I know this is a sequel to SFD but is this good as Six Flying Dragons?
This was first, SFD is a prequel. There isn't a huge amount of continuity, just some shared fictional characters (as well as historical figures obviously).
Not very. Superficially both are about corruption and greed involving a wealthy family and a brilliant lawyer, but that's really it as far as similarity, the main character's plot is nothing like MF. The larger themes they focus on are pretty different.
They try to have this 'gotcha!' moment at the end where they suddenly suggest maybe he did love her, but that's stupid. There was no development of an actual relationship between them at all, he was consistently uncomfortable with her and dismissive of her advances until the storm scene where he suddenly and spectacularly gives in to them in a moment of lust. Which came more or less out of nowhere, because although he's obviously going through a lot of turmoil about his life and identity, it's not like he's sexually frustrated because we've just seen him be intimate with his wife. There's no justification for this radical lapse in judgement, it's a huge leap. And after that, he goes back to desperately trying to shut her down without hurting her feelings.
Before he wouldn't be firm in his rejection because he didn't take her actions seriously, now he's trapped himself into needing to appease her so she won't tell anyone what he's done. He's a weak person surrounded by more dominant personalities (notice he is the only man in the main cast, even the baby is a girl; what is this trying to say? not sure), but this certainly doesn't excuse his failure to be the adult either by definitively drawing a boundary about her inappropriate behaviour before it escalated so much or, bare minimum, admitting to taking advantage of her once he did and resigning. The fact he does none of this and does nothing to help a teenager who clearly needs intervention doesn't suggest he's in love with her at all. He can't deal with confrontation and caves to what the other person wants in every stand off.
He's never emotionally engaged or torn. His level of concern and tenderness for her is just normal human concern. The reasonable reading of the ending is just that he's traumatised by being unable to save her from falling and the guilt of having driven her to that by making her believe there could be something between them. But the film is definitely trying to imply his tears are the answer to her question and it's ridiculous. Not a single moment of the whole story justifies that and given how the rest of the plot played out it feels like the most singularly misplaced, unearned romanticism I've ever seen. And I am always on 'team romanticism', usually. It has to be pretty incongruous for me to reject it outright.
Dropped after episode 5. The guy is plain abusive. This controlling behaviour is not romantic, and should not…
He's a rapey asshole! I really wanted to give it a chance because I LOVE the heroine and I love contract marriage, but there is nothing acceptable about any of his behaviour. They were playing it as cute when he was being horrible to her. He's just awful, no redeeming qualities.
I've only seen SoGC, but there's no indication in that show of how old the characters are supposed to be and it doesn't concern itself much with historical accuracy, so I don't think it matters that the cast is a bit older than the historical figures. The characters are consistently written as established adults who are reasonably mature and it never occurred to me to ever think any of them were 'too old' for the parts they were playing. If it not not incongruous, it's not a problem. Sure, they don't look 21, but why should they have to. The leads can pass for late twenties easily, and since there's a five year time skip, that seems a totally reasonable age for them to be.
There's more than enough dramas casting 22 year-olds as psychiatrists and detectives and giving them truly implausible amounts of backstory. Obsessing about appearance is already widely detrimental to storytelling in live action. I'd rather watch better, more experienced actors playing a bit younger than suddenly pretend we care about realism in a show where a totally unconvincing disguise is a major plot element for nearly half the runtime. Shin Yool and Wang So are both called on to have big range and lot of gravitas; that's a pretty rare quality in brand new actors.
The story is very thin and the pacing is pretty uneven, but it's worth it for Jang Hyuk's action scenes. Phenomenal fight work, beautifully shot. Nothing much going on as far as characterisation or thematic depth, but if you want a fucking great sword fight or four, it's got that.
This is old, but for the sake of anyone else reading: the end is a complete bloodbath where almost all of the…
It's not history, they were fictional characters. The king is the only lead character who was historical (you'll notice he survives). I was expecting good writing, and 'lol' they couldn't manage that. Having characters die for no reason and with no catharsis is shitty storytelling. What was the point of the main character in life or death? There wasn't one, he's pointless, his whole arc becomes irrelevant and then he turns up to get killed in the most contrived way possible. I didn't say they all had to live happily ever after, I said their sad endings weren't earned and weren't satisfying.
But if your most profound insight is 'lol people die irl' then maybe explaining that stories aren't real life and should have purpose is a waste of my time.
Kindly tell me what was the relations btw kang pil joo/ jang eun cheon & jang mal ran... Was she his mother?
She was his father's wife, but they are not related by blood at all. He is the love child his father had before marrying Mal Ran for business reasons. Mal Ran tried to have him and his mother murdered, but only his younger brother was actually killed.
Before he wouldn't be firm in his rejection because he didn't take her actions seriously, now he's trapped himself into needing to appease her so she won't tell anyone what he's done. He's a weak person surrounded by more dominant personalities (notice he is the only man in the main cast, even the baby is a girl; what is this trying to say? not sure), but this certainly doesn't excuse his failure to be the adult either by definitively drawing a boundary about her inappropriate behaviour before it escalated so much or, bare minimum, admitting to taking advantage of her once he did and resigning. The fact he does none of this and does nothing to help a teenager who clearly needs intervention doesn't suggest he's in love with her at all. He can't deal with confrontation and caves to what the other person wants in every stand off.
He's never emotionally engaged or torn. His level of concern and tenderness for her is just normal human concern. The reasonable reading of the ending is just that he's traumatised by being unable to save her from falling and the guilt of having driven her to that by making her believe there could be something between them. But the film is definitely trying to imply his tears are the answer to her question and it's ridiculous. Not a single moment of the whole story justifies that and given how the rest of the plot played out it feels like the most singularly misplaced, unearned romanticism I've ever seen. And I am always on 'team romanticism', usually. It has to be pretty incongruous for me to reject it outright.
There's more than enough dramas casting 22 year-olds as psychiatrists and detectives and giving them truly implausible amounts of backstory. Obsessing about appearance is already widely detrimental to storytelling in live action. I'd rather watch better, more experienced actors playing a bit younger than suddenly pretend we care about realism in a show where a totally unconvincing disguise is a major plot element for nearly half the runtime. Shin Yool and Wang So are both called on to have big range and lot of gravitas; that's a pretty rare quality in brand new actors.
Also, surprisingly happy ending.
But if your most profound insight is 'lol people die irl' then maybe explaining that stories aren't real life and should have purpose is a waste of my time.