I had a lot of hopes pinned on this drama, and for the most part, it paid off. Particularly for Part 1, I felt the raging angst of Gil Chae and Jang Hyun's separation. In Part 2, those feelings were severely dampened, and I felt the romance took a sharp backseat to the rest of the plot--something I surprisingly found myself OK with because the rest of the cast and subplots were quite compelling.

There will be spoilers throughout this (admittedly long) review. I'm trying to keep it brief, I swear. This is my first review on this website, and I think that's a testament to this drama in and of itself. I binged the whole show (Parts 1 and 2) over 3-4 days, and while it didn't pan out how I hoped for, it's been a journey that I enjoyed. This review focuses on Part 2 for the most part, although I make allusions to Part 1 as I didn't review it.

THE GOOD
- The pacing of the drama in general was excellent. There were rarely plot points that lingered for more than an episode, which made the frustration of their existence (e.g., the amnesia storyline, miscommunications, the repeated separations and reunions of our main couple) easier to bear. I found myself appreciating it because the story moved briskly forward. However, there was the related drawback of timeline issues.
- The scenes that were built up to be emotional more than delivered. I can't get Namgoong Min's eyes out of my head--they are SO expressive and tender and carry every emotion. Just his gaze alone! Scenes like the one where he sees her 'for sale', or whenever he and Gil Chae are saying goodbye. The whole scene where she's pretending to be pregnant and you can feel the mixed feelings of 'this is all I ever wanted for you, but this could have been our life for real'. It was achingly beautiful. Ahn Eun Jin more than held her own (ugh, the way she looked at Jang Hyun towards the end!), but I think Namgoon Min stole the show. The emotional acting, yes, but also the fighting choreos, as well as the way he emotes through his words. Actually scratch that--gotta call out him and Ahn Eun Jin for that one scene in Part 1, when they meet, and you hear the audio overlay of them looking back on that moment from the future. The sad happiness in their voices captures the heartbreak of their romance so very clearly, so early on in the drama. Beautiful.
- The cinematography was utterly gorgeous at parts. Cinematic, but also artistic. So many times did I want to pause and paint a whole scene. Coupled with the costuming, and the way the characters (esp. Gil Chae) are gradually and gracefully aged as the show went on...excellent.
- I loved how they treated the SA storyline for Gil Chae. For everyone, but particularly Gil Chae. By keeping it subtle and purposely vague, the writers solidified the theme of 'not losing value' because of it. Gil Chae is never defined by what happened to her, and her confessing it to Jang Hyun and Jang Hyun alone--and we, as an audience, don't ever see a moment of her thinking about it alone--then becomes a powerful scene where she's trusting him with the knowledge, knowing he won't see her differently. It's a sensitive topic that was handled very well imo.

THE BAD
- Timeline--I had no sense of it. I couldn't tell at all. Was Ryang Eum meant to be in jail for 20 years? Neither Gil Chae ages, nor Jang Hyun, nor Ryang Eum (even though his hair turns grey). Yet the dialogue (and the scholar who finds him) suggests that it's been many years, possibly enough years for the scholar to have grown from a boy to a man. I assumed that it was 3-ish years, because that makes most sense all things considered, but I'm still confused. The timeline issue was exacerbated in the final episode, but it was ever-present throughout the show, a by-product of the brisk pacing. The costuming and side cast (babies) did a lot to help contextualise, and I liked how subtle that was. However, because Jang Hyun never changes and only Gil Chae begins to look more mature, it's hard to gauge how much time has passed from the start of the show to the end. My guess is ten years.
- Ryang Eum???? There is no closure to his character. Does he wander the earth thinking Jang Hyun is dead? That's so sad! And who captured him? What did he say that they called him insane? Also, the actor is 22 but the character is supposed to be, what, 8 years younger than Jang Hyun, max? Maybe 10-12, at a stretch? Again, timeline issues. It made it a little hard to follow.

THE UGLY
- The story and plotting was a mess. I found that the main pattern in this drama was for Gil Chae and Jang Hyun to reunite and then separate, reunite and separate, over and over again. It got tiring after a while, and it didn't make sense after a certain point because truly? I missed the selfish Gil Chae and Jang Hyun. I wanted them both to dig their heels in a little and fight to stay together (like Gil Chae tried to stay by his side in Shimsang. But then, what? He called her shameless and chased her away? OUCH.)
- Related to the above, the last half of the final episode was stretched out, repetitive, and made me impatient. Although the emotional climax was a beautiful note to end the drama on, it was somewhat ruined by the panned out shot of Gil Chae and Jang Hyun hugging, and you can hear him sobbing but the shot they chose features a blank-faced Jang Hyun. What????? I blame the editing but it made me laugh out loud. And this is coming from someone who hugely enjoyed the way the show was directed, and the slow-paced shots between Gil Chae and Jang Hyun where it felt as if the episode was paused, but it was the characters who were that still, not the video. It didn't work as the final shot, however, because it completely broke the emotional bubble for me.

OVERALL
All I wanted from this show was to sob over a relationship that appeared to be tender, heart-breaking, and romantic. That was it. That didn't happen. While I didn't feel let down by the ending, exactly, I wanted something MORE that the writers just weren't able to deliver.

Part 1 set-up the angst and the heartbreaking ache of their separation beautifully, but the plot was a lot more coerced in Part 2. For example, Gil Chae being kidnapped to the Qing was so mindlessly illogical, even if it provided an excuse for the leads to reunite. I wanted to see more of Gil Chae's spunk, too, as well as her innocent happiness. For a large part of the drama, Gil Chae and Jang Hyun only loved each other when they were apart. I know it was intentional to show Gil Chae's immaturity ("I will stop teasing you when you grow a little more"), but I wished we'd have seen some more light-hearted flirting between them before the first kiss.

That said, the acting not only makes up for most of my cons here, it surpasses them. Namgoong Min and Ahn Eun Jin carried oceans in their eyes, and I'll be thinking about them for a while. Even if the plotting didn't carry it across, the acting was every bit as tender, as heart-breaking, and as romantic as I could have wished for, and this drama is one that I'll remember for a long long while.

(Oh, and while I was already an Ahn Eun Jin fan from The Good Bad Mother...Namgoong Min has earned another admirer of his works. I didn't like him at all in The Undateables, and now I can't fathom why. He is a masterclass in emotion.)