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Our Blooming Youth is a strange title for a clunky drama. The purpose of this drama, despite ghostly flourishes and dramatic Dum Dum DUM music, seems to be to throw two people together and make it look like an epic love story. So we have the crown prince meeting the FL, a suspected murderer, who appears to have shot an arrow at him. He ends up dragging her to his tent for questioning. By the wrist, naturally. That’s after she performs the usual fall off a cliff into water trope and sneaking into town disguised as one of a group-of-(VERY unobservant) soldiers thing. Sigh. When the Female Lead later pulls out a big dagger, cuts herself free of her bonds, and attacks a guard I think we’re supposed to be impressed by how badass she is. But all I could think of was that the guard must have flunked Introduction to Bodyguarding where they teach you to search somebody for weapons BEFORE you tie them up. It all feels contrived and formulaic and Park Hyung Sik seems to be sleepwalking through his role looking as bored as I feel. There are the usual scheming old ministers, including Jung Woon-In playing the baddie as always. Nothing new to see here. Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
The Prisoner of Beauty is a beautifully filmed drama. Although it’s a love story, there are almost constant conflicts and power struggles, as well as good friendships and nice secondary romances, to keep things moving. I thought that the actors were great, especially Song Zuer, Liu Yuning, and Liu Duan Duan. I think that what saves this drama from being the typical enemies to lovers story is the FL, who seems to be more suspicious of the ML and more cunning and slower to trust than usual but also has a strong moral core. I assume that the title refers to the female lead, whose beauty is used by her family to ally themselves with a historic enemy but also, I think, to the antagonist who uses her beauty to manipulate and scheme and turns out to be her own worst enemy.The humor didn’t always land with me and I thought that the ending left some loose ends but I enjoyed this drama.
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p.s. It’s frustrating when a drama ostensibly about a strong woman actually undercuts the strong woman argument by having the male lead save her over and over again. Are we supposed to find that romantic? Adorable? ugh.
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