Strong start, weak ending

I was super excited for this historic drama. The leads were actors/tresses I follow so I was looking forward to their pairing.

Story:
The beginning story telling, CGI, and acting was really good, so I had high hopes. Was also surprised by episode 6 the main leads shared a kissed so early on! So, the drama felt a bit different in how they were telling the story.

Where it felt it went down hill was somewhere in the middle. It felt there were missing scenes and the flow of the story telling felt off, especially around the love story between the ML's. There were a lot of push and pull from the male lead and out of no where he gave her a ring and confessed his love for her, it just felt out of no where and didn't feel very smooth. It left me feeling like I missed an episode or something.

There were also some plots hole, like the sha min from the start keeps referring to the divine bowl and that it was the bowl that will seal ma wang, but the ended up he was sealed in the royal portrait? There were no mention of it towards the end and it left me confused. It was also more confusing to why the royal portrait of the old reigning king be what seals ma wang, why not a portrait of the ML?

Acting:
I thought the actor/ress acted well, there were some instances where I thought the male lead could do better acting blind, but other than that they expressed their characters emotion well.

I was pleased that it was an overall happy ending for the main characters and tied up some details. The last scene shows the infighting between 2nd lead and his brother I don't think there will be a 2nd season and was meant to show what happens to the evil brother. I do believe base on Korean history, the 2nd prince does become king so, yeah.

Would I rewatch it? Probably not the whole thing but some scenes earlier in the show.

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