A less tragic Nirvana in Fire meets Lord of the Rings!
I writing this review with 9 episodes left (I wanna take the rest nice and slow coz I don't want this awesome drama to end).
It's important to note that the drama went into production before the author finished writing the web novel, so if anything the movie version might be truer to the original work and differ from the drama.
OK, enough of OT stuff, back to the core of review:
Fans of Lord of the Rings will rejoice that FotD is essentially a reimagining. You have the Star Formation that gives power to the Empress that is essentially the One Ring. It is essentially detrimental to Empress (it's actually something evil that is controlling her), yet she has trouble letting the precious-s-s go.
Then, there is CCS dagger-like sword that looks like Bilbo's Sting dagger. And of course the little dragon ZS is modeled after Smaug the Dragon from The Hobbit, but a good kind dragon, not an evil one. Then, when LL teased ZS with hard-to-guess riddles, that scene essentially imitated "Riddles in the Dark" between Bilbo and Gollum in The Hobbit.
Superimposed over this are scenes remiscient of Nirvana in Fire: Sick guy returns to the Capital to attain his destiny, elite guards getting murdered to frame someone, the main hero can't actually fight against powerful villains but uses his cunning to subdue them, an Imperial ruler that is cold and "heartless" even towards her own child, etc.
Nevertheless, the drama packs an awesome punch coz let's face it there is nothing new under the sun, only inspiration from some works that existed before!
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