Should have been called: Romance of the Female General.
Lazy storytelling that prioritised cheap, tropey romance over creating a good story and character development.
The first episode was choppy and poorly put together. The backstory of the female lead is crucial to the rest of her character's motivation and actions, and yet, they chose to gloss over it like an afterthought. Instead, the next dozen episodes were devoted to endless scenes aimed at selling the romance. Worse, they chose to do this by sacrificing logic and falling back on the most overused tropes in drama land.
The female lead was trying to pass as a man; she should be cautious and vigilant around the male lead and try to keep her distance from him. Yet, the script had her acting coquetishly, falling and clutching him and other ridiculousness. Are they so lacking in imagination that they couldn't write female-male romance in any other way except to fall back on the same old cutesy, girlish characterisation when it doesn't even make sense for the character and situation? I like romance. I also like tropes. However, it should not come at the expense of logic or characters and should be used sparingly for maximum effect.
The rest of the plot points are more of an afterthought, to serve the romance rather than the other way around. The result is that moments of emotional highlight came across as unearned because they were barely set up for the audience to feel the emotional weight of the scenes. The drama also suffered from the "tell, instead of show" mistake, overutilizing voice-over to explain characters' thoughts and actions rather than just allowing the behaviour to speak for itself. The writing shoehorned in themes of female empowerment with preachy speech and clunky scenes that again felt unearned because they were, again, poorly set up and relied on "tell, not show". This is a shame, because I can see the potential in this story and the female lead to speak well on this theme, if they had cared to write and develop it properly.
The moments of spark in this drama just emphasised how far short it falls from what it could have been.
Watch it if you want romance. But nothing else is to be taken seriously because even the people making the drama didn't take it seriously.
The first episode was choppy and poorly put together. The backstory of the female lead is crucial to the rest of her character's motivation and actions, and yet, they chose to gloss over it like an afterthought. Instead, the next dozen episodes were devoted to endless scenes aimed at selling the romance. Worse, they chose to do this by sacrificing logic and falling back on the most overused tropes in drama land.
The female lead was trying to pass as a man; she should be cautious and vigilant around the male lead and try to keep her distance from him. Yet, the script had her acting coquetishly, falling and clutching him and other ridiculousness. Are they so lacking in imagination that they couldn't write female-male romance in any other way except to fall back on the same old cutesy, girlish characterisation when it doesn't even make sense for the character and situation? I like romance. I also like tropes. However, it should not come at the expense of logic or characters and should be used sparingly for maximum effect.
The rest of the plot points are more of an afterthought, to serve the romance rather than the other way around. The result is that moments of emotional highlight came across as unearned because they were barely set up for the audience to feel the emotional weight of the scenes. The drama also suffered from the "tell, instead of show" mistake, overutilizing voice-over to explain characters' thoughts and actions rather than just allowing the behaviour to speak for itself. The writing shoehorned in themes of female empowerment with preachy speech and clunky scenes that again felt unearned because they were, again, poorly set up and relied on "tell, not show". This is a shame, because I can see the potential in this story and the female lead to speak well on this theme, if they had cared to write and develop it properly.
The moments of spark in this drama just emphasised how far short it falls from what it could have been.
Watch it if you want romance. But nothing else is to be taken seriously because even the people making the drama didn't take it seriously.
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