This review may contain spoilers
Sloppy ending and a weird way to reimagine a horrific period in Korean history
...Idk I really wanted to love this the way everyone else did, but I walked away a bit underwhelmed.
Let me start with the positives, because there are quite a few. Yoona was genuinely great, I just love watching her on screen and love that she is getting proper roles and is being taken seriously as an actor. She just has that effortless charm that makes everything more enjoyable. And I called a hit fo Lee Chae-min ever since Crash Course in Romance, so I’m very pleased to see him getting more recognition. He was really solid here too. I thought he did a great job shouldering a very solid lead, especially on such short notice due to him esentially replacing the original actor who was supposed to play the role.
I also really loved how they gave the editing a cooking show touch with recipes you could actually recreate. I thought the cooking itself was the main attraction.
The comedy at the beginning was so good. Like actually funny, not just "ig i should laugh" funny. Which is why it’s even more disappointing that they slowly let that element fade as the show went on. By the time the political conflict took center stage, I was already kind of checked out, it just wasn’t that compelling nor well written.
The leads had good chemistry, I’ll give them that. But the romance itself felt… undercooked. Like all the ingredients were there, but no one left it on the stove long enough. And then the ending?? SUCH a cop-out. It really felt like they backed themselves into a corner and just went “eh, good enough” instead of properly explaining things.
(MAJOR SPOILER) The whole situation with him being in Yoona's world fully as himself while everyone else is some version of reincarnated or altered selves?? Yeah… that needed way more thought and explanation. Did he also travel with the page? But the page was destroyed so how did that work? (END SPOILER)
Now another part that I absolutely hated was the casual reference to SA??? Why did the showrunners think to "reimagine" a true hated figure in actual Korean history?? Why are we redeeming and romanticizing someone who was terribly cruel to women? I think they could have just invented a fake character and gave him a similar backstory(and not as laced with SA!!??) for the initial misunderstandings to happen and it would have served the same purpose.
Also, small but persistent annoyance I had was how they kept marketing this as “Western food meets Joseon cuisine,” but let’s be real, it was just French food. French techniques, French presentation, French everything. Which is fine! Just… call it what it is. The “Western” umbrella felt a bit misleading when there was barely any range beyond that.
All that being said… I still had a good time after forcing myself to overlook the actual historical figure. At the end of the day, it’s pretty people on my screen and I can rarely say no to that.
Let me start with the positives, because there are quite a few. Yoona was genuinely great, I just love watching her on screen and love that she is getting proper roles and is being taken seriously as an actor. She just has that effortless charm that makes everything more enjoyable. And I called a hit fo Lee Chae-min ever since Crash Course in Romance, so I’m very pleased to see him getting more recognition. He was really solid here too. I thought he did a great job shouldering a very solid lead, especially on such short notice due to him esentially replacing the original actor who was supposed to play the role.
I also really loved how they gave the editing a cooking show touch with recipes you could actually recreate. I thought the cooking itself was the main attraction.
The comedy at the beginning was so good. Like actually funny, not just "ig i should laugh" funny. Which is why it’s even more disappointing that they slowly let that element fade as the show went on. By the time the political conflict took center stage, I was already kind of checked out, it just wasn’t that compelling nor well written.
The leads had good chemistry, I’ll give them that. But the romance itself felt… undercooked. Like all the ingredients were there, but no one left it on the stove long enough. And then the ending?? SUCH a cop-out. It really felt like they backed themselves into a corner and just went “eh, good enough” instead of properly explaining things.
(MAJOR SPOILER) The whole situation with him being in Yoona's world fully as himself while everyone else is some version of reincarnated or altered selves?? Yeah… that needed way more thought and explanation. Did he also travel with the page? But the page was destroyed so how did that work? (END SPOILER)
Now another part that I absolutely hated was the casual reference to SA??? Why did the showrunners think to "reimagine" a true hated figure in actual Korean history?? Why are we redeeming and romanticizing someone who was terribly cruel to women? I think they could have just invented a fake character and gave him a similar backstory(and not as laced with SA!!??) for the initial misunderstandings to happen and it would have served the same purpose.
Also, small but persistent annoyance I had was how they kept marketing this as “Western food meets Joseon cuisine,” but let’s be real, it was just French food. French techniques, French presentation, French everything. Which is fine! Just… call it what it is. The “Western” umbrella felt a bit misleading when there was barely any range beyond that.
All that being said… I still had a good time after forcing myself to overlook the actual historical figure. At the end of the day, it’s pretty people on my screen and I can rarely say no to that.
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