a big dumpster fire

To keep it short: this drama is a dumpster fire.

To keep it long, this drama has a very interesting premise - an anti-hero who was destined to become evil by a continuous cycle of abuse, betrayal, and abandonment falls in love with a heroine trying to prevent him from becoming evil. This had a lot of potential to be a great drama until the story became completely incoherent.

STORY AND CHARACTERS
The drama had disjoined plot and characters, nothing made sense, none of the characters told the truth, plot holes everywhere, and the values were completely skewed. A good guy was portrayed as a villain. Villains were portrayed as good guys. Tantai Jin was treated very poorly throughout the entire story by mostly everyone just because of whom he was destined to become and not because of what he did. He got no apology and no vindication. None of his good deeds got recognized and his "true love" never realized what kind sacrifices he had to make to save the world. There is no hope in this drama and nothing to look forward to.

The story started out strong with Susu and Tantai Jin meeting and immediately building a bond. They had a lot of cute interactions where they went shopping, she saved him from angry birds, they watched fireworks and played in the snow. This should have been the only story arc for the duration of the show. She figures out why he was evil because he had a hard life, so she shows him compassion and kindness, they fall in love, and he doesn't become evil. THE END. Instead, the show dragged on for multiple storylines adding no value to the main plot. The entire dream arc should have been reduced to flashbacks.

The story and characters were so completely incoherent, that it felt like the writers had no idea what they were doing. Everyone insisted that Tantai Jin was evil, but he was not written as an inherently evil person. About half-way through the show it became apparent that he was arbitrarily delt the villain card without actually deserving it. He was born "special", to a life of suffering and without love threads which would have enabled him to find love. But, he eventually grew love threads and fell in love, which should have derailed his destiny of becoming the devil god. But it was never addressed anywhere in the story. Inherently evil characters eventually slip up and do evil things. TJ never harmed an animal, never killed an innocent, never started a war, never betrayed anyone. He did not have an evil bone in his body, no pun intended. So, why was he still destined to become the devil god if he already changed his predetermined fate by finding love? Nobody knows, including the writers, who likely did not even understand their own characters. A lot of money was spent on the production and not enough on the writing.

Susu had an inconsistent personality and no real character development. One moment she acted like a crazed fangirl around TJ, the next she went on a sanctimonious rant about how he could not be saved because he was "evil". She always assumed the worst about him just to be proven wrong later, but she still never learned to trust him. Susu's problem was that she was never able to separate the individual from the devil god. It was extremely frustrating to watch that brainless woman going behind TJ's back all the time, doing something stupid and then blaming him for reacting to it. Betrayal was the one thing that was triggering to him. Yet, Susu kept repeatedly doing questionable things that made him feel betrayed and abandoned. It was absolutely cringe-worthy to watch this dumpster-fire of a romance imploding on itself because it was so self-sabotaging. Susu never had any trust in TJ, although he never gave her any reason to mistrust him. She always jumped to the worst conclusions and hurt him more often than she made him happy. While TJ went out of his way to avoid becoming the devil god and tried to do only good, none of his efforts were ever appreciated. Everyone always judged him without trying to figure out what actually went on. The only time when Susu finally understood him was in the very last episode when she became a goddess and was able to look into his heart. But, in my opinion, it was already too late for her. She had numerous opportunities to have his back and and to give him a chance. Instead, she always listened to rumors, superstitions, and speculations that often did not make any sense and accused him of a crime because he was a convenient scapegoat. There was no point even killing him at the end because he never allowed the devil god to control him.

One of the most infuriating things about Susu was her holier-than-thou personality. She saw herself as a good person. She was written as a good person, but she did some very reprehensible things. When she became Ye Xiwu, she found out that Xiwu was an awful person. Xiwu made TJ kneel in the snow. Any decent person would have ended that immediately, but Susu did not. She actually allowed TJ to kneel for days in the cold spying on him and having mental rants about how he "deserved" it. She also whipped him. Any sane and good person would have thrown the whip on the floor and said "I'm not doing it", but she was either not very bright or just decided to go with it. And, she whipped him. I seriously could not believe she did it. Not to mention that later on she drugged his food and drove nails into his heart. What in the actual hell....

Everything was awful. What are we supposed to derive from this story? Bullies don't get punished. Bad things will always happen to good people for no reason. No matter how far we go to sacrifice for others, they will never appreciate or even know about it. Again, what is the point?

On a different note, the blood spitting in every episode became very noticeable and looked disgusting. There didn't need to be so much blood coming out of people's mouths, especially in scenes where it wasn't necessary.

SET/COSTUMES/MAKE-UP
The set was beautiful, 'nuff set.

Taitan Jin's outfits were often ridiculous. The writers obviously wanted him to stand out. But, they made him stand out too much. Feathery outfits, flowing capes, and an over-powdered face full of make-up was a bit much. Susu sleeping in her head jewelry also looked stupid.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Usually, happy endings make me feel all warm and fuzzy. Sad endings make me feel bittersweet. This drama made me feel empty. More often than not I wanted to reach into the screen and drag Taitan Jin out of that mess. He was better than all of them and he deserved so much more. The writers broke every rule of writing. They wrote an "evil" character without actually making him evil. They wrote star-crossed lovers with only one person making any effort. Susu's original goal was to prevent TJ from turning into the devil god, but every action she took pushed TJ closer to the edge. She never even told him that she loved him in any meaningful way. This story was like the Pandora's box - it unleashed every single calamity on the world, except hope.

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Good drama

At first, I dropped this drama after a few episodes because I detest female characters who are purposely written as clumsy, whinny, and clueless. It's not endearing but really annoying. But after hearing good things about it, I decided to give it another chance and watched it till the end.

This drama has amazing character development. It starts off as kind of comedic but later becomes quite dark and emotional. The main characters go through a transformation. She becomes more mature. He gains feelings and empathy. They are star-crossed lovers and this drama really went out of its way to show the type of love that endures. They fought for each other, made sacrifices, had faith in each other and at the end stayed true to who they were. They also made each other better. She matured from a clumsy airhead to a thoughtful person. He developed feelings and was able to form relationships and appreciate others.

The ending felt rushed. One moment she was waiting for him to come back to life, the next moment he was standing behind her "I am baaaack!", they kissed, the end.

The story tended to drag sometimes but it didn't affect the plot too much.

The acting was fantastic, especially by Dylan Wang. The way he conveyed emotion after Orchid died was heart breaking.

Overall, the show has some really good acting, good music, really emotional scenes, and a very touching love story. Recommend!

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Needed more plot

My main complaint with the show is that it reached its logical conclusion in episode 12. This is when ML and FL were already a couple and the mystery behind the kidnapping was resolved. The rest of the episodes were just filler without a plot. When there is no conflict and nothing to resolve, the story becomes stale. There wasn't even that much conflict with the older brother. He just kind of became irrelevant after the kidnapping mystery was resolved. The animosity between the brothers also looked forced because of the lack of plot development. When Young Joon told Mi So that his brother was a "bastard" and there were issues with their childhood friends, it implied that there might've been past bulling or some other conflict which had nothing to do with the kidnapping. But, it was just the kidnapping. To make matters worse, the issue between the brothers was forced on them by their parents who lied about the kidnapping for their own good, which was a pretty stupid plot device because it did not justify all the animosity. And, after it was resolved, everyone acted like nothing happened for the last 4 episodes, which was especially disappointing because the kidnapping and resulting trauma were an important plot point central to ML's and FL's character development and the writers made it completely superficial and unimportant at the end.

The resolution to the plotline of Mi So wanting to find herself felt like a cop out. At the beginning, she wanted to leave the company to find a husband. Then, that plotline was abandoned just to resurface at the end where Mi So realized she wanted to continue being Young Joon's secretary because she loved him. And, she remained his secretary after marrying him. This was rather a strange choice for a wife of a CEO to have the same position as his office employees, instead of holding a higher position for which she was actually qualified.

One of the things I liked was that FL had enough sense to pick up on the nuisances about ML's behavior to discern that there was a lot more to the kidnapping story than what she was told. I loved that she did not just blindly believe everything she was told and started having a crush on the older brother, which would've resulted in a very stupid love triangle. She suspected from the very beginning that Young Joon was the one who was kidnapped, which led her to the truth. In return, Young Joon transformed from a self-centered person to a thoughtful and caring boyfriend and employer. The main couple also had very nice chemistry and some very steamy scenes.

Other than that, there wasn't much else going on. The side characters were not interesting enough to carry the plot. I ended up skipping most of scenes in episodes 13-16 and just watched the ones with the main couple to get to the end faster.

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So good!

This is easily one of the best c-dramas of 2023. It does not use the same lame tropes so many other dramas fall victim to. There are no unnecessary plotlines or characters, no continuous cycle of misunderstanding and miscommunication. The drama has meaningful character development, romantic chemistry, and one of the most wholesome and healthy relationships I've ever seen.

There were, of course, some problems. Li Tongguang's (LT) was a terribly written character. His continuous obsession with Ruyi was extremely frustrating . The writers went out of their way to keep him incompetent until the very last episode. His immaturity caused a lot of people to die unnecessarily. After the emperor was killed, it was pretty unbelievable that the first thing he chose to do as the new regent was to poison Ruyi and force her to marry him, just for her to be rescued by Yuanzhou in the same episode, and for Yuanzhou to tell LT for the 100000000th time that he was a creep and a coward. This was especially frustrating because it happened after LT had really good scenes with Princess Yang Ying making it seem like he was getting over his infantile obsession with Ruyi. The show also fixated too much on the Ruyi and Yuanzhou's love story. Yes, we all loved them. They became a couple early and it was refreshing to see them having mutual understanding, respect and love, without falling back on jealousy and miscommunication. But, the writers should've given more screen time to other couples too. I really wanted to see more romantic chemistry between LT and Princess Yang Ying.

Princess Yang Ying was one of my favorite characters who went through the most intense character development. She started as a meek and weak girl just to grow into a strong person taking charge of her life. There was no character regression from better to worse. Everything that happened to her was on point and only contributed to her character growth.

The romance between Ruyi and Yuanzhou was unbelievably wholesome. Yuanzhou was written as every girl's dream man - tall and handsome, strong, kind and attentive, loving and understanding, not obsessive or overly-jealous, intelligent, a friend, a leader, a fighter and protector. The guy was perfect. He let Ruyi handle her business but also protected her when she needed protecting. And, Ruyi didn't magically turn into a damsel-in-destress as soon as a man entered her life.

The message of the show was incredibly meaningful - friendship, loyalty, country, love, and staying true to yourself. I was also impressed by how the characters went out of their way to stress the importance of having respect for women and often said things that we as audience were feeling when someone *ahem* Li Tongguang *ahem* acted like a mentally deranged creep.

I have to say something about the ending. A lot of people hated it, but I thought it was ok. I don't think the main couple died. Some people interpret the ending as symbolic or metaphorical or just Chu Yue's dream. I can't agree. We never saw anyone actually dying, but a lot of suggestive scenes that someone supposedly died. For characters who successfully faked their death throughout the show, they faked it again to be able to walk away and to start a family in seclusion, just like Yuanzhou wanted from the very beginning. And, Ruyi followed him because she couldn't imagine life without him. If it was Yang Ying in the last scene, the death scenario would've made more sense because she was very close with Ruyi and Yuanzhou. Chu Yue - not so much. When Chu Yue saw the boy, she immediately imagined Yu Shisan because that was her last memory of him. Instead, it was someone else who was named after Yu Shisan bearing Yuanzhou's last name. Yuanzhou named his son in honor of his best friend who died. The only red flag was the boy wearing white and riding a white horse, white traditionally being the color of mourning in China. But the idea that death came to reunite Chu Yue with her friends in the afterlife, most of whom she didn't even have a chance to develop a relationship with, looking like Ruyi's and Yuanzhou's son who was never even born, is some crazy mental gymnastics I am not willing to entertain.

The acting was good. I loved Alen Fang's portrayal of Yu Shisan, who was so goofy and adorable. This was such a pleasant surprise after my disappointment with his performance in the Long Ballad. And, of course, Liu Yuning will forever be my favorite.

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Could be better

I just finished the drama and I have no idea what I just watched.

The premise was very interesting: two female spies infiltrated an enemy sect as potential brides to wreck havoc. "We must act as enemies!" they said. "So we can gain trust!" they said. And then it all fell apart. They did nothing except cozying up to the two males and then falling in love with them. There was no suspense, espionage, intrigue, betrayal, ANYTHING to fit into the promised plot. Weishan and Shangguan just spent time drinking tea and talking about what they should do, without actually doing anything.

And then there were long winded pointless side stories. Why should we care about Ziyu's mother? She was some chick his dad married who spent all her life pining after her lost love and ignoring her only son. Shangjue and Yuanzhi made a big deal about her being pregnant when marrying the dad, insinuating that the dad wasn't Ziyu's biological father, which would disqualify Ziyu from becoming the Sword Wielder. We were forced to watch a series of flashbacks of Ziyu's mom and Lady Wuji as if there was an actual point there. Was Lady Lan really Ziyu's mom? Or was it actually someone else...like Lady Wuji? That would've been such a cool plot twist. Ziyu was the secret son of the Gong family and Wufeng's super secret agent "Anonymous". SHOCK! But nope! Lady Lan was Ziyu's mother and Lady Wuji was just a nanny. Nothing to see here.

The drama was only 24 episodes, so I thought it would be action packed. Nope! The writers actually managed to make it mindbogglingly boring. The last 3 episodes dragged on and could've been made into one single episode. There were scenes of characters just standing around with snow falling in the background. I seriously couldn't wait for the story to end. I just did not care about any of the character or the plot. Too much screen time was given to secondary, less important characters and their irrelevant storylines, like Elder Yue and Yunque. Why was this important and why did we need to care? There were extended scenes of characters monologuing and telling us all about their plans, instead of showing us. The dialogues about poisons and fighting techniques were extremely convoluted and technical. I felt like I was reading a pseudo scientific thesis filled with confusing terminology that I did not understand.

For the entirety of the show, it was emphasized that Wufeng was the ultimate villain. So why was Ziyu's brother, who was killed off at the beginning, brought back as the bad guy AFTER Wufeng was already defeated? There was just too much plot entanglement and surprise twists that led to nowhere. Less is more.

The writers could have done a better job at Ziyu's character development. He started off as an immature and care-free guy who was forced into the position of the sword wielder. After becoming the sword wielder, he continued acting like an immature and clueless hot-head. The three trials made him grow up and improve his skills. But we didn't see the actual character growth. He just suddenly became mature in one episode.

I did like that Shangjue and Yuanzhi were not the actual villains, but more like competition for Ziyu. Shangjue was right for questioning and challenging Ziyu because Ziyu was an immature kid who did not deserve the position of the sword wielder. I am glad that Ziyu actually earned it at the end.

The finale was plain stupid. Shangjue watched Shangguan leave after she told him he was pregnant with his baby. Ziyu let Weishan go visit her family without any security escort. It appeared that Weishan was ambushed at the family home, so her fate was unknown. The last scene was Ziyu painstakingly waiting for Weishan to come back looking all sad. We heard the gate opening and him looking at it with an unreadable expression. Did Weishan come back? Or was it someone else? Did Weishan and her twin do a switcheroo? What was happening? If there was a sequel, this ending would make sense. But, we don't know if a sequel will follow, so the ending was completely nonsensical. It's ok to make sad endings. But an ending should have a logical conclusion. This was not an ending at all, but an end season cliffhanger.

Overall, the drama had very good visuals and fight scenes. The acting wasn't bad either. But the story progression, pacing, and the finale were disappointing.

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Ugh

The long ballad was indeed very long and very stale. If you are looking for an epic love story with a lot of romantic chemistry, an interesting plot, and meaningful character development, you won't find it here.

The story started out strong. FL and ML met each other under interesting circumstances – playing football. Shortly thereafter, FL lost her family to a revolt and was forced to flee her home. Unfortunately, the story kind of got lost within itself after that.

Changge was like the perfect Joan of Arc warrior princess. As a young woman from a privileged background, she was great at everything, including sports, sword fighting, and military strategy. The fact that she was perfect was her one major flaw. There was no room for growth. I enjoy strong female characters, but Changge's flawlessness and acting superior with mostly everyone made her overbearing. She couldn’t be beaten, making her extremely one dimensional. It was not convincing that all of her superb skills were the result of her uncle training her as a child.

While the drama started out strong, the story later took a strange turn and lost all focus. At the beginning, Changge swore revenge against those who instigated the revolt and killed her parents, but she ended up moving around different places and doing things completely unrelated to her original goal. The fact that nobody could figure out that she was a woman was pretty comical. All it took was for her to wear men’s clothes for everyone to suddenly become blind to the fact that she had a bump on her chest and round hips. What's worse, later in the show the revenge plot was completely abandoned and now we had a brand new end boss completely unrelated to Changge.

Yueyan ended up to be my favorite character because she went through the most intense character development and overcame all the difficulties on her own. Her and Hao Du was also my favorite couple because there was so much contrast between them - he was cold and calculating and she was timid and soft. The show did a good job at showing his growing feelings for Yueyan and his inner struggle trying to deal with them.

Half-way through the show, a slew of minor characters started appearing out of nowhere and served no purpose other than existing for Changge and her interests. Then, everything got really stupid. People kept insisting that women couldn't lead, women couldn't participate in politics, women were fragile, but there was this 14 y/o princess Tujia running around signing treaties and fraternizing with grown men without anyone saying anything. She'er was the leader of the wolf division and a good fighter, but he spent a big chunk of the show crying for mommy and being absolutely useless. Many decisions were stupid and made no sense. The crown prince's friend was a traitor and participated in Changge's abduction, but for some reason that was never addressed. Sun got arrested for killing him and no explanation was given. The fact that a member of the royal family got kidnapped wasn't even mentioned. And this type of nonsense continued until the very end. Nobody communicated anything. The show also didn't do a very good job at juggling between different character arcs. Characters would disappear for several episodes at a time making us kind of forget about them.

Explanations for certain plot lines were mediocre. It was never clearly explained why the revolt happened, why Changge's mom wrote the letter, to whom, and what was in it, or why the uncle killed her dad. The only take-away was that the emperor uncle didn't kill the mom.

The romance was underwhelming. It wasn't only because Changge and Sun had no romantic chemistry, but also because watching them together was like watching two dudes interact. They were just hanging out. The one kiss they shared was blurred out and we were forced to watch birds. I don't care that the writers intended it, it looked stupid.

The acting was very mediocre. Although she is very beautiful, Dilraba does not strike me as a very good actress, and, Leo Wu needs to work on his acting skills. I haven't seen him in anything other than Love like the Galaxy and the Long Ballad, and I wasn't impressed with his portrayal of stoic brooding characters. Zhao Lusi and Liu Yuning stole the show for me.

Bottom line, the drama was too long, the plot was too convoluted, and the romance was too stale.

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So good

There aren't enough words to describe how I feel about this drama. It tells a story of a mother's love for her children while navigating through betrayal, a struggle for power between the family members, murder, and political intrigue. Not a single character was out of place. Not a single plotline was unnecessary. All the characters got their proper screen time and development. The villains were written for us to hate and the protagonists were written for us to love and root for. This is undeniably one of the best Asian dramas I have ever seen.

The show treats each relationship between the queen with her sons with tender love and care showing that each prince is unique and has a special relationship with his mother. The queen loves them in spite of all their shortcomings and unusual personality traits and makes them feel loved and accepted. I particularly appreciated this take because in Joseon certain lifestyles would have absolutely been condemned, regardless of how much a mother loved her children.

Even other princes, who were not the queen's children, got character development showing their own personal trauma and relationships with their own mothers. The queen was so loving and compassionate that she was able to connect with every single character, even the ones who at first were against her, through her love and compassion and good deeds. And, the acting was phenomenal.

Overall, the show has a very well written plot, amazing character development, and extremely likable characters we can actually related to.

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No Ta chi

The story was very unique. It had some LGBT elements that had to be handled with a certain level of care and awareness. Unfortunately, at least in my opinion, the writers decided to go down the safe, less gay, route without realizing that the ending completely destroyed the plot.

** SPOILERS **

The drama was about Bong Hwan (BH), a 21st century man, traveling back in time and waking up in a body of a princess soon to be a queen. It was filled with very funny and clever moments that kept me very entertained. But, after episodes 14-15, the plot kind of became stale. The scenes were not as funny anymore but annoying. I eyerolled at the scene where the queen threw a temper tantrum over Lady Choi eating all the yogurt. However, this wasn't the biggest problem with the show. The biggest problem was the ending.

The story was about BH's relationship and subsequent love story with the king. Nowhere in the drama did the writers elude that BH and So Yong (SY) ever fought for control of the body, or that sometimes it was BH and sometimes it was SY who was in control. It was always BH. This was even confirmed in the queen's last conversation with Byung In telling him that "she" did not know where So Yong was or whether she was even alive.

The king, Cheoljong, fell in love with BH in SY's body. BH's unorthodox behavior, unpredictability, straight forwardness, lack of manners was what was attractive. If the king wanted a meek and polite young lady, he would've stayed in love with Hwa Jin.

Everything the king did - writing the queen's dictionary filled with new words that BH introduced to him, writing a journal about new fighting and exercise techniques that BH taught him, reforming the country, was because of his relationship with BH, not SY. SY by herself was a very minor character and appeared in only a few flashbacks. Even SY's ideas about women's rights were BH's ideas and not hers.

And, what do we get at the end? BH goes back home without even saying "good-bye" to anyone. The king ended up with SY, who was not the person he fell in love with. But, that's ok, so long as SY looked exactly like the person he loved, we were supposed to accept it. What a terrible, horrible, no good message.

I am not sure why the writers did not go down the incarnation route where SY and BH were the same person living in different eras, and, at the end have SY and BH's souls and personalities merge as one in SY's body. There was already a premise for that with the queen's identity crisis "her" being a man in a woman's body and having a romantic/sexual relationship with the king.

It was also strange how the king did not pick up on the fact that after BH left, his wife became a completely different person who could no longer cook and had an entirely different personality. Or, that SY ended up lying to the king about who she was and did exactly what Hwa Jin did. But we are supposed to ignore it.

Shin Hye Sun is an actress from god. She did an amazing job portraying BH and SY as completely different people, they even spoke differently. SY was soft spoken. BH was coarse and aggressive. It was rather strange to assume that the king, who was head over hills in love with BH, did not see that his wife was different, considering that the differences in SY's personalities after the suicide incident were consistently addressed in the show. We did get a scene where the king somewhat realized that he lost something, but that scene looked like an afterthought rather than a serious and tragic realization that something important was lost.

Even Byung In, whom I hated, became a sympathetic character at the end because he actually confronted BH about SY and was the only one whose love was authentic. The writers made it look like it didn't matter to the king who he was married to so long as that person looked a certain way.

I honestly thought that BH would return to the king in one way or another, but the ending left me completely flabbergasted. Nobody ended up with the person they actually loved and the king's relationship with the queen was based on a lie. The attempt to paint SY to be more like BH because she started cursing was a lousy cop out. What made BH different was his boldness, a sense of justice, and ability to form close relationships with servants and nobility alike. SY just capitalized on it and ripped rewards from everything BH accomplished, without achieving anything on her own. What a stupid way to destroy an awesome story.

The rewatch value is like in the Game of Thrones. Everything is awesome until it all falls apart at the end.

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Not sure what it was

I'm not sure why this show has such high ratings. The story had no direction and the characters were unlikable. FL was spineless, whiny, had no motivation, and made incomprehensible choices over and over. ML just keept following her and trusting her after she repeatedly disappointed him and broke his heart, cuz reasons.

The first half was funny and even interesting. By episode 15, it became a directionless mess. Nobody communicated anything. Characters didn't stand up for themselves or their convictions. Qianqian just ran around doing random crap without any clear motivation. She obviously liked Han Shuo, but she tried to set him up with someone else. And then, everyone was suddenly in love with her. Pei Heng showed up 20 times to "save" her, without her actually needing saving, and repeatedly got his ass kicked by Han Shuo. Chuchu became a villain for no reason and started doing absolutely obnoxious schit. It's ok for shows to be funny and have a simple plot. Not everything has to be deep. But, this was just painful. Thank god the show only had 24 episodes.

I did like the ending. It was very sweet, reminded me of Fushigi Yugi.

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It's ok for a low budget flick

A low budget show is low budget with only 10 very short episodes. It's a shame that this wasn't a full length drama because there was enough plot to write a nicely developed story and characters.

The acting was decent. Na In Woo is still a bit inconsistent. His acting is good in some dramas but stiff in others. Here, he was good.

The plot was mostly straight forward, except for some side stories that went nowhere because of the short length. The writers tried to stick a lot of material into a very short drama without giving any of the new characters and storylines any development. It felt rushed and awkward.

Rewatch value? None. It's a good show to kill time for a few hours and forget about afterwards.

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Cringe fest

Clearly, the show didn't know whether it was a comedy or a drama. The plot had very serious elements relating to mental health, trauma, and PTSD. And, then we had Jeong Woo rolling in bed and throwing temper tantrums in every episode. If that was supposed to be comedy, it was cringey as hell.

The romance didn't feel very organic. "Strong Woman Do Bong Soon" set the standard too high, so everything else with Park Hyung Sik will inevitably be compared to it. The chemistry was just too good. In this drama, it was kind of meh. I wasn't sure why because they did have some cute moments. Maybe because it took them half the show to finally kiss. Maybe because the funny scenes looked stupid and extremely overacted, mostly by Park Hyung Sik. Maybe because their trauma was undermined by immature behavior that was completely unnecessary. If a man acted like Jeong Woo in real life, no amount of good looks would make him attractive to women.

The villain who caused the medical incident was also badly written. His motivations were just so very shallow. He decided to punish Jeong Woo because his mom didn't let the villain see his dad and dad died. So, Jeong Woo, who happened to be his best friend and who did nothing wrong, had to be put through hell and back for the villain to feel vindicated. Crappy reasons, motivation, and extremely lazy writing.

I like Park Hyung Sik and I was looking forward to this drama, but it left me extremely disappointed. I am going to take a break from him and watch something else for a while.

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Left me dazed and confused

I didn't watch the 2019 Taiwanese version, so the review is based on my take on the Korean version alone.

The drama started out pretty strong. Jeon Yeo Been did a great job portraying two completely different personalities between Jun hee and Min ju. One was outgoing and popular, the other was a miserable introvert. The show also did a good job showing the chemistry between Jun-hee and the two boys and Si Heon's growing love for her. The high school timeline was the most interesting with the most chemistry between the three main characters. The adult timeline was kind of bland with Jun hee and Si Heon/Yeon jun having a much less dynamic relationship. This was the second drama I watched with Ahn Hyo Seop and he did a lot better here than in Lovers of the Red Sky.

While the show had a great start, the writers decided to make the plot more complicated than it should've been. By episode 9, I started losing track of who was who because the timelines kept switching and characters kept flip flopping between bodies. I wasn't sure what the connection between the timelines was either. I assume they were parallel universes with two versions of the same person living in both of them, I guess? But, then how did Si Heon and Yeon Jun meet at the airport if they were from different universes? The show also didn't quite explain the connection between them and how how Yeon Jun even ended up falling for Jun hee. Maybe I missed it because I was trying to keep track of all the characters and timeline hopping.

Some plotlines got too extreme and others were kind of forgotten. In-kyu disappeared for several episodes, making his character kind of irrelevant, then appeared again towards the end trying to save Min-ju. The murder/suicide plotline was radically extreme. It would've been better if Min-ju just died in a car accident, instead of by some random obsessive classmate turned serial killer who traveled back in time in a body of his brother to train himself to be a serial killer. This is not to mention that the outcomes kept changing as the story progressed from all the timeline hopping, making it even more confusing.

I didn't quite get the significance of Rowoon's cameo as Tae Ha. Did it mean that Yeon jun was gay and was just starting to confess his feelings for his friend before the accident, and that Jun hee really fell in love with Si Heon and not Yeon jun? The writers spent no effort trying to flesh this nuisance out. And, did Tae Ha die in the accident?

The ending was very sweet and left a lot of questions unanswered. The only couple that made sense was Min ju and In kyu because there was no confusion about who was who. With ML and FL, I am not sure whether Jun hee ended up with Si Heon or Yeon jun. They acted like the same person. I think she met Si Heon at the end because Yeon jun was the one who got into the car accident, became a cripple, and got stabbed to death. Not to mention, he might have been gay.

Overall, the show left me with a lot of unanswered questions and some confusion about Jun hee/Si Heon/Yeon jun romance. On one hand, I liked their love story. It was very touching and bittersweet. On the other, all the timeline and body hopping made me completely lost about who was who.

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Meh

The drama started out strong, but as the story went on it got progressively boring..

I liked Park Min Young in "What's Wrong with Secretary Kim?" and "Marry My Husband". She does well in modern drama. But, here she was completely miscast. Firstly, her character looked more mature than ML. Secondly, they had very little chemistry with Yeon Woo Jin because both characters were really bland. She looked way better with Lee Dong Gun because he looked more mature and because Yi Yoong was a much more interesting character.

The plot was also a mess. The storyline with the super secret organization went nowhere. The storyline with the super secret pawn shop also went nowhere. Yeok wanted to do everything - become king, be with Chae Kyung, and make up with his brother. But, he ended up weak, indecisive, and flaky. He kept whining about everything and constantly changed plans making everyone pissed off because they spent way too much effort into trying to put him on the throne. And, after Yeok became king, he wasn't much better than his brother who allowed a corrupt minister run the show. Chae Kyung was frustrating because she meddled too much, had redundant monologues about feelings, and kept pushing Yeok to make up with his older brother when there was no point. She also fainted a lot.

The love triangle between Chae Kyung and the two brothers was pointless. Yi Yoong barely had any romantic interactions with her. But, I wish he did because that would've made her character a lot more interesting. And, as a couple they looked much better together because Yi Yoong was more mature, masculine, and had a lot stronger personality that Yeok, making Chae Kyung in contrast act more feminine.

And, lets not forget about the ridiculous super sneaky spying scenes where characters stood in plain sight and eavesdropped on other people's conversations without ever being noticed. This drama has perfect that art of invisibility.

The acting was all over the place. Park Min Young and Yeon Woo Jin were both underwhelming and very bland, while Lee Dong Gun was overly emotional and overacted in every scene. He also twitched his mouth a lot.

Overall, weak characters, flat plot, ridiculous writing made this drama pretty disappointing.

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This drama......

This drama will leave you laughing, infuriate you, and totally KO you emotionally.

It started very strong. ML and FL met when they were both young, had quirky and funny interactions and a quick romantic development. Unfortunately, the romance plot, while having a fun beginning, started going in circles to the point of frustration. San chased after Deok Im (DI) begging for her to love him when he was the crown prince and he continued pursuing her and begging her to love him after he became the king.

At some point, I wanted to see DI get a promotion, an upgrade, to move up in life which would've also given a chance for San/DI to develop further aside from just being a king and his maid. But, she did the same things for the entirety of the show and had awkward interactions with San about their relationship, which made the pace and story development a bit stale. Her consistently rejecting him, because she wanted to lead her own life, would've made sense if DI actually had plans to leave and move on after he found a concubine, but she kept coming back to be his maid, which went against the entire premise of her wanting to lead her own life. This plotline needed to either wrap up a lot sooner or the writers should've written more story to avoid the round-about "love me!!!" by San. And, frankly, them always having the same conversation became really boring.

The other plot lines with San living in the shadow of his "traitor" father and having a love/hate relationship with his abusive tyrant grandfather was very well written and made San an extremely sympathetic character. The transition between him being a crown prince and a king was also very well done showing him transforming from a scared little prince to a decisive king who wasn't afraid to get rid of anyone who opposed him, including family members.

I was going to write about the treatment of women, but it would be redundant considering that this is a period peace. It doesn't matter which period and which country. It always sucked for women everywhere until 100 years ago. Enough said.

The ending broke me until it didn't. After DI accepted San and became his concubine, the story quickly switched gears and showed that their love wasn't happy at all. For the majority of show, San was broken-hearted from being continuously rejected by DI, and DI wasn't very happy being San's concubine because she was forced to wait for him, was at the mercy or his schedule, and had to share him with other women. The scene of DI telling San on her deathbed that she didn't want to meet him in the next life really drove the tragedy home and showed the awful predicament women back then. Even a woman who was well loved and lived in privilege had nothing of her own and was just another thing a man owned.

Just as I thought that my depression couldn't get any worse, it turned out that the ending was San's dream. Waking up in cold sweat and realizing that DI was alive was a second chance of sorts for San to appreciate what was truly important to him. I wasn't particularly thrilled with that twist because it messed up the chronology and made the story more complicated than it should've have been. And, it felt emotionally draining after having to witness DI's death and San's loneliness and longing for years to come after he lost the one woman he ever loved. Nevertheless, this was a beautiful love story.

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Really good

Season 1 (episodes 1-27) had slow start. It took a whopping six episodes for Shaoshang and Ling Buyi to finally meet face to face. Before that, nothing was happening aside from Shaoshang showing absolute disdain towards everything and acting like a spoiled brat. She was supposed to be a neglected and abused teenager who was left as a baby with her relatives while her parents served in a war. The writers didn't do a really good job flushing her out her character at the beginning. She stumbled between being portrayed as a neglected teen to acting very whiny and entitled. In every scene she would go out of her way to act out and complain about everything, instead of trying to reconnect with her parents. Fortunately, the writers didn't let her fester into an unlikable shrew and her character development picked up nicely. It turned out she loved to learn about how things worked. She was very sympathetic to other people problems. And she was a great problem solver.

Her mother's actions were very confusing. For someone who was a seasoned general, mom showed extreme shortsightedness when it came to parenting. She knew very well about her daughter's accomplishments, but instead of looking at the big picture and appreciating the fact that Shaoshang did not grow up to be shallow and spoiled, mom always fixated on her daughter's smaller problems - a lack of education and etiquette. Mom's inconsistency showed even more during Shaoshang's engagement. She did not want the marriage with Lou Yao because he was unintelligent, weak, and wasn't able to protect Shaoshang. Mom also picked up on the fact that Ling Buyi liked her daughter. However, when Ling Buyi proposed, mom immediately put her daughter down to be some awful and unintelligent simpleton who was unworthy of anything. It was no wonder Shaoshang wanted to get away from that house. The icing on the cake was mom's favoritism towards the cousin, instead of trying to reconnect with her daughter.

I really wanted to see the mom and daughter's relationship grow where Shaoshang realized that her mom wanted to prepare her for the adult life and teach her how to navigate society. In return, mom would realize that Shaoshang was a very special and beautiful person and finally got over her fixation on Shaoshang's upbringing. There were some very good moments where I thought mom and daughter would finally grow close - the one where mom slapped one of the ladies at Lou Yao's house. But then there was the scene with Lin Buyi's proposal where mom was a total let down.

The way the Cheng family was portrayed as a "military" family was odd. General Cheng was a general, just like Ling Buyi. But General Cheng didn't seem to have any kind of influence or power at all. At 21, Ling Buyi had an awful lot of power and influence, and even an army to command. General Cheng was nowhere on that level even thought he spent his entire life fighting and was at least twice as old as Ling Buyi. The only person who seemed to have any kind of military discipline in the Cheng family was mom. The two brothers, who were with the parents when they were away, acted like spoiled and pampered aristocrats, instead of military children. They also looked like they never handled a weapon in their lives.

Some storylines needed serious cropping, like the very long engagement to Lou Yao that wasn't going to work out anyway. Shaoshang and Ling Buyi playing catch up with each other could've been sped up a little bit too. I wanted to see more of them hang off the roof together instead of watching Lou Yao bringing her snacks.

There were also some very great scenes showing the build-up of Shaoshang and Ling Buyi relationship. The scene where she pulled an arrow out of his chest was hot and very intimate.

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