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dreamingsnowflake

dreamingsnowflake

Mr. Queen: The Bamboo Forest korean drama review
Completed
Mr. Queen: The Bamboo Forest
31 people found this review helpful
by dreamingsnowflake
Feb 15, 2021
2 of 2 episodes seen
Completed 11
Overall 1.0
Story 1.0
Acting/Cast 9.0
Music 6.0
Rewatch Value 1.0
This review may contain spoilers

A spinoff that serves as an offensive justification to the messed up ending of Mr. Queen

I’ve watched The Bamboo Forest, Mr. Queen’s spinoff, and, damn, the writer has actually managed to make the story even a bigger mess than previously, if that’s even possible.

Apparently, So Yong and Cheoljong had met once before prior to her being selected as his queen in a fairtytale-like first encounter.
That creates another additional problem of the drama - if you don't include such an extremely important crucial moment in your series and leave it out for some special spin-off episode your series is irrelevant and basically pointless. The series has some 20+ hours and they couldn't include that one scene? Why doesn't CJ remember that moment in the drama and in all of his flashbacks he only remembers the time BH was in charge of SY's body? Also, the meeting never appears in So Bong's flashbacks of So Yong's life either. Plus the spin-off got greenlit in the middle of the drama airing because of its success so it had never been originally planned to happen. So that one scene is an aritifical glued-in nonsense to justify the ending which the writer would have written just by the time the spin-off was announced because kdramas don't have completed script at the time when they began to film.

Moreover, when CJ was confessing his love to So Bong he was describing Bong Hwan's personality, not So Yong's, and not even once did he mention how he already loved her before but had to deny his feelings and supress them because she was from the Kim clan. That's an information you would expect to be included in such a confession. So Bong literally asks him why he loves the Queen and he never mentions their first meeting or her kindness.

Let me tell you something, if you Cheoljong had no problems killing "So Yong" after their fairytale-like meeting, he didn't really love her. The only reason he didn't kill her was because he ended up being distracted by Bong Hwan's strange reaction and Byeong In. These are not the eyes of a man who is torn because of his lingering feelings of love for the woman in front of him. There is no hesitation or regret, only cold determination to eliminate her if she proves to be a threat:

On the other hand, when Bong Hwan was in danger, he was willing to sacrifice his own life without a second thought.

Also, as I mentioned in my previous post, the whole drama was against the idea of love at first sight. Cheoljong fell in love with Hwa Jin gradually when they become reunited after he came back from exile and he fell in love with Bong Hwan gradually so in that regard it completely undermines another important message and theme the story had for the first 19 episodes, but, I guess, after the final episode there hasn’t been anything left to undermine.
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