6
River Where the Stars Fizzle Away
The story suffered from erratic pacing, cramming too many plots that made it hard keep any interesting narrative. The characters were a simulated circus clown that kept making foolish moves intentionally at every turn. Might explains why it's 20 episodes. The childish love square was another contributor in that regard. Na In Woo's portrayal felt strained, his expressions, intonations, inflections, and emotions seemingly forced to fit the character mold. Comparing it to the original version, it seems there was a notable disparity. Checked a couple of scenes side by side, there's a clear difference in the delivery, as big as expressing an entirely different emotion of the exact same scene. I wonder what was the director even doing? The lack of chemistry with his colleagues was obvious too. He was called to fill in a role on a quick notice with so little to work with in the first place. All of that didn't compare to the abysmal last episode, and even worse, the detestable last scene.Was this review helpful to you?
Unfortunate letdown
The drama had so much potential, but never managed to break through. The pacing was inconsistent for its elongated cool-down periods and its redundant flimsy 24 episodes. One moment you're going at a steady pace and the next, you're like, "Come on, let's get moving!". These long breaks in between didn't even serve a meaningful purpose like to develop the characters or build up for what's next. It should've been cut down to 10-12 episodes while cutting off the nonsense and focusing on the politics. The story slowed down and became less interesting in the 2nd half when the prince went into the palace. On another note, Go Ah Ra, she didn't fit her role at all, too fragile and soft looking. Strangely, her character (Yeo Ji) got demoted to a guest character in the 2nd half, little to no contribution or screen time. If I have to take a guess, the character didn't really fit the narrative to begin with, so it was hard to keep her around in the 2nd half, which also explains the attempted romance, the writers were desperate.Was this review helpful to you?
Queen: War of Love
The drama felt like it was held together with duct tape. There was this missing spark to make the twins plot work. How are we supposed to buy into this twin dynamic when there's no connection?Somehow, the dead twin had a better chemistry and her replacement twin never worked despite being the same actress. The romance as well suffered because of that, incompatible by design. Out of all the ideas that can be spun from a twins plot, they kept it very simple while doing the bare minimum to fill the episodes. Which also resulted in long draggy uneventful events. On another note, out of all of Jin Se Yeon historical roles, this is her weakest performance yet.Was this review helpful to you?
Lawless flower
It's safe to say I hit a wall around episode 9-10 of that drama. Everything felt like a lullaby—monotone and sleep-inducing. Later on, things didn't improve much, but I guess I sort of got used to the dreariness. However, that last episode was a total distaste. It crammed in so much last-minute chaos and then ended with an unsatisfying departure that seemed like an afterthought. There were two things I hated in particular about this drama that were too glaring to ignore and subsequently detracted a lot from the drama, not that it was gonna be something spectacular without them anyway. The gags/comedic-relief moments accompanied by the unpleasant comedy cue made going through the episodes just a tad bit tougher than it already was. The other reason was Sung Ji Hun in general, the man sucks on a cosmic level, both the character and the actor. It would have been infinitely better to completely strip the drama from this deplorable attempted romance. Any love triangle that involves Choi Tae Joon is usually an unquestionable bad time right out of the gate.Was this review helpful to you?
A good half drama ½
I found the earlier parts to be quite good with a reasonable pace. However, 25 episodes later things started to change in a weird direction and the initial spark faded away. Yet, the reality was a letdown. Jeong Do Jeon, the pivotal figure, felt like a distant acquaintance rather than someone I could understand. His struggles and triumphs failed to resonate the longer the drama kept going, leaving me disconnected from the heart of the story by the end of the drama. The ending was very typical with these kind of shows, everyone lose their marbles abruptly so they can jump to the historical ending, if there's any. Jo Jae Hyun and Yoo Dong Geun did a great job as leads, they simply carried the drama with their performance. Even their character was methodical and well written. One thing I wanted to see is having Do Jun's wife playing a bigger role in supporting her husband. I really appreciate their casting choices. Going for a mature looking cast was the correct choice. New to semi-new generation cast with soft looks in their mid 30s would have been disastrous.Was this review helpful to you?
Mask On
A snoozefest by definition. It felt like an endless, meandering road leading absolutely nowhere, like a book with no chapters, just pages and pages of the same old, same old. This what an AI is capable of generating when giving it the prompts "power, struggle, palace" in no particular order. It would have been less tiresome if it were only half its length. They were so desperate to prolong the drama that they added a war in the middle despite being outside the theme and scoop of this drama. The writing was abysmal and shameful, they made the characters like clowns. Although we were introduced to face reading at the start but that played little to no importance later on and was rarely used outside some fillers.Was this review helpful to you?
Political intervention
A boring start, it certainly took some time to get going. Even then, it wasn't a smooth sailing after that. Whenever the drama managed to pick up a good momentum, they shove in a massive intervention with their palace politics. Disrupting the flow and the main attraction of the drama. Like pulling the sheets away on a cold winter night. Which is why this was its biggest problem, being wrapped around politics instead of giving it its independence. This was easier for the writers so they don't have to go into too much details and technicalities, instead auto generate some mindless palace drama to fill the gaps. I found the ending to be quite distasteful to this man's journey.Was this review helpful to you?
I'm your father
It's the usually daily format so temper your expectations accordingly before proceeding any further. Both Seo Hyun Jin and her character contributed a lot to the drama to keep it decent enough. Her interactions were the most memorable. On the other hand, the writer robbed off Seo Woo from making her a decent character, writing wise. Meanwhile, Jo Hyun Jae was as static as always throughout his entire career, the man would rather die than changing his expression. There's no justification for the long runtime other than they were contractually obligated to follow the template dedicated to this time slot. At least give the high moments more time to sink in. Especially the ending, there was no need to make it this short, they had the time to take a more relaxed approach.Was this review helpful to you?
The circus
It's a villainess drama which we don't get to see a lot of. Knowing Kdrama, they generally give the same immature treatment for 99% of all villains ever. Even when we have a villain lead like this drama, they don't break the rule to have a better portrayal of a good villain character. Instead we get a silly dumbed down version of a baddie. You may as well add squeaky sound effects and air it on Sunday morning cartoons. To boil it down, you'll be watching 50-episodes of this king and concubine being clowns until they reach their demise because the drama ran out of episodes. I was hoping for a smart cunning play but we got a reckless uncalculated short-sighted arrogant one. Also, the drama had this habit of re-using the same evil tricks over and over instead of coming with something creative. Setting up the same traps is a case in point. On the bright side, Kim Hyun Joo was keeping the drama afloat.Was this review helpful to you?
A broken pot
This drama didn't deserve to be longer than 10-12 episodes at best for the amount of material it had to offer. Quickly enough, they deviated from pottery making in favor of typical bland drama antics. Pottery making was its selling point but we barely got a slight tiny glimpse of that field. They kept all details and technicalities to minimum, how do they expect the viewer to care? I guess having a love square is more important to them. Looking at the cast it seemed promising but it turned out to be quite disappointing. Nonetheless, did we really need that awful nasty 17-years timeskip before the end credits? Massive yikes!!Was this review helpful to you?
DOA
The late-2000s/early-2010s extreme edgy vibes were too damn strong with this one, from the awful OST and soundfx to the comical acrobatics and the pretentious attitude. Moreover, an obvious poor job from the directing department worth a slap on the wrist for their empty shots, lousy compositions, hasty transitions and un-cinematic pretentious edits with no purpose trying to mimic cinema as if they were following a template. This is not how you create a slow-burn. The leads story, their entangled relationship and their journey to fall in love all were the furthest thing from being natural and smooth. If the edgy writing full of cringe was playing against them then the directing was the cherry on top to cross the point of no return.Was this review helpful to you?
RUN!
The kid was pulling this drama together from the very beginning. While the chase was interesting to follow at first but soon enough it became tiring and boring and a change of scenery was due at that point which took longer than expected to get to. The drama had some nice side characters which didn't become overbearing, namely So Baek and her father which provided a little distraction from the long wait for the story to move. There were a lot of elements I didn't like in this drama but I probably will remember this drama for the kid. However, there was one particular major issue the drama suffered from and that is the godly impervious plot armor eliminating any sense of danger or stakes driving the drama in an extremely predictable bland route.Was this review helpful to you?
I had a dream...
Casually confirming for nth time how unappealing Choi Soo Jong is in historical dramas as always since the start of his career. Just from reading the synopsis you may expect a big historical drama with big sets, big battles and big production, but this drama was embarrassingly scuffed with minimal efforts after the initial batch of episodes. As always with these type of shows, they blow their budget early on on flashy scenes then left wondering how to produce the rest. You may expect inconsistencies along the way, like having two or more camera angles of the same scene with different color grading and quality. I suppose an intern was editing that day. Anyway, the drama itself was underwhelming and almost nothing about it stand out, not even the cast nor their performance. All of their dramatic creative liberties proved to be unsuccessful and dull, as expected. A lot of petty fights that are always annoying to watch and lasting too long. At least the drama served as an example for how not to tell history in an entertainment medium.Was this review helpful to you?
Power down!
Reminds me of some cheap fantasy anime. Executed as a one and equally as garbage. Terrible writing from the get go. Poor storytelling and structure. Painfully underutilizing the generous long runtime. Filled with irrelevant nonsense that doesn't contribute to anything, not even for a side gag or filler. While the cast may not have been terrible, but they were definitely careless and under-performing. It's not like that had much to work with in the first place. The director doesn't seem to be helping in that regard either. I don't think this drama would have worked even if it was just a 2-hours movie.Was this review helpful to you?
A medical scam
Reminds me of some cheap isekai anime. Executed as a one and equally as garbage. Terrible writing from the get go. Poor storytelling and structure. Painfully underutilizing the generous long runtime. Filled with irrelevant nonsense that doesn't contribute to anything, not even for a side gag or filler. While the cast may not have been terrible, but they were definitely careless and under-performing. It's not like they had much to work with in the first place. The director doesn't seem to be helping in that regard either. I don't think this drama would have worked even if it was just a 2-hours movie.Was this review helpful to you?
