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Lonesome Dove

Wales, UK

Lonesome Dove

Wales, UK
The Great King, Sejong korean drama review
Completed
The Great King, Sejong
0 people found this review helpful
by Lonesome Dove
Feb 14, 2023
86 of 86 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 9.0
Story 10.0
Acting/Cast 10.0
Music 6.0
Rewatch Value 7.0
This review may contain spoilers

Overall, highly recommended.

First, about the music: 86 Episodes and only great two songs to take away from it? Not good enough. Admittedly, the two songs are wonderful - just wish there had been more of the same quality; suitable for replay.

That said, I can't understate how important this story is to watch - regardless its execution. The story is well executed overall, but it's unfortunate that its focus was almost exclusively on weapons and agricultural inventions that caused conflict with the great Ming. I would also have liked to see Sejong writing the books he wrote; writing (and/or collaborating on) the songs he wrote; or at least a few nods toward his other achievements that combined to make him truly Great. It's a shame the creation-of -hangeul part of the story was left until nearly the end, but I don't think the importance of its creation was glossed over as a result. It was clearly the crowning achievement.

Personally, I think it was a good call to leave interactions with concubines out of the story, since there was so much more substantive historical content to represent.

True to character issues: A bright and brilliant as Sejong clearly was - how did it take him until 3 episodes before the end of the story to figure out that Choi Manli - and his minions - were mostly just acting on petty greed by the prospect of ordinary people having skills they wanted to own for themselves. We all knew that very soon after the idea of a new writing system was introduced. Surely, Sejong would have discussed this with Manli and discovered that sooner. Poetic license, I guess.

The Choi Manli objection storyline was overplayed, and could have been kept to 3 episodes; time which could have gone to filling out Sejong's character to include the writing and music composition.

Still - it's an important watch for anyone who is interested in Korean History - and I still highly recommend it to everyone!
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