholes. At points I was like "dear Hongrang, who are you?" because at the end of the day it didn't matter, and I feel like I had to endure too much of that kid without any kind of reward in the end, especially for how obsessed FL was about it. I'll be harsh, but I think given the circumstances, we were parting from the baseline idea that given the amount of time it had been that he had disappeared he was dead, but I still expected some surprise that made it more interesting in at least the how he died. It's repeated multiple times of his potential link to the Snow man and the whole mystery but it meant nothing. This was anti-climactic. At one point towards the end I thought he would be one of the talisman guys with back tattoos, and to be honest that would have been quite interesting. Maybe I'm misremembering but ML's adoptive mother seemed to have details and knowledge about the kid that no one else had, so I thought this would pretty much mean he was still alive. At some point during one of the "ups" of the show I thought maybe they could even introduce him as the mastermind behind the plot against the Min household as well considering that detail. I feel now like they had multiple ideas and they just scrapped them all in the end to have a rushed and unsatisfactory end to the kid's story.
Who is the Snow Man? who knows. Who is running the household at the end of the show? Everyone is dead and the mother has gone back to her delusions. We're assuming is FL? Who knows. Why were there so many people on the side of what the painter was doing? he didn't even come across as especially powerful or skilled in combat himself, so why the following and devotion to his concept and orders? it wasn't too realistic to me, even given his power position.
As other people have said here too, the illness of ML makes no sense. Considering the substances he had been exposed to he would have already died time ago, but conveniently he only starts having symptoms after the romance plot. They even conveniently stop for a bit so he can carry out the last battles to then come back full force. Not a fan.
In the beginning I thought FL would be a bit more independent and strong-willed considering she had been looking for the brother and had people helping her and she showed a certain level of will and temper, but this is very quickly put to the side and she fully becomes damsel in distress and very dumb. Special mention to that moment she leaves the cave to look for him in the night after she had been injured with the poison. Sure, at least here they didn't do the cliché of having that moment as the scene where they're injured, taken back or made captives, but it's the sheer level of cliché dumbness that I'm very tired of seeing.
The motivations for the painter were ok, but very out of the blue, I feel like it would have been better to unfold the mystery over the episodes than having it all condensed. I liked the back tattoo story and I also liked the fact the show was bold enough to have the ML have the fertility tattoo. But also I have to say that for modern audiences as much as I understand the why considering the time and place, it's also no a big deal to me so it was difficult to connect to the expressions and emotions that tattoo was doing to the characters in the story, what I know it's a 'me' problem. Maybe some comment or story or explanation would have helped to bring me to their level of astonishment, but I also understand that this probably worked as intended for most Korean audiences. For me as it was, I personally thought it was a cool tattoo 😂 (maybe not one to be showing around in conservative places but you couldn't even see that much so honestly it was not that bad (maybe I've watched too many tattoo fixers)). But this also brings me to the fact that in all these years he could have covered it? I know that tattoos are seen pretty bad in many east Asian countries even nowadays and probably even more so back then, but if it was for the obscenities he could have covered it with just black ink. Better have a full black blotch in the back than the tattoo, it would have also helped him mentally and emotionally to not have the reminder of his torture so in the face (or rather in the face of others).
The SML... I mean, kudos to the actor, he did a very good job in portraying a very annoying man. I didn't like him from the start but as the show goes on I really was hoping he would die sooner than later. I don't like these type of second romantic interests that are very obsessed, he is a typical yandere and I'm not into the type. But I also despise when the FL just doesn't see anything of this ever, not even when the guy has crossed the line, because she's simply so emotional she can't think straight.
Not going to lie the dynamics of the household were confusing at times as well, at points I was a bit confused on who had done what, if it was the mother again, or the father the SML, or someone on the side of one of them or someone else.
The romance also suffers because of the plot execution and decisions. It's quite sudden and there are a couple of episodes in the middle where they don't even interact much. On the other hand, we can see him being interested in her and a bit more of him falling for her, but we see barely nothing from her side, and it's never truly tackled or shown her struggle, probably because it would be kind of problematic considering from her side she's half-half about if he's her brother. What brings me to the fact I think it would have been better, as it always is in these kind of situations, for her to have known earlier on, join him in the pursue of the painter for example, anything. That would also have allowed for them to get closer to one another in a more realistic way and it would have flowed better in my opinion. I don't think it was the worst per se, but it was not good either. I enjoyed their moments together mostly because Lee Jae Wook is beautiful to me and his character is the perfect hero type so there is not much to complain about in that respect (other than precisely that). But, I feel like he's not doing a character he hasn't done before and I prefer him in Alchemy of Souls for a fantasy period drama.
Overall I guess it's watchable for the things I said at the beginning of my review, but don't expect much from the plot. I enjoyed it mostly for the landscapes and scenery and the action scenes personally, but I wouldn't rewatch it.
Things I liked about this drama:
- Acting
- Action scenes
- Cinematography (some truly beautiful landscapes/locations)
- Music
- Ambience
- Premise of the story on paper
Sadly all this kind of goes partially down the drain when the plot and its execution are like in here. Not sure what they were going for. I feel they had enough time to make it way more cohesive and developed. Sometimes I need to remind myself that many films manage to portray a cohesive plot and quite developed characters in way less time than many kdramas, what puts things into perspective every once in a while like in this case.
This is true in this drama considering it was slow at times, especially the first couple of episodes. When I say slow I mean meaningless nothingness or silence ambience scene that adds nothing to the plot, characters or ambience.
This drama was full of ups and downs for me, the first couple of episodes I found them a bit boring and dragged, then it became more interesting from episode 3 to 5 more or less when the Snow Man and the whole mystery of the disappearance of children is introduced, but then it's kind of left to the side for some back and forth plot in the middle and picked up again towards episode 8-10 to then have a quite messy and anti-climactic end in episode 11.
There are too many plotholes. At points I was like "dear Hongrang, who are you?" because at the end of the day it didn't matter, and I feel like I had to endure too much of that kid without any kind of reward in the end, especially for how obsessed FL was about it. I'll be harsh, but I think given the circumstances, we were parting from the baseline idea that given the amount of time it had been that he had disappeared he was dead, but I still expected some surprise that made it more interesting in at least the how he died. It's repeated multiple times of his potential link to the Snow man and the whole mystery but it meant nothing. This was anti-climactic. At one point towards the end I thought he would be one of the talisman guys with back tattoos, and to be honest that would have been quite interesting. Maybe I'm misremembering but ML's adoptive mother seemed to have details and knowledge about the kid that no one else had, so I thought this would pretty much mean he was still alive. At some point during one of the "ups" of the show I thought maybe they could even introduce him as the mastermind behind the plot against the Min household as well considering that detail. I feel now like they had multiple ideas and they just scrapped them all in the end to have a rushed and unsatisfactory end to the kid's story.
Who is the Snow Man? who knows. Who is running the household at the end of the show? Everyone is dead and the mother has gone back to her delusions. We're assuming is FL? Who knows. Why were there so many people on the side of what the painter was doing? he didn't even come across as especially powerful or skilled in combat himself, so why the following and devotion to his concept and orders? it wasn't too realistic to me, even given his power position.
As other people have said here too, the illness of ML makes no sense. Considering the substances he had been exposed to he would have already died time ago, but conveniently he only starts having symptoms after the romance plot. They even conveniently stop for a bit so he can carry out the last battles to then come back full force. Not a fan.
In the beginning I thought FL would be a bit more independent and strong-willed considering she had been looking for the brother and had people helping her and she showed a certain level of will and temper, but this is very quickly put to the side and she fully becomes damsel in distress and very dumb. Special mention to that moment she leaves the cave to look for him in the night after she had been injured with the poison. Sure, at least here they didn't do the cliché of having that moment as the scene where they're injured, taken back or made captives, but it's the sheer level of cliché dumbness that I'm very tired of seeing.
The motivations for the painter were ok, but very out of the blue, I feel like it would have been better to unfold the mystery over the episodes than having it all condensed. I liked the back tattoo story and I also liked the fact the show was bold enough to have the ML have the fertility tattoo. But also I have to say that for modern audiences as much as I understand the why considering the time and place, it's also no a big deal to me so it was difficult to connect to the expressions and emotions that tattoo was doing to the characters in the story, what I know it's a 'me' problem. Maybe some comment or story or explanation would have helped to bring me to their level of astonishment, but I also understand that this probably worked as intended for most Korean audiences. For me as it was, I personally thought it was a cool tattoo 😂 (maybe not one to be showing around in conservative places but you couldn't even see that much so honestly it was not that bad (maybe I've watched too many tattoo fixers)). But this also brings me to the fact that in all these years he could have covered it? I know that tattoos are seen pretty bad in many east Asian countries even nowadays and probably even more so back then, but if it was for the obscenities he could have covered it with just black ink. Better have a full black blotch in the back than the tattoo, it would have also helped him mentally and emotionally to not have the reminder of his torture so in the face (or rather in the face of others).
The SML... I mean, kudos to the actor, he did a very good job in portraying a very annoying man. I didn't like him from the start but as the show goes on I really was hoping he would die sooner than later. I don't like these type of second romantic interests that are very obsessed, he is a typical yandere and I'm not into the type. But I also despise when the FL just doesn't see anything of this ever, not even when the guy has crossed the line, because she's simply so emotional she can't think straight.
Not going to lie the dynamics of the household were confusing at times as well, at points I was a bit confused on who had done what, if it was the mother again, or the father the SML, or someone on the side of one of them or someone else.
The romance also suffers because of the plot execution and decisions. It's quite sudden and there are a couple of episodes in the middle where they don't even interact much. On the other hand, we can see him being interested in her and a bit more of him falling for her, but we see barely nothing from her side, and it's never truly tackled or shown her struggle, probably because it would be kind of problematic considering from her side she's half-half about if he's her brother. What brings me to the fact I think it would have been better, as it always is in these kind of situations, for her to have known earlier on, join him in the pursue of the painter for example, anything. That would also have allowed for them to get closer to one another in a more realistic way and it would have flowed better in my opinion. I don't think it was the worst per se, but it was not good either. I enjoyed their moments together mostly because Lee Jae Wook is beautiful to me and his character is the perfect hero type so there is not much to complain about in that respect (other than precisely that). But, I feel like he's not doing a character he hasn't done before and I prefer him in Alchemy of Souls for a fantasy period drama.
Overall I guess it's watchable for the things I said at the beginning of my review, but don't expect much from the plot. I enjoyed it mostly for the landscapes and scenery and the action scenes personally, but I wouldn't rewatch it.
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