This review may contain spoilers
If you like cooking and food this is for you
If you like food and cooking this is for you. This is primarily a cooking based drama.
If you like slice of life you'll probably enjoy this more than if you're looking for the following:
If you want mostly palace politics this might disappoint you.
If you want a very fleshed out romance story with a good progression this might also disappoint you.
I feel like a lot of people got disappointed by the fact this is not more romance heavy (and I completely understand those that got lied by Netflix's tagging system, it wouldn't be the first time) or that it doesn't follow the typical saeguk format.
Personally I'm not that into saeguk to be annoyed by the way the plot flows here, and while it's true the romance is patchy and segmented, overall in the end it worked decently, not perfectly but good enough and I was generally satisfied with the ending. Probably it helped that I like slice of life, comedy, cooking, food and romance, so unless they were going to completely butcher the story it was going to be hard for me to dislike it.
To be honest for me the food and the expressions when eating were already a big part of what made me enjoy this drama. The scenes when they put the food in their mouths is wholesome pop-culture poetry. Seriously, if you enjoy cooking and food shots this is the drama for you, and the scenes of them eating it and transcending to another plane of existence were so funny.
I guess this drama had a lot of elements I've always enjoyed in stories, like main character being spirited away to a world of fantasy or somewhere else in time where she has to find a way to survive.
I overall also enjoyed all the characters here, some where a bit more cliché, others were stereotypical, there were certain discrepancies between ML himself and what he was known as, and at some points the FL seemed a bit inconsistent personality wise (between strong willed and damsel in distress), but I give them a pass because generally everything fit quite well for me, and it entertained me without anyone in particular being annoying or getting on my nerves.
Special mention to the character of court lady Choi Mal Im, she says barely anything in the whole drama but her expressions when tasting the king's food alone where precious.
Things I didn't enjoy as much and reason it's not a 10 for me:
- First and foremost the accents of the Ming envoy, it was grating to the ears and it was bad taste, especially when it's a few episodes. It was simply bad. I'm sure they could have taken Chinese actors for the roles, or dub them, or simply don't make it an envoy from the Ming and make them Korean guests of wherever.
- It leaves you with a bad taste that this king is based on a real historical figure and knowing what he did. Why didn't they just make up a king? Is it because FL needs to know about him? It's fantasy so they could just as well had done it anyway using made up names and history. I don't understand the reasoning but it's not very good taste. I know personally that if they had done the same with a king from my country's past I would be pretty pissed. It's almost excusing what he and those around him did. I'm very deliberately choosing to think of this as pure fantasy since despite this I enjoyed it, but ughhhhh.
- As mentioned the romance is a bit more background here and while it's generally ok-ish, it could have been better if they had shown more of a progression, especially when it comes to FL. I think we generally have it with ML and it was cute to see how he was falling for her but on her part it was quite sudden and it didn't flow quite well, what is a shame.
- It's a secret how the king ended up in the future and obviously we can guess it has to do with that page that was torn from the book, but also I want to know exactly? It felt a bit lazy and overall the ending felt rushed.
- The Ming envoy episodes should have been like one, two maximum.
Nitpicking:
- Not a fan of having the same actors in the future like "oh they might be descendants", like sure, it's fantasy but it always makes my eyes roll.
- There are certain plotholes or parts that could have been explained or shown better, and they would have had the time if they had made the Ming ordeal shorter, for starters.
- I thought maybe the king would appear in the future in her room in front of her or something in those lines and I would have preferred it. He knows nothing about the future, how does he even know what is fashionable at the time and how did he get the clothes anyway, how did he find her, how did he get money... Too many questions.
- The wound FL gets at the back from the uncle with the sword makes no sense. It was very superficial. Does anyone die from a slash in the back? From infection or depth of the wound sure, but that looked so superficial it was hard to believe. Not the first time I've seen it in a drama and it always makes my eyes roll as well.
The ending was generally predictable for me from the moment it was established that the king died/disappeared in the past, it was easy enough to conclude that he would end in the future. This didn't diminish the enjoyment for me as I preferred that kind of ending to the alternative of having a tragic ending, I have enough of that in real life.
As a conclusion, unless you like cooking and food you might not enjoy this, the rest of plot points take a step back for the main topic. I think that while it follows a bit certain clichés, tropes and character's personalities that we have seen before and are not new by any means, the cooking aspect and the food as well as the way is presented give it enough of a twist for me to find this entertaining and overall very enjoyable, with enough of a progression and a decent ending.
If you like slice of life you'll probably enjoy this more than if you're looking for the following:
If you want mostly palace politics this might disappoint you.
If you want a very fleshed out romance story with a good progression this might also disappoint you.
I feel like a lot of people got disappointed by the fact this is not more romance heavy (and I completely understand those that got lied by Netflix's tagging system, it wouldn't be the first time) or that it doesn't follow the typical saeguk format.
Personally I'm not that into saeguk to be annoyed by the way the plot flows here, and while it's true the romance is patchy and segmented, overall in the end it worked decently, not perfectly but good enough and I was generally satisfied with the ending. Probably it helped that I like slice of life, comedy, cooking, food and romance, so unless they were going to completely butcher the story it was going to be hard for me to dislike it.
To be honest for me the food and the expressions when eating were already a big part of what made me enjoy this drama. The scenes when they put the food in their mouths is wholesome pop-culture poetry. Seriously, if you enjoy cooking and food shots this is the drama for you, and the scenes of them eating it and transcending to another plane of existence were so funny.
I guess this drama had a lot of elements I've always enjoyed in stories, like main character being spirited away to a world of fantasy or somewhere else in time where she has to find a way to survive.
I overall also enjoyed all the characters here, some where a bit more cliché, others were stereotypical, there were certain discrepancies between ML himself and what he was known as, and at some points the FL seemed a bit inconsistent personality wise (between strong willed and damsel in distress), but I give them a pass because generally everything fit quite well for me, and it entertained me without anyone in particular being annoying or getting on my nerves.
Special mention to the character of court lady Choi Mal Im, she says barely anything in the whole drama but her expressions when tasting the king's food alone where precious.
Things I didn't enjoy as much and reason it's not a 10 for me:
- First and foremost the accents of the Ming envoy, it was grating to the ears and it was bad taste, especially when it's a few episodes. It was simply bad. I'm sure they could have taken Chinese actors for the roles, or dub them, or simply don't make it an envoy from the Ming and make them Korean guests of wherever.
- It leaves you with a bad taste that this king is based on a real historical figure and knowing what he did. Why didn't they just make up a king? Is it because FL needs to know about him? It's fantasy so they could just as well had done it anyway using made up names and history. I don't understand the reasoning but it's not very good taste. I know personally that if they had done the same with a king from my country's past I would be pretty pissed. It's almost excusing what he and those around him did. I'm very deliberately choosing to think of this as pure fantasy since despite this I enjoyed it, but ughhhhh.
- As mentioned the romance is a bit more background here and while it's generally ok-ish, it could have been better if they had shown more of a progression, especially when it comes to FL. I think we generally have it with ML and it was cute to see how he was falling for her but on her part it was quite sudden and it didn't flow quite well, what is a shame.
- It's a secret how the king ended up in the future and obviously we can guess it has to do with that page that was torn from the book, but also I want to know exactly? It felt a bit lazy and overall the ending felt rushed.
- The Ming envoy episodes should have been like one, two maximum.
Nitpicking:
- Not a fan of having the same actors in the future like "oh they might be descendants", like sure, it's fantasy but it always makes my eyes roll.
- There are certain plotholes or parts that could have been explained or shown better, and they would have had the time if they had made the Ming ordeal shorter, for starters.
- I thought maybe the king would appear in the future in her room in front of her or something in those lines and I would have preferred it. He knows nothing about the future, how does he even know what is fashionable at the time and how did he get the clothes anyway, how did he find her, how did he get money... Too many questions.
- The wound FL gets at the back from the uncle with the sword makes no sense. It was very superficial. Does anyone die from a slash in the back? From infection or depth of the wound sure, but that looked so superficial it was hard to believe. Not the first time I've seen it in a drama and it always makes my eyes roll as well.
The ending was generally predictable for me from the moment it was established that the king died/disappeared in the past, it was easy enough to conclude that he would end in the future. This didn't diminish the enjoyment for me as I preferred that kind of ending to the alternative of having a tragic ending, I have enough of that in real life.
As a conclusion, unless you like cooking and food you might not enjoy this, the rest of plot points take a step back for the main topic. I think that while it follows a bit certain clichés, tropes and character's personalities that we have seen before and are not new by any means, the cooking aspect and the food as well as the way is presented give it enough of a twist for me to find this entertaining and overall very enjoyable, with enough of a progression and a decent ending.
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