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Juelin

United States

Juelin

United States
Alchemy of Souls korean drama review
Completed
Alchemy of Souls
3 people found this review helpful
by Juelin
Aug 9, 2024
20 of 20 episodes seen
Completed 1
Overall 5.5
Story 5.0
Acting/Cast 6.0
Music 7.0
Rewatch Value 3.0
This review may contain spoilers

Parade of stupidity and wasted potential

For a drama that is ranked so highly, I expected greatness. What I got was boredom and disappointment. Unfortunately, this is another sad victim of genre confusion where the writers couldn't figure out whether they were creating a drama or a comedy.

The story had a promising start. Jang Uk spent his entire life in mediocrity because of the circumstances surrounding his birth. He was forced to live quietly without an opportunity to practice magic. This could've been a coming of age fantasy drama with a side of romance telling a story of a man regaining power and finding his identity. What we got was cliche slap-stick comedy devoid of any dramatic themes that were promised at the beginning. Instead of working towards self-improvement, Jang Uk was a whiny, unmotivated, blabbering idiot who gave up every time he faced a challenge. Barely any screen time was given to his training so he could achieve the tremendous power he was destined to have. The writers just decided to give him a free level-up by placing him in situations where he didn't even do anything while Mu Deok stood around and clapped "You are so luuuucckkkyy!"

The romance was mostly boring because Jung So Min only had two facial expressions. When Mu Deok did not patronize the crown prince with exaggerated groveling, she had a resting b*tch face most of the time. Whenever they had romantic scenes, only Lee Jae Wook made any effort to show emotion while Mu Deok just looked bored. The characterization wasn't particularly convincing either. Jung So Min as Naksu/ Mu Deok looked more like a pouty teenager forced to do chores rather than a super-powered assassin. The original actress before the soul switch delivered a much better performance.

The overall pacing was very slow because the plot focused too much on side characters and pointless love rectangles. Everyone and their mother had to fall in love with Mu Deok. Instead of showing a blossoming romance between the main couple, the writers forced Mu Deok to spend more time than necessary with rejected lovers. I am not sure why they thought it was entertaining to watch long and incredibly boring scenes of Seo Yul staring longingly at My Deok.

A slew of filler arcs added nothing to the plot. I couldn't care less about side characters' romance, lost family members, and other pointless crap that didn't move the story forward but made each episode incredibly long. The drama would've been a lot more entertaining if it had less episodes and better editing. At the end, my watching experience was reduced to pressing on the fast-forward button to get to the end of this mess.

Overall, this drama was just a giant time sink with very little entertainment value. The plot was messy with too much filler and the characters were not interesting enough to emotionally invest in.
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