I have just watched the last episode of the drama and I can't get over it... the ending was tragic for the main leads... the author of the script had no mercy for them... and this is the main complaint and my low assessment of the plot, which was already saturated from the middle only drama, shocks, misunderstandings between the leads... there was blood spilling, everywhere around were people hungry for power, full of intrigues... it was definitely too much...
The beginning promised that it would be a nice romance, but from episode to episode the plot became darker and harder to bear. I don't know, maybe there are fans of such an accumulation of aggression, hatred, jealousy, deceit... but I am not one of them... I would like there to be some balance and for bad deeds to be justice and compensation... but unfortunately this did not happen in the majority cases of this movie...
What I liked.
FL and ML, i.e. Wang So and Hae Soo, played their roles very well for me, to the extent that the character of Hae SO at one point became obsessed with dreams (by the way, I don't know why she had such dreams from the past, if she hadn't experienced it before this life in those times, she just moved there, so how could she know certain situations? I don't know and it wasn't explained) in fact, she contributed to many bad situations... and she was completely unaware of it... she interfered and wanted to save and reconcile all the brothers, which of course was not possible considering that several of them dreamed of becoming emperor, so they pursued it by all means. Hae Soo allowed herself to be unnecessarily drawn into these intrigues. Her attitude pissed me off when she already knew that Wook had betrayed the emperor, she still had a million excuses... she didn't see and didn't want to see the truth... And besides, she fell in love with him when he still had a wife, by the way, she was her younger sister... great arrangement... These obsessive dreams were the reason for her hostile attitude towards Wang So for a long, long time, and it was only towards the end that one could notice that she was starting to feel something more towards him than just gratitude that ML had saved her many times... I regret that the author of the script did not develop the topic of true love between FL and ML so poorly... there were very few truly committed scenes when they really realized their love for each other, because the plot deviated in the meantime to side plots and supporting roles, which took a lot of time... In the last episodes, I was fed up with this heroine FL and her selfish behavior towards ML... Wang So did everything for her when he became emperor, he wanted her not to feel bad in this palace, despite the fact that everyone around they did everything to divide them and in the end it happened, to such an extent that the author of the script didn't even let them say goodbye in the last moment of Soo's life... a completely hopeless moment... ultimately left them both disappointed and lonely... they fought against adversities and in the end they were not given a chance to explain and forgive each other directly face to face... why, the author of the text, did you have to end things so hopelessly between them? I have huge grudges and that's why my rating for re-watching this drama is so low... I can't see it and experience it again!
The supporting characters did well - some were funny, others were power-hungry, others were irritating... unfortunately, the antagonists practically did not suffer any specific punishment... especially the witch Princess Hwang Bo - a terrible character... she was hungry for power and splendor from the very beginning. , full of envy, jealousy and striving hard to achieve her goal... and in fact she didn't suffer any punishment, on the contrary she got what she wanted... basically everything... so my question is, what's the point of being good and honest if you the good ones ultimately lose their lives, such as 10 Prince Eun and his wife... (victims of power-hungry brothers)... makes no sense...
I won't describe the rest because it would take several pages.
Overall, this drama could be really good, but the author of the script went too far, as they say in our country, "he went astray"... well, as I see, this is the problem of many script writers and few scripts are well written in terms of the beginning, development of characters and plots, and in balanced between good and evil... many questions remain because the plot often wandered and did not provide answers...
Why did So finally give hope that he would find her one day? And no sequel has been made, even though 7 years have passed since the premiere... no sequel... why give viewers hope? another poorly thought-out finale... well, to sum up, I regret that with a few wrong moves you can turn something good into something that arouses frustration and regret of wasted potential... and even the best acting of the actors will not help here....
OST
when it comes to music, I was particularly touched by 2 songs: beautifully sung with a beautiful heart-catching melody (Will Be Back) and beautiful (MY LOVE)...
I also liked Lee Hi's song 'Can You Hear My Heart'