Rooftop Prince has one of THE BEST first episodes among dramas I've watched. It pulls you in with quick pacing, multiple plot lines, time jumps and flashes of mysterious occurrences, and you can’t help but wonder how the heck everything and everyone are connected! It’s incredibly well written and executed.
In its entirety though, the drama is about three parts amazing and one part painfully annoying.
I genuinely liked all of the characters in this drama. The writers took care in creating unique, quirky personality traits for each character, and I really enjoyed learning about everyone as the intricate mysteries unfolded. My favorite characters being the boys from Joseon. I am a sucker for male camaraderie and adored watching them goofily interact and navigate through the plot. I was especially enamored with Micky Yoochun and his excellent portrayal of the prideful and serious crown prince. I would honestly re-watch this entire series just to listen to his old Korean accent as he incredulously shouts and screams at everyone! It just tickled me!
There’s something to be said about the “bad guys” in Rooftop Prince. Basically, they ran the show. They were so good at being bad, that watching them commit hateful, vindictive sin after sin and get away with evil after evil after evil became exciting. I would think, hell, what *else* can they get away with?? The antagonists in this drama were much stronger than the protagonists (almost TOO strong, but I’ll get to that next). But it doesn't mean that I liked the antagonists more--which was a delicate line to walk for the writers. I shouldn't root for the bad guys, but I don’t want to hate them with a burning hellish fire, either... Takes too much energy.
Now I need to complain. As I mentioned earlier, the bad guys were too strong. So strong, that in order for them to continuously do dastardly deeds, the writers needed the protagonists to betray their original character traits, and that bothered me.
For the bulk of the series, the lead protagonists are presented as strong, smart and fairly perceptive individuals. They picked up on small cues and hints, made good decisions in dealing with the “bad guys,” thought things through.... And then they just get dumb. Dumb and gullible. And it hurt my soul. The problem is that the drama is too long. At 16 episodes, the leads could have stayed smart and the story could have been wrapped up. But the longer the drama went on, the dumber and more naive they had to be to allow the bad guys to continuously get away with their evil trickery.
On the whole though, I had a lot of fun watching Rooftop Prince and I’d easily recommend it to anyone. Thankfully, the plot line was strong enough (and lead characters likable enough)to where I could suffer through the annoying bits. Through those times, I’d be screaming on the inside, “AHHH I JUST NEED TO KNOW HOW THIS ENDS!!!!” And the fact that I cared that much was evidence enough that there was indeed something very right about this drama.
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