Hime

I actually came to a similar conclusion as the one Fukuyama Kami reached. Througout the whole thing we are shown so much tension between Hajime and Rei that some people believed they were in love with each other. This could be for 2 reasons - 1 the obvious BL bait because viewers like to see that and 2 to throw us off. The real reason for the tension was them being both disturbed people and Rei seeing him as competition and wanting to get rid of him.

At the end of the game, Rina is the only one other than Rei (and Hajime??) who is alive.

The picture with Rei being further from Hajime and Rina, him saying he never got to see her cry, there was definitely some jealousy there. We were shown the scene of them as kids, what actually happened. I think what Rei wanted was for Rina to see Hajime in a bad light so she could finally look at him. After so many years he is still around her and got her to accept to date him BUT realises she did not get over Hajime and decided that something more drastic needed to be done. From the start I could sense him and Kaoru were on the same page with the whole game thing and after finishing the drama it does feel like the game was either Rei's idea or he was at least involved. He definitely would have know both Rina and Hajime secrets and the other ones seemed pretty easy to find out.

Of course these are all just theories since it is an open ending but this one seems to be the one that makes most sense. I also suspected Rina at some point as she was in the center of it all and easily escaped without so much as a scratch.

Exactly. After reading the comments I went in thinking I would see all sorts of awful things happening to the FL but turns out it was not that serious. I feel like people are just too used to rom-coms and think that is all there is to dramas. Some dramas are made to be frustrating intentionally. For Korean dramas there is even a name for it - makjang.

I also skipped scenes and this is not something I would rewatch but I thought the characters made consistent decisions and even the ones I thought would be evil like the brother or the 1st wife, were not really that bad, maybe a bit selfish.

Did we even watch the same drama? This is not a modern day drama. An older man marrying a younger girl was not that rare back then. There is a whole context as to why some decisions are made.

And the female lead does not sleep with either of the brothers until almost the end of the drama. Yes, she basically sold herself into this marriage to save her mother but she did not act like a prostitute. Maybe this sort of drama is just not for you. This is a type of drama that is made to be frustrating, it is intended to be like that but still not as bad as some other ones out there. I have watched other chinese republican era dramas where the FL had to go through things like being raped, having a miscarriage and such, so this one was not THAT bad.

- ML's brother never forces the FL to marry him much less forces himself on her. He was not even conscious while the whole thing was going on and the ML had to step in to take his place in the wedding rites. The 1st wife was behind the whole thing with the "consent" of the FL;
- The 1st wife is not a bad person, she is someone who made wrong decisions and was selfish only thinking about her and her husband and no one else, but aside from something she tried near the end (and that did not work), she never treated the FL badly or saw her as threat;
- The brother never forces himself on the FL, even when she was not thinking clearly and basically offers herself to him, he refuses to sleep with her until she loves him and is fully willing. As far as I know, tho I did skip some scenes, they never actually consummate;
- The ending is happy for the main leads and liberating for the 1st wife and that is all I can say without spoiling much.

So yeah, this might be a frustrating ride but it is not THAT bad and I can at least tell you that the main leads have a happy ending. Now you can make a more informed decision on if you want to watch this or not.

The comments are making it seem a lot worse than it was. Sure, it is not a satisfying drama to watch and not worth watching for the romance. But with the context of the whole situation and taking into account the characters personalities, I thought it was quite realistic.

The main leads are put in a situation that neither of them wanted so their behavior is understandable. People in the comments made it seem like she was going around having sex with him while married to his brother or something.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by some of the decisions made by the characters. When I thought everything was going down the drain, it was not as bad as I thought. I did not think any of the 4 main leads were bad people, just people that did not make the best decisions when in a very complex and messy situation.

Some things I want to clarify for anyone trying to decide if they want to watch:

The makeup is really throwing me off. The actress was suposed to be in her early 20s when she filmed this but somehow they made her look like someone in her 50s pretending to be a teenager.

Could also be another case of a woman doing plastic surgery way too early. A lot of influencers are doing plastic surgery in their 20s, some while they are still teenagers, when they looked just fine and end up looking older than they are.

After reading your comment now it is playing in the back of my head too. Thank you for that. ^^'

It is honestly the only complaint I have - wish there were more kisses and more sweet scenes of the main leads together. This was great for a short drama, even better than some regular dramas.

I honestly think this is one of the best short dramas out there, even better than some regular dramas.

The whole drama is just so satisfying to watch. The relationship between the main leads is sweet, the villains get what they deserve and the good guys get their happy ending. Throughout the whole thing we get to see the female lead get small revenges here and there while the villains keep digging their own grave, not like other revenge dramas where the female lead has to endure being framed and hurt over and over again before she finally gets her revenge, if she is even able to get it.

For all these reasons, if I could only describe this drama with one word it would be "satisfying".

I literally just watched the exact same plot but it was in a modern day setting. Everything was exactly the same, down to the injury in the FL's head. So now we are down to just blatantly recycling scripts instead of trying to write something original. If anything, I would have rather watched this one compared to the other one.

If you come across both pick this one, the plot is the same but the historical setting in this one makes it a bit more interesting compared to the other one, tho honestly they are both pretty bad.

Yeah, A LOT of things happened in episode 1 alone. ^^'

Hard to tell exactly, I think it might be the writing or the way the scenes were edited, like the pace is not flowing naturally.

I have been watching kdrama for over 15 years and have watched everything from rom-coms to sageuks to thrillers, so I do not have a specific type of drama I watch. I am used to everything so it would not be an easy guess. ^^'

Maybe next week's episodes will help me figure out what is off or maybe it was just these 2 episodes that threw me off a bit. There were parts I liked, just a feeling that they could have done some things differently and it would be better but it is too soon to tell, I need to watch more episodes.

Probably. I think it is too soon to say if this will be a good drama or not. There have been dramas in the past that did not really grab me from the beginning and then got so much better after a few more episodes.

Great cast, lots of potential but the first 2 episodes were not that impressive. They were not bad, they were decent, but something feels off about the script. I will keep watching and see if it gets better. I am not one to drop a drama after only 2 episodes (unless the drama is unwatchable which is thankfully not the case)

If you check my profile you will see I have watched thousands of dramas over the last 15 years, going through that list just to select the ones with your very specific requirement would be a nightmare, but they exist, you will eventually come across them.

The "deep message" is one you as a man would have a hard time to get. Everything is this drama that annoyed you is what women go through everyday and is considered normal by society. You have a bunch of historical cdramas with men that treat the female lead worse than the FL here treated the ML and a lot of them there are fights between concubines and such because one man could not stick to one woman. So you are complaining about how one ML is treated like this in one specific drama as if there arent many more with FLs being treated this way or worse.

My point is that you are entitled to being angry at the way the FL treated the ML here, I agree, I also did not like it. Just don't pretend the opposite does not happen in other dramas. If in real life you can see all sorts of couple dynamics, it is normal to see them in dramas too. Not every couple will have a dynamic you will like. For a long time it was more common to see couples with toxic relationships rather than some of the healthy relationships we get now.

P.S. - If you want specific recommendations with healthy relationships, tell me the kind of plots you like. I see your profile picture is from Road Home. As far as I remember there is at least 2 other dramas with the same actress which I think had healthy relationships - Go Ahead (more of a family drama but has romance) and Flight To You (if you are into airplanes like me, slow burn romance).

I am also watching Love between Lines, which is currently airing, and so far the main leads seem to have a healthy dynamic. They are already interested in each other but neither of them is acting like a simp.

What do you mean by annoying, you mean ads? kisskh.co is the one i use the most, no ads, usually no problem with the videos. I easily found this drama there using the search function, they also seem to have the other dramas related to this one.

I agree that some viewers take things to extremes. I was talking about dramas in general not just Cdramas and yes I have noticed it has become a trend but you also need to think at what point does a ML become a simp, yeah, the one in this drama definitely is one but there are other dramas where the ML is not like this and just starts being nicer to the FL once they get together that is normal, the same behaviour from a woman would not be called being a simp, just a nice girlfriend. Men can be nice to their girlfriends and not be a simp.

Ok, so you are a man, that explains why you cannot see the deeper message in this drama. Then this definitely was not the drama for you, this is a female centered drama made with female viewers in mind.

There are a lot of other dramas that do not have male leads acting like simps, you just might have to go back a few years to find more of them.

If you want healthy relationships there are also other dramas you can watch where the main leads treat each other equally.

P.S. - If this was reversed women would still have liked the drama, some just might have complained about how the ML treated the FL but this was most dramas back when I started watching dramas. Even rape would sometimes be made less serious than it was because the ML "loves" the FL.

Idk how long you have been watching dramas but simping female leads were in almost every drama a few years back and there are still recent dramas with female leads like this, just not as common as it was. These dramas are such a big chunk of my completed list that I cannot even choose one to tell you because they are so many. ^^'

This is a drama, not real life. It is a bit over the top because of the matriarchal theme. I myself did not call it female empowerment, for that there are a lot of other Chinese dramas that do it while not putting down men.

I just was not as bothered by the way men were treated in the drama as some other people were because I felt it was intentional. Yes, I noticed when these things happened and even thought to myself that if a man was doing or saying that to a woman it would be really bad but that was when I started to notice that maybe that was what the drama intended to do, make us question things.

I started watching dramas back in 2010 when it was considered normal to grab a woman by the arm, push her against a wall and force a kiss on her and all that was considered romantic. So a drama like this once in a while is nice. I do wish they had not made the ML a simp but oh well. There were many things that could be improved about this drama but overall I still had fun watching it.