1
This review may contain spoilers
Another grossly overrated one
Unfortunately it's all rather dull. Yet another one of those "reincarnation" tropey dramas, even though they've dressed it around FL witnessing a bad alternative future by reading a book.
It's mostly about FL's domestic family squabbles, with her cartoonishly evil step-mother and her brother trying to make FL's life shit again either by killing her, trying to marry her off like a commodity to whomever is the most profitable for the family, or impeding her business. Even though FL succeeded in accumulating wealth and connections to be more independent in her current life, she's still just a woman bound by rules and family obligations of that era.
But the drama still drills the main feminist idea in every episode to state that if only women had more rights, were taken more seriously and families were less controlling over their heirs, then everything'd be rosy and peachy. It kinda did ring true in some cases here, but some characters were simply evil bishes and there's nothing you can really do about it.
Parallel to that, we have yet another typical baby boy general who, like FL, also has a shitty family and so he went to the army to find his father figure in his uncle. But just like in the bad future, he failed to save his boring ass general uncle from a conspiracy plot. He's trying to get to the bottom of it, but it's all very dull and frustrating on purpose. It's of course yet another high ranking official with unlimited power at the court who's either corrupt or jelly, or both. And since FL's evil uncle is in cohoots with whomever is responsible, ML and his dumb soldiers for the longest time are sus of her, even though she always tries to help him, since she knows his future as well.
Oh, and the leads were called "fated" by the autistic monk/scholar who gave FL the magic book in the bad future, so of course you gotta believe it. He's also in the know in the current life to help her out (or does he?). If your eyes weren't rolling before, they should at this.
The plot later moves to the palace affairs, but same ridiculous drama and family squabbles are happening there as well.
There are also some very questionable things this drama does for drama's sake. For example, early in the drama, ML and his soldiers barging into a random mansion to get shelter for the night while secretly carrying his disgraced uncle's child. For the mansion dwellers to not blab about it, they plotted to kill about a hundred people there, FL included, and thought it justified. That's the hero we have here.
Or ML's dumb uncle getting accused of all the random bad things at court without any evidence, but then being brutally killed before arriving to stand trial before the Emperor. Instead of investigating the matter, the Emperor imprisoned ML for not being polite enough when he came in grief demanding answers.
The drama also has too many side characters that don't contribute much to the plot and could have been combined into fewer, more prominent characters to make them memorable. The bad guys are also so obviously evil, you can just tell who's the bad guy by their acting. Everybody's wearing a disgusting hypocrite mask, everybody's greedy after money, power and status and are using family ties as stepping stones. If it was a kdrama, I'd call this type borderline makjang with how ridiculously cartoonish some of the characters here.
I'd only recommend this to those who don't mind boring plotting for plotting sake and aren't afraid of their blood pressure rising because of how frustrating some of the drama is here, especially when it comes to ridiculous family affairs.
It's mostly about FL's domestic family squabbles, with her cartoonishly evil step-mother and her brother trying to make FL's life shit again either by killing her, trying to marry her off like a commodity to whomever is the most profitable for the family, or impeding her business. Even though FL succeeded in accumulating wealth and connections to be more independent in her current life, she's still just a woman bound by rules and family obligations of that era.
But the drama still drills the main feminist idea in every episode to state that if only women had more rights, were taken more seriously and families were less controlling over their heirs, then everything'd be rosy and peachy. It kinda did ring true in some cases here, but some characters were simply evil bishes and there's nothing you can really do about it.
Parallel to that, we have yet another typical baby boy general who, like FL, also has a shitty family and so he went to the army to find his father figure in his uncle. But just like in the bad future, he failed to save his boring ass general uncle from a conspiracy plot. He's trying to get to the bottom of it, but it's all very dull and frustrating on purpose. It's of course yet another high ranking official with unlimited power at the court who's either corrupt or jelly, or both. And since FL's evil uncle is in cohoots with whomever is responsible, ML and his dumb soldiers for the longest time are sus of her, even though she always tries to help him, since she knows his future as well.
Oh, and the leads were called "fated" by the autistic monk/scholar who gave FL the magic book in the bad future, so of course you gotta believe it. He's also in the know in the current life to help her out (or does he?). If your eyes weren't rolling before, they should at this.
The plot later moves to the palace affairs, but same ridiculous drama and family squabbles are happening there as well.
There are also some very questionable things this drama does for drama's sake. For example, early in the drama, ML and his soldiers barging into a random mansion to get shelter for the night while secretly carrying his disgraced uncle's child. For the mansion dwellers to not blab about it, they plotted to kill about a hundred people there, FL included, and thought it justified. That's the hero we have here.
Or ML's dumb uncle getting accused of all the random bad things at court without any evidence, but then being brutally killed before arriving to stand trial before the Emperor. Instead of investigating the matter, the Emperor imprisoned ML for not being polite enough when he came in grief demanding answers.
The drama also has too many side characters that don't contribute much to the plot and could have been combined into fewer, more prominent characters to make them memorable. The bad guys are also so obviously evil, you can just tell who's the bad guy by their acting. Everybody's wearing a disgusting hypocrite mask, everybody's greedy after money, power and status and are using family ties as stepping stones. If it was a kdrama, I'd call this type borderline makjang with how ridiculously cartoonish some of the characters here.
I'd only recommend this to those who don't mind boring plotting for plotting sake and aren't afraid of their blood pressure rising because of how frustrating some of the drama is here, especially when it comes to ridiculous family affairs.
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