To be honest, an eight seems too generous yet a seven seems too low but I settled on an eight because I really enjoyed this movie more than some of the raved about ones. I went into this with high yet also low expectations. For one, it's been parodied and referenced a lot. Furthermore, the rave reviews made me lower my expectations because I have gone into a lot of raved about movies and dramas only to come out beyond disappointed. In The Face Reader, Song Kang Ho starred as a famed physiognomist. His ability is so good that he attracts the attention of even the king and he is soon thrust into politics. The political era is one of strife as Prince Sungyang played by Lee Jung Jae lusts after the throne. The story in movie fashion is a bit dramatised. There were moments it wasn't even Face reading, it was borderline fortune telling. As in, there were moments when Kang Ho's character just pretty much predicted the future as opposed to physiognomy. Strictly speaking, he looked at one of the character's face and told him he would be beheaded. Frankly, that was a touch ridiculous because that really isn't even physiognomy. The only reason this works is because we are in the present and the script is about the past so anything he predicts of course happens because history has happened. However, the story is well written. It has touches of humor that are not ill placed amidst a serious and well done plot. There are some good emotional scenes that are well acted and overall it leads to a satisfactory performance; enough to even make me tolerate Lee Jong Suk. Now, I have nothing against the boy, but I felt his lack of experience and acting just made some scenes fall slightly short. In fact, most of his emotional scenes are with the veteran actors and he is heavily saved by them. Unfortunately, I have one gripe and that is with the ending because I thought it ended, oh but there's another scene and this is surely the end, but oh no, here's another scene and surely this is the end... Oh no, not yet, then finally the end. I was honestly going, my goodness just end already. There were multiple concluding scenes and I almost thought I was in a Park Chan Wook movie because he really likes dragging the end. I mean they even do that concluding comments of "so and so became a monk five years later and died in 1456..." but it doesn't even end after those comments! Other than that, I recommend this.