kojique

He certainly practiced hard for the fighting choreography. He probably has the largest amount of fight scenes among all the leads.

Who Rules the World, Ancient Love Poetry, and Blue Whisper are all good. Long Ballad (not wuxia) is good too if you want a more political, slow-burn romance

As a person who mainly watches wuxia and xianxia, this is so true! I am immune now to fillers LOL

Can't wait for the original Mudeok (Buyeon) to return! I wanna see how the plot would unfold if that would happen.

I dropped the drama around episode 8 because it's just getting boring tbh. It feels like the writer dumbed down everyone except the MC. Does it get any better for the succeeding eps?

Dang the audience ratings doubled again!

From 0.9% to almost 10%, that's quite an accomplishment. So happy for the whole production team!

Can't concentrate every time Seo Yul is on the screen. He is just so pretty WTF???

Bye

Yang Yang in that loose hairstyle will be the death of me. >.<

Well, it would not be logical to make him volunteer in SK, since the trope is to make him go away from her for a year. Also, SK has one of the highest volunteer per capita in Africa according to UN (together with Japan, and UK), so it would not be weird to send him there right? I agree though that portrayal is overexaggerated with the music and all ... but the harsh climate-driven rural areas in Africa does not sway too far away from the 'poor' image that is being portrayed in the drama.

The rating of this drama is currently skyrocketing in SK! This probably would become the most watched cable drama in the first half of the year.

Unexpectedly loved the first episodes! Hope this keeps up

The most disappointing happy ending I've watched. Still rated it 10/10 though just so it won't go spiraling down in ratings cause I know many will rate this lower lol.

So sad that it's going on a free fall right now in Korean TV ratings. I mean, it's not that bad, definitely above average for me. Maybe it's just a bit too slow and overstretched for some.

Yes Tilan existed before. Her role + general tang's role will be big at the upcomming episodes (if they will continue to follow the novel)

FZ simply does not 'care' about anyone except for the emperor. He easily abandoned Zhouying when he left for the steppe. When HS suspects that FZ raised Zhouying and Haishi together knowing that they will fight against each other soon, he did not say anything. FZ also did not clear the suspicion of HS that he is the cause of Zheliu's demise. All FZ did was only motivated to help the emperor and the country and not for anyone. I don't think he really loved HS, but some may say otherwise (it's all about individual interpretation I guess. But he somewhat still cared for HS, that's for sure.)

Basically, the emperor wants to die so bad but he can't since he doesn't want his best friend to die. There is a scene on the line in the latter part of the novel taht says (I forgot the exact words but this is how it goes) "How I wish we could have been born as an ordinary male and female in the countryside, in that way we would be happier, in that way we would still be together." The author denies that they have romantic attraction towards each other, even though there are a lot of lines and scenes that depicts otherwise. On the other hand, Haishi and the Emperor's relationship is kinda weird. It is as if they are competing for Fang Zhu at first lol. But at the mid to late part of the novel, they became pretty intimate. Haishi would go on to express his thoughts to the emperor, cry on his chest, and have some very intimate scenes together. I would say, in the whole novel, Haishi was more open to the emperor than on any other character. It's technically a relationship formed because they are both so broken hearted and they could only seek refuge between each other.

Tilan existed in the novel. But he did not end up with the emperor.

I'm hoping they would follow the rest of the novel (so far they are following it, except for some minor details). The darkness revolving the storyline is a key point on how greatly made the novel was. The Chinese fans also has the same sentiment for this, so I really hope they will follow the novel. I'm worried that they will change it since the brutality and abuse scenes in the drama were a bit toned down as compared to the novel counterpart where there is an explicit depiction of those things (maybe it's just because of censorship idk).

Props to the writers and director for not changing a lot (or anything at all) from the novel. The dialogues, the settings, just everything, (even the very subtle actions of Yu To, im surprised really!!)! Loving the drama so far,