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Alchemy of Souls korean drama review
Completed
Alchemy of Souls
0 people found this review helpful
by Parthivi
Apr 19, 2023
20 of 20 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 9.5
Story 9.5
Acting/Cast 10.0
Music 10.0
Rewatch Value 9.5

Refreshing Fantasy

Excuse my POSITIVE RANT but - I'm whipped..........by Lee Jae Wook. He has been on my radar since Extraordinary You. He was absolutely phenomenal here. Can't get over him as Jang Uk.

Now a short review of the show:

Finally, a fantasy drama that isn't an inspired copy of Goblin. A full-fledged Historical Fantasy, by Hong Sisters, and I'm really impressed by the world-building. Very refreshing after their last show Hotel Del Luna which I felt was inspired by their own show Master's Sun. Here I found the show to be extremely plot heavy yet never boring. The cast and the plot kept me engaged throughout even though there were many repetitions. All the characters except the villain were really endearing. The characters had distinct personalities. I did have a bit of confusion with the birth secret plotline because it never made sense to me how they define parentage. Apart from that things were kinda consistent. I adored all the secondary characters, Crown Prince and his chemistry with Jang Uk was fabulous. Usually, I skip many secondary stories, but I was really attached to other characters as well. Crown Prince, Kim Du Ja, Yul, and Dang Gu were some of my favorites.

I felt Hong Sisters really played well with their own tropes. They are known to use the concept of the "Trinkets from the ML gifted to FL" trope. Here they have not only used that trope, but they also added a comedy scene using that and then used it as a plot device in the next episode. It was pretty brilliant, to be honest, to subvert their own tropes like that. The visual effects were also so much better than Hwayugi (another Hong Sister drama) which was also an amazing show but only missed out on some poor VFX. I really felt Hong Sisters brought their A-game to the show.

I just can't get enough of Jang Uk. I believe he is the selling point of the drama for me. Jung So-Min probably had her career-best here (apart from Because This is My First Life because that's better). I have seen part-2, so I'm giving a standard rating across. For me both were great, part-1 slightly better due to pacing, but still amazing overall, as it brought me out of the Kdrama slump. That's it, that's my review
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