Hwarang (2016)

Hwarang began at the top of my list for most anticipated drama. It boasted a star studded cast as well as the fact that it was pre-filmed which seemed to promise a quality show that would become "the next big hit". As it turns out, the drama became a pitiful case of lost potential.

The story was lacking, to say the least. It didn't seem as if there really was one sometimes to be honest. The episodes were mainly made up of small conflicts that didn't seem of much importance to the central story at all. Even the the climax of the main story was resolved rather anticlimactically in the last episode. I often found myself wondering what the heck happened after an episode, not because I was shocked by the events, but because nothing really did happen. The story trudged along at a horse and buggy speed and it seemed that our lead female Ah Ro was just along for the ride. She didn't seem to have any purpose in the story, but to give our leads some angsty tension (not that it was needed because they had enough of that on their own). The main couple had no chemistry whatsoever and I even found myself bored at their scenes. And lets not even begin talking about the plot holes. There were many and they were extremely noticeable.

The acting was mediocre. This is an average amongst this large cast; some were better than others. Going back to the issue with the main couple, I believe it wasn't totally the fault of the cast. Park Seo Joon had amazing chemistry in his last drama with Hwang Jung Eum and Go Ara did well in Reply 1994. While they are not exceptional actors, they have shown good acting skills, and even they could not salvage how stale the plot was. Minho's acting became a lot more natural though and Taehyung did well with his emotional scenes.

The OST itself is pretty good and some of the songs were actually quite memorable. I did notice though that the music editing was not very good throughout the entire drama. It cut off weirdly and some of the music didn't even fit the scene, which is disappointing coming from a show that was prefilmed and edited.

Overall, it was only slightly enjoyable to watch so I will not be rewatching. I would like to give some honorable mentions though to my otp Ban Ryu and Soo Yeon, Sung Dong Il the designated ahjussi of kdramas, and Park Hyung Sik's face (it's beautiful :')).

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Honestly felt more like a kpop fangirls wet dream rather than an historical coming of age drama. Which is a pity, because the actors did really well, but the writing was horrible.

I honestly don't know what the writers were thinking because the characters were interesting, but not developed enough to be interesting or matter and the acting wasn't that bad, Go-Ara is a brilliant actress but her character was written so badly she couldn't show her skills. Park Seo-Joon did a brilliant job with what he was given, although he wasn't as badly written.

The worst character was by far Han-sung. His character was so interesting - A fun-loving young man who loved his peasant brother dearly, opposed his families views, and had the burden of being the sole heir. THE POTENTIAL FOR DEVELOPMENT WAS IMMENSE. But he got no development and was shown perhaps once every other episode. He was a big part of the shift in direction towards the end but his dynamic with various characters wasn't explored so it was more of a fact stated than actors showing this - again, writers fault, not the actors.

Some characters had interesting histories but weren't explored at all - mainly the Hwarang who didn't know who his father was.

The romance was just thrown in their for the sake of showing some kissing. Park Seo-Joon and Go-Ara did well enough to show that their characters cared for each other, but story wise, the romance wasn't needed. I cared much more for the dynamic between Hyung-Sik and Seo-Joon.

The plot had potential, but showrunners focused more on Go-Ara walking around depressed than moving the plot forward.

Overall, the acting wasn't bad at all but the showrunners left no room for the actors to, well, act. The characters were so 2D that it was like asking an actor to act as a lifeless corpse.

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