The story was not all fantastic, but as with all sageuks, the king and queen come to feature quite heavily in the show.
Cha Tae Hyun is great in this show, as usual. He is pretty hilarious as Jeon Woo Chi. Bong Gu steals the show as Jeon Woo Chi's hilarious sidekick. Unfortunately, UEE is very underused, being the second lead. The development of the villains as characters is also quite poor, but Lee Jin Hoon does a really good job with what he is given as the villain Kang Rim. Thankfully the story is kept moving along quite swiftly through various plot twists and plot devices.
On the sageuk front, this is not an excellent show, but as a lighthearted comedy with some royal intrigue that is not too addictive, I recommend this show.
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The show has two facets in my mind: the serious side, that's a story about the troubles our hero and Joseon face as they battle corruption and wizardry. And then there's the funny side, which is Cha Tae Hyun going around being hilarious. The funny side is brilliant, but the serious side is just so-so.
STORY: 6/10
The plot wasn't the show's strong point. At times it went around in circles a bit without much actual progress in any one direction. Later in the drama I felt like some episodes got too wrapped up in government affairs, forcing Woo-chi out of the spotlight temporarily, which was not something I enjoyed much. The show was at its best when Cha Tae-Hyun's characters were front and center.
Throughout the drama new wizardry rules were introduced whenever it was convenient. It felt a bit TOO convenient for a character to be near death... and then surprise, someone casually mentions a rule that affects how they can use their wizard powers, and thus the tables are turned or someone's plan is foiled. A bit too much of a deus ex machina for me. I wouldn't have been too bothered if it had only happened once, but it seemed to be a recurring issue.
Overall the plot wasn't horrible--the issues I had with it were always momentary and it kept a good pace most of the time. It could have been a lot better though.
ACTING + CHARACTERS: 7/10
There are a whole bunch of really, really awesome characters in this drama. Cha Tae Hyun's characters of course steal the show. Between his two characters, I honestly preferred Lee Chi (his alter ego)--his character was much more amusing in my opinion. Woo-chi was certainly funny as well, but at times he was playing the role of the serious and principled hero, which I didn't find quite so entertaining.
Bong Gu was a thoroughly wonderful side character. As were Hye Ryung, Chan Hwi, So Chil... Far too many great characters in this show to name them all. I would have liked it if we'd gotten a chance to see more of some of them, but nevertheless they were strong supporting characters.
Unfortunately some of the main characters I don't think were so great, Mu Yeon in particular. I have no complaints about Uee's acting, but I have no idea what the writers were thinking when it came to Mu Yeon. For the first half of the show she was mostly just unconscious--hard to develop a character much when she's asleep in half her scenes. When she's finally conscious, she just faded into the background and became more of a side character than anything. She had a few moments in the spotlight, but that's about it.
As for the bad guys, Ma Sook I also think could have been done better. At one point in the show we get some interesting insight into his motivation for doing evil stuff... but then it's pretty much never mentioned again. It could have been a really good way to give his character more depth, but instead they just tossed out a quick explanation and decided they were done with it. He then follows Mu Yeon's lead and fades into the background.
Kang Rim I found a more interesting bad guy in the beginning. He was doing evil stuff, but he still had traces of a conscience and and uncertainty in what he was doing. It made him a great character and even made me sympathize a bit with him. But then, God knows why, a switch is flipped halfway through and he becomes a one-dimensional bad guy that totally lacks the depth his character had in the beginning. How boring.
OVERALL: 7/10
One more thing that I find worth mentioning is the special effects. It's not something I really want to judge the show negatively for, but they were so bad that I almost stopped watching before I'd even finished the first episode. Thankfully I grew accustomed to them as the show went on and they stopped being so much of a distraction, but I wish they had prioritized the special effects more for a show that uses them so heavily.
Despite my criticisms of the show, it's still something I'd recommend watching if you're a fan of comedy and/or Cha Tae Hyun. The drama is mediocre in a number of respects, but it's sure as hell funny.
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If you like fantasy type saguek, this is pretty decent. there is no question that Cha Tae Hyun as Woo Chi made this very, very entertaining. I enjoyed his character, for the most part and he was very affective in portraying him. He did an excellent job in the fight sequences and it was obvious to me that he did most of his stunts so there wasn't any tricky camera action to camouflage a stunt person so I liked that especially.
Uee as My Yeon was decent, at best. I did not a problem with her acting, my problem was mostly how the writer wrote her character. There were times when Mu Yeon would do things contrary to what you, the viewer would want her to do but in the end; all was right with the world.
I found the romance between Woo Chi and Mu Yeon to be one step from boring. I wasn't vested in their relationship what so ever. When Mu Yeon was the bad Mu Yeon, she was infinitely more interesting.
The supporting cast, especially Hong Jong Hyun as Chan Whee and Jo Ha Rang as Gam Nae; the Royal Guard and Damo, theirs was the romance you wanted to see and was way better! They both did a great job for two actors so young.
The rest of the cast, especially Lee Hee Joon as the evil Kang Rim cannot be overlooked. Man, he played this role and you will definitely have a love/hate relationship with his character.
Again, the redemption theme throughout this really worked my nerve. The characters were so evil and killed so many innocent people, you just never felt, even at the end, that they got what they deserved.
Filming and the setting were great, as usual, and because the drama was filmed during the winter, I must give props to the actors and film crew for enduring that COLD!! Brrr!!!
Easy drama to watch but be prepared to yell and scream at the injustices. But without Cha Tae Hyun, this really wouldn't have been good.
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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?
This review may contain spoilers
I'm trying to figure out how to post this review without it being too long and giving away many spoilers so I'm going to try to do the best I can.I'm almost into my 3rd year of watching Korean dramas and will try to find any and every drama that has martial arts in it. This one does. I came to watch because of Cha Tae Hyun. I'm not too familiar with this actor but the two dramas I've seen him in led me to watch this. If anyone have read my reviews you will see I only pick dramas that have action in it. There are a few that don't have action but I'm a action fanatic none the less.
Because I've been watching Korean dramas for almost 3 years, this have a lot of actors that I recognized that have become my favorite actors. I can't name them all because I would have to copy and paste but do know there's about nine actors in this that are my favorite.
Now, to the story. I'm not much of a fantasy, historical, period piece type of watcher but the first episode reeled me in...a bit. It's about a girl of course which I steer clear from these type of dramas but again, it had fighting in it and I wanted to watch to see if I would stick it out.
The special effects were bad but you will get use to it and it begins to look normal at some point. The plot is about a wizard falling in love with a girl whom he and his best friend like but there's something of a betrayal occurs and revenge needs to be done and this is what happens throughout the series.
The main character for some odd reason have the life of a cat because he dies on several occasions but is somewhat resurrected each time he dies. The second main character have only one goal: kill his best friend whom he felt betrayed him.
The one thing that made me angry about this drama was how the evil deeds that were done by the bad guys were able to escape major punishment while innocent good people died.
I liked all of the characters except the king. They made this guy truly weak. He had no voice but the minister did. I didn't understand why the king didn't get rid of the bad guys. At one point he allowed the system to frame a innocent person and signed some type of paper that allowed him to be beheaded. His judgement was so bad I understood why the bad guys wanted to get rid of him.
There were plots in this drama that made me wonder why it didn't end when it should've but when you have 24 episodes you gotta make subjects last.
There's more I would like to talk about but this is already long enough. I give the last episode a thumbs up and a thumbs down because some things were addressed quickly while other things dragged on. I'm unfamiliar with Korean period pieces and really isn't into that type of genre but if another drama comes out that's similar to this, I would give it a chance and watch it.
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