Hime

The subbed episode was only posted yesterday, like I said in my previous comment, they were uploading on Saturdays.

The subs are coming from YouTube, the channel is listed below the summary.

They upload 3 episodes every Saturday and because of that we have to wait an entire week for the next batch of 3 episodes, even if only 1 episode is left.

They could have added the last episode together with episodes 13, 14 and 15 when they uploaded last Saturday, but oh well, tomorrow is Saturday so they will air the last episode tomorrow.

Wait, people are bodyshaming hyungsik??? I would take him any day. What are people standards these days, plastic dolls, toothpicks? Hyungshik is handsome and most people hating on him probably are not half as handsome as him.

I think you misunderstood him/her. When he said "why would you" he meant, why would you be hated for stating your opinion. I also misunderstood it at first until I read your comment again and saw that his "why would you" was a direct reply to your "i might be hated for this".

So all is good. ^^

Not sure about the actress they chose to play the FL. In the 2nd episode she literally had to close her eyes forcefully to make the tears drop, like a child would do when fake crying. I feel like for this role they should have chosen a more experienced actress.

The plot itself also has not managed to grab me yet, I think it is the pace and direction that is off, not necessarily that the story is not interesting. I will give it a chance and watch next week’s episodes because so far I am not impressed.

True. I have watched dramas that had high ratings that I thought were just average and some that had ratings around 7 that were much better.
I usually trust the comments more than the ratings. I read the ones that go deep into the good and bad of the drama without giving spoilers, and decide for myself if it’s worth watching or not.

I knew it when the things that usually happen at the end of a drama (marriage and pregnancy) happened so early on that they would have to make a mess of the plot to keep the story going for so long.

Communication and trust are very important in a relationship and us viewers definitely expect to see that between the main leads. When you do the opposite, you can expect to get some angry viewers as a result.

I liked the kid tho.

Nice. Just remember that the pace is not as fast as the usual k-dramas. And as a sageuk it can have some frustrating and sad events. But if you watch for the female lead and the romance, I think you will like it.

I know this is based on a true story and real people have flaws but I really did not like the male lead. I did not like his personality much to begin with but later on he kept doing and saying things that in his own words made him a scum.

The female lead did not do much for the story either, Idk, I just could not root for them. Their love story did not make me smile, and I am someone who tends to have a silly smile on my face when I am watching a good romantic scene. I just could not feel their love or chemistry or anything really.

Does not have much of a plot, has a few clichés and it feels like some things were edited out. There were at least 2 episodes that I started and thought I had skipped an episode by mistake because it started with a random scene that had no connection to the previous episode.

If you have nothing else to watch, maybe watch for the romance and all the fluff, tho I personally think there are better fluffy romantic dramas out there.

I definitely agree with you when you say that actions are worth more than words. These days you will see people that throw "I love you" at anyone, even when two-timing, while there are people that do not often say things like that but prove every day through their actions how much they care.

I think this drama was well-written and had great character development, which is why I was a little more mad than usual to find out they cut so many scenes, mainly romantic scenes between the main leads. I wanted to see more of them. The ending scene they removed also made the ending feel a little abrupt, but oh well, I should be used to this by now. It is not the first time a Chinese drama edits out a bunch of scenes because of censorship. :(

All those moments were probably what saved the romance between the main leads. I just don’t understand why they left some kiss scenes and removed other. The person deciding which scenes to cut must have been under the influence or something. XD

I don’t mind subtlety, but people lying down holding hands and hugging together, even back then, did not equal being a couple. There were playboys back then too. If a man gets all touchy but never actually says "I like you", especially back then, I would start questioning things. Later on he proves with his actions that he truly loves her, but it is not like they removed his confession because they wanted to make the whole thing more subtle, it was probably just the typical Chinese censorship at play.

So, my point is not that the drama suddenly became bad because they removed the male lead’s confession, but that it made no sense for them to do so as the plot and character development would have benefited from that scene being there.

It is like you went out to eat and they served you dessert but out of nowhere took away your plate without even letting you have a bite. Sure, if you did not know they had desserts in the first place you would not be as mad, at most you would be wondering what happened to dessert, since a restaurant is supposed to have them.

You were the person who did not know about dessert, while most people here knew about it and were mad. I was the one who also did not know like you but was wondering why they did not serve dessert and later found out they did have dessert but just did not bother to ask me if I wanted it.

Don’t know if this explanation makes much sense. It does to me. ^^'

I am not saying there were not enough scenes where they showed their affection. I meant that there should be a clear distinction between when they liked each other and when they became an actual couple. Just like people who are dating do not get married until one of them says "hey, let’s get married".

In the real world a lot of misunderstandings tend to happen when things are not made clear. Like one thinking they are a couple and the other thinking they are just "getting to know each other".

The drama did not stop being good because they removed that scene, but it definitely made it less clear when and how they became a couple rather than just 2 people with feelings for each other.

I watched it 4 years ago, but from my comment I can tell there were no kisses between the main leads and the second couples had obvious fake kisses. Channel 3 back then rarely had real kisses between the actors, it was all the camera angle.

Yes. I also knew about it from the Bible. I was replying to your first comment. I knew you knew about it, just was not sure you knew the reason behind it. My bad. ^^'

Like I said, this is a drama from 2013. Back then people had more patience when watching a drama. A lot of dramas were way over 16 episodes (which is the common number today, with even some having 12 episodes).
What migth seem to you like a slow plot today, was considered a plot with a regular pace back then. When I watched, I skipped a few scenes here and there but I though that overall the pace it had was needed to develop the story properly. The focus of the drama was showing the female lead's journey to becoming Empress Ki so the plot needed to be "slow".
I have watched kdramas with 16, even 12 episodes that felt much slower, essentially because there was not much to the plot.

Also, I did not mean the drama was not interesting before ep 30, just that after that is when the plot progresses faster and there are more things going on.

We also constantly change the way we view dramas as we watch more and more dramas. Maybe you came across this drama too late. If you had watched it a few years ago you might have not dropped it.

I know I have tried re-watching dramas I watched back in 2010 and thought "wow, this is so boring, how did I like this back then,?". Then I remember back then I had other standards.

Watching a drama episode by episode or binge-watching can also make you feel differently about the drama. That is why all over this site you have people who watched a drama every week and found it entertaining while some people tried to binge-watch it and ended up dropping it. There are many factors that influence our opinion about a certain drama.

So in conclusion, this drama is NOT slow. You found it slow, I found it to have more or less a proper pace, and some people even wanted a few more episodes. It is all relative. And that is the beauty of it. Different people like different things at different times.

"no expectations, no disappointment"
Can’t say you are wrong about that.

I found out about that scene because I felt there was something missing. Suddenly their relatioship seemed to have moved forward for no apparent reason. Then I read a comment about it and found out they actually removed the scene where the male lead confessed his feelings and they had their first kiss. For me that seems like a scene that is pretty important to explain how and when they got together. By removing it, they made it seem like they suddenly started acting like a couple out of nowhere. I know their feelings were pretty obvious, but voicing them out or having a kiss was necessary for them to transition to a couple. And that was removed from the drama for no logical reason, making the story less consistent.

I know it might sound weird to us, but in the past that was done as a way to protect the woman. A widow had a really hard time back then. Today women can get a job, but back then the husband was the one providing for her. So by marrying the brother of the dead husband, she would have someone to support her.
I am sure some of the things we consider normal today would also make the people who lived in the past go "ewww". ^^'

In a mistery or thriller drama yes, it would be ok and maybe even make it more interesting. But not in this drama. I can ignore some things like small plot holes and little details, but we are talking about entire scenes that were removed that were needed, like the male lead confessing his feelings for her and their first kiss. Anyway, I am glad you were able to ignore these things and fully enjoy the drama. I wish I could have done the same.