This review may contain spoilers
Royal intrigues and shoulder pads
Overall I liked this drama for it's story line and character consistency (well, most characters were consistent). The overall plot was the ''lost princess'' trope, but there were many side quests interspersed into the story and they were concluded within 3-4 episodes each, which was kind of new for my watching experience.
Acting was OK. As oring as I found the side character relationships to begin with, in the end the FL and ML best friends provided a more moving relationship arc than the leads. Lots of shoulder pads, they did a lot of male acting.
The camera work was pretty but editing was questionable, especially the slow motion moments, that often didn't make sense for the tone of the moment and were too many in total. Music was not memorable, except for a few darker tunes when the antagonists appeared on screen, which made me chuckle.
Plot was easy to follow and guess. By ep 4 I knew who was the big bad and that whole plot line was very dissapointing. It didn't help that they threw in more antagonists as the series progressed, because they were all so easy to deal with that they posed no real threat. Overall, the protagonists had a way too easy of a time dealing with their controversies, although the FL was dealt a ridiculous amount of attacks against her. Story wise it just looked like something to make everyone like her, because there was no character growth through these ordeals as she had already gone through hell as a child, which solidified her personality as a head strong, scrappy, street-smart, quick witted lier who would do anything to get out of a sticky situation and stand up for the ones she loves. How quickly she became a loyal subject who would do everything according to the law was also a leap, but that at least was within the confines of logical character development.
The ending made no sense and did a huge disservice to the series. Normally I expect the series to run up to 40 episodes, so 32 is a bit short, and this story just felt like it was cut off as quickly as possible after the FL made nonsensical choices. In my opinion it made no logical sense for the character to all of a sudden be willing to leave everything behind for a nation she only recently remembered to be a part of. Yes, she's a champion for the under dog, her family was slaughtered and survivors were being tortured and imprisoned, but the 180 she did looked to be more for the sake of drama than a logical story and character development, which was very dissapointing.
The closer to the end the series drew, the more rushed everything felt, starting from a one night martial arts learning to apparent double and tripple crosses with no clues how or when they were planned, especially taking into account the shear size of some of the plots. Ah, we have a problem, what's the ieasiest and fastest way to deal with it - let's just jump to that.
The whole court drama was a let down, they tried to make it more than it was, but it never amounted to more than Emperor and Ministers yelling at each other and then FL getting smacked, slapped, attacked or thrown into dungeon for it. For all its female empowerment, the series sure didn't hold back on violence against women. No relationship on the show felt genuienly real and I hate to say it, because at least here there was shown some good female relationships. But that was mostly because the hole premise was built on emancipation, girl bossing and womens power. I just wish it had more nuance than ''men are always evil'' and ''women are jelous snakes''. But OK, I'm being very picky, it was still miles better than other plots.
The ending, on one hand, was unusual, as the FL and ML didn't become a couple, but it also felt very rushed. Maybe there will be season 2, I wouldn't mind watching that.
Acting was OK. As oring as I found the side character relationships to begin with, in the end the FL and ML best friends provided a more moving relationship arc than the leads. Lots of shoulder pads, they did a lot of male acting.
The camera work was pretty but editing was questionable, especially the slow motion moments, that often didn't make sense for the tone of the moment and were too many in total. Music was not memorable, except for a few darker tunes when the antagonists appeared on screen, which made me chuckle.
Plot was easy to follow and guess. By ep 4 I knew who was the big bad and that whole plot line was very dissapointing. It didn't help that they threw in more antagonists as the series progressed, because they were all so easy to deal with that they posed no real threat. Overall, the protagonists had a way too easy of a time dealing with their controversies, although the FL was dealt a ridiculous amount of attacks against her. Story wise it just looked like something to make everyone like her, because there was no character growth through these ordeals as she had already gone through hell as a child, which solidified her personality as a head strong, scrappy, street-smart, quick witted lier who would do anything to get out of a sticky situation and stand up for the ones she loves. How quickly she became a loyal subject who would do everything according to the law was also a leap, but that at least was within the confines of logical character development.
The ending made no sense and did a huge disservice to the series. Normally I expect the series to run up to 40 episodes, so 32 is a bit short, and this story just felt like it was cut off as quickly as possible after the FL made nonsensical choices. In my opinion it made no logical sense for the character to all of a sudden be willing to leave everything behind for a nation she only recently remembered to be a part of. Yes, she's a champion for the under dog, her family was slaughtered and survivors were being tortured and imprisoned, but the 180 she did looked to be more for the sake of drama than a logical story and character development, which was very dissapointing.
The closer to the end the series drew, the more rushed everything felt, starting from a one night martial arts learning to apparent double and tripple crosses with no clues how or when they were planned, especially taking into account the shear size of some of the plots. Ah, we have a problem, what's the ieasiest and fastest way to deal with it - let's just jump to that.
The whole court drama was a let down, they tried to make it more than it was, but it never amounted to more than Emperor and Ministers yelling at each other and then FL getting smacked, slapped, attacked or thrown into dungeon for it. For all its female empowerment, the series sure didn't hold back on violence against women. No relationship on the show felt genuienly real and I hate to say it, because at least here there was shown some good female relationships. But that was mostly because the hole premise was built on emancipation, girl bossing and womens power. I just wish it had more nuance than ''men are always evil'' and ''women are jelous snakes''. But OK, I'm being very picky, it was still miles better than other plots.
The ending, on one hand, was unusual, as the FL and ML didn't become a couple, but it also felt very rushed. Maybe there will be season 2, I wouldn't mind watching that.
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