I thought that after Vincenzo ended that it would take me a while to find another drama that I would enjoy as much, but it turns out that Bossam: Steal the Fate was exactly what I was looking for. It’s been a long time since I’ve been so into a sageuk. I have enjoyed many of these light, very polished and colorful period dramas that we have had lately, but Bossam feels a whole lot mature and more serious than many of the those. It felt so refreshing and something very up my alley.

The drama wastes no time and the plot starts immediately. It manages to introduce us to the characters and show us the dynamics between them as the plot moves along at a brisk pace, before slowing down a bit towards the middle. The first half of the drama focuses a lot on the characters and their relationships. You are drawn into the story through them. The characters are all rather well ingrained in the story and well-rounded.

I enjoyed seeing a story about the common people and people outside the palace. We don’t get a whole lot of that in sageuks. I could watch them just do the dishes and chat and do the housework for about twenty episodes I think. This small, quiet home life and everything that came with it was one of the strongest parts and the charm of this very character-driven drama.

The romance here so incredibly slow and full of yearning and longing. It’s not going to be for everyone, but for me it actually hit a really sweet spot. This is also such a well executed fake marriage and found family trope. Even though the drama is constantly separating the main couple, or they do not express their love very much and the wait for the kiss is very long, it never seems too forced and you can really feel the love between the main characters even though they do nothing but look at each other with mellow eyes.

I must admit that I have not been this enthralled by a romance in a drama as much for a long time. Most of the time I like, or enjoy the romance. But there is something about this longing and yearning and kindness that is between these characters that completely makes me melt. It does something for me. I just did not get enough of the main couple. Longing and yearning and this rather quiet love is something I really enjoy.

Jung Il Woo really suits sageuks and Yuri is really good in this role. This is her best acting performance to date. There is a really good spark and chemistry between them and I think the character they play feel sort of refreshing in this genre. Although there some side characters who feel like these typical sageuk characters the actors (as well as the script) managed to make them fun and interesting. Soo Kyung is really prim and proper in her demeanor who wishes everyone well but she was never put in the background or anything, like a lot of female character do in their sageuks. The story was just as much about her as it was about Ba Wu.

The romance is slow burn, but the story also feels a bit slow and has a habit of repeating itself a bit, or it goes back and forth a bit, but it’s also such a character-driven narrative so it feels like normal progression within the story. And I think it has something to do with how good the character are and that you understand the reason for their actions. The story seems to flow with them and their decisions rather than the character moving as the story wants them to.

Towards the middle the drama goes that traditional ‘we have to go to the capital’ route which does crop up all the time in sageuks that takes place in the countryside. It tends to dampen the story a bit and give the viewers something completely different than the story seemed to promise, but personally I found that change in Bossam rather natural and although the story focuses a little more on the palace politics in the second half of the drama I felt it never completely takes over the story or comes out of the blue.

I felt it was nice mix of the very slow-burn romance of the main characters, their home life and then the politics that is there to add a more more drama into the story. Personally, though, I’m rather fond of palace politics so it could have an effect on my enjoyment of that portion of the story.

Bossam could very well end up being my favorite drama this year. From the romance, to the cute found family and a really cool character-driven story that never went too far ahead of itself or was trying to be bigger or more impressive than it was, it managed to tick so many boxes from me. I really enjoyed following these characters. It seemed so mature and down to earth and there was something pretty classic-sageuk about it. This is a sageuk drama that I had been waiting for for a long time.