Keeps you guessing...forever

This is an ensemble drama that had to balance so many pieces of a puzzle and characters to make a complete piece. The cinematography is gorgeous and the costume and sets are beautiful as well. This director really knows how to shoot actors, the lighting in the dark Gong residences was excellent. Instead of looking dull the actors looked ethereal and darkly beautiful. Gong Shangjue is often shot like a viper who sits in the dark on first watch, but on a second watch he looks like a lonely man who holds a lot of pain and responsibility. Ryan Cheng was a stand out for me in this show. He had to bear two weeks plus of everyone hating his character, poor him. I never doubted that he was always rooting for his gallivanting brother to get responsible and protect their family.

Esther Yu especially impressed me in this show, in LBFAD I liked her character towards the end but in this one she handles a meatier role in stride. Her crying scenes are actually heartbreaking and not grating, you get the sense that she put a little of herself in order to bring out the grief, not the persona she wears for the character. I'll definitely follow her projects after this. I must commend Lu Yu Xiao as well, in another drama she appeared in this year I found her annoying but in this one she is electric. You never really know what she wants even in the end. She kept the audience guessing, if c dramas were not so reliant on flashbacks I would have never known what she really desired or cared about. An excellent spy in that sense.

Now, the writing in this show was a little wanting. I liked that all the characters were taken care of, instead of using the supporting characters as tools to prop the male lead, each of them holds weight that creates an emotional heart of the story. This always gets a plus from me, no matter how messy the main plot is. The writer/director was able to make us care about the supporting characters so that a big loss is felt if we lose any of them, even the ones we hated. The humor was not my style at all and I skipped many Gong Zishang's scenes. Sorry but she was overdoing it. The main problem I had is that not enough time is given to the part of the plot that moves the gears forward. Ziyu's actions move the plot forward, the three trials he must take are how we get to the next bit of the story, yet this part was the slowest moving part of the plot. This is why I found the third trial and Master Hua's arc wanting. Often important developments were paused after making the audience think there should have been an immediate consequence. As much as I hate to admit it, Yun Weishan was often conveniently covered by plot armour. In C drama writer fashion, the villain is revealed in a cartoon like fashion who describes their plan and declares "if it wasn't for you meddling kids!" And so much exposition. But I hardly think c drama writers will ever change this style of writing. The final act needed either tighter writing or the drama should have done the full 40 episodes. It is as if the writer was rushing to solve the mystery by writing twists in for convenience (some of which were predicted by the audience, but still). However, probably this could be justified if that ending means there is going to be a season 2. How that will work in the C-ent industry would be nothing short of a miracle. Unless all the actors signed up knowing it might end this way. If there is no season 2 then I'm afraid that ending was clumsily done.

It is absolutely worth watching even twice, the first to work out what is going on in the plot because the drama was good at leaving clues for the audience to figure out, the second time to decipher the truth from the lies. The ending will not be satisfying for all, but I thought there were great enough elements in this to deserve a 9. This is one of the high quality outputs from c drama in 2023.

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Best out of all BLs I've seen

This is the cutest Korean BL I've watched and I saw 4 before this one. The actors are older, much better and have way better chemistry. I want to see them in lead roles from now on. Shout out to Kim Kang Min he was a cute maknae in Tale of the Nine Tailed but here he was such a tsundere I couldn't recognise him. It had so much fluff which I love and the best kiss scene (and implied bed scene) out of all BLs. The story needed more work because there were so many things going on with side characters which were not fully explained and I was confused half the time. I really hope for the day Korea will do BL on the mainstream with a bigger budget and better writing but other than that, the actors did the best with what they were given.

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It was mostly good apart from that shitty ending

FIrst of all, SHS and JKH are the GOAT. Esp SHS. The eps without her were dull and their scenes together were electric, whether funny or intense. Give them all the awards. The show was funny but I do feel a lot of the humor was forced (like the court ladies' side stories which I would skip sometimes) and the political plot was underdeveloped (this is often the case with sageuks but this is mostly a comedy so ok).

Looking at the finale reviews, I realise people are in three camps:

1. Either they wanted to see So-young as her own person and Bong-hwan was a driver to make her more assertive and fight back which you can look at it as

a) it's problematic bc we are (or the show is) saying it's only a man's characteristics and disposition which would have made her finally rise up

b) it's fine and Bong-hwan is strange anyway so his character would make anyone seem strange. They also wanted to see So-young the woman fall in love with the king and vice versa separate from Bong-hwan. Imo the problem here is that we feel sorry for her situation but we (and the King) fall in love with Sobong, the relationship with just So-young feels empty and thin.

c) it's lowkey homophobic and queer bait and the sigh of relief response that it's just So-young is getting the side eye

2. Or they want the King to only love Bong-hwan and So-young gets out of the picture which

a) is misogynistic and erases the woman

b) then they could've reincarnated the King Goblin style and gone full BL (Korea I dare you, Run On did it on the mainstream why not Mr. Queen)

3. Or Sobong remains and the King stays with them and if they showed So-young is present in more scenes throughout the show you erase no one and develop both. Or have a convo btwn the two somehow (like explain how the swapping happened/why he was chosen). Furthermore you have an interesting commentary on gender identity, sexuality and labels (see how the fandom struggled with Sobong's sexual ID and gender and finally merged their names and ID them as *they*) just like Black Mirror sn 5 episode 1. And imagine, *imagine* if the King knew as well and you get to explore that with him too. We're given crumbs in one of the last scenes but now you're literally killing Bong-hwan in So-young off (and breaking my heart). This is the loss of the series imo. I like how this was almost explored in Love in the Moonlight when the Prince was in love with Ra-on thinking she was a man but ofc they copped out and "revealed" they were a girl. And just imagine if Bong-hwan acknowledged his feelings outright with no joke to hide behind.

If you've read to this far I think you get the sense that I wanted a version of no. 3 to happen. Because I think love is love, whether or not the labels mattered. I think they both did and didn't.

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Great acting from the leads and beautiful cinematography, the plot could have had a better execution

Shin Hye Sun killed it once again. As someone pointed out, rarely do we see female leads look like they are in love with their partner, so openly and without fear. The love mostly comes from their male counterpart's gaze.

Now for the negatives, for a 12 episode drama, this one has far too many flashbacks. We really don't need that many flashbacks in one scene just to tell the audience that Jieum is remembering her 1st life and it's bothering her. K drama directors need to treat us like a smart audience. I'm sure Shin Hye Sun can take direction and show the audience what is going on instead of the writing/directing/editing relying on such storytelling crutches. I swear the whole story of the first life could have been wrapped up in the first 15-20 minutes of one episode. In the age of streaming, flashbacks (that we've already seen so many times!) are an unnecessary rewind button.

As for the plot, as someone who didn't read the webtoon, the show spent too much time on the accident and not enough on Jieum and her mysterious lives. And for it to spend so much time on the accident, the resolutions to that storyline were quite plastered on. But still, it was a highlight of my weekends.

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It was lovely

This was like opening then closing a good book that made me feel warm inside. After a few false starts I finally watched all of it. Admittedly I skipped the parts involving the newbie employee couple and the main romance didn't pack as much of a punch. I didn't completely buy that Da-ni had finally fallen for Eun-ho, more like the he (or the writer) forced them to be a thing. I liked the second lead in this - I thought he was sexier - and he really needs a lead, I would like to see him a noona romance. I mostly liked it because of Da-ni's journey, Seo Yeong-wa's heartbreaking broken down marriage (she needs a lead, she stand out in the dramas I've seen her in), even the director's sad story with her ex-fiance, those were the most compelling stories to me. Lee Jong-suk didn't do much for me apart from a few lines here and there. He nails being goofy as always but I always feel like he's reading a script for his longer scenes, especially the ones where he's giving some romantic speech (see it shouldn't even feel like a speech). However, the crying scene was well done. I still think his best acting was in While You Were Sleeping, he hasn't topped what he did there yet in my opinion

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Seamless continuation from Season 1 but over does it...

I still think it keeps what makes JOL great in the new season. However, I don't have a scene to point to in this season that will be the masterpiece. It doesn't have a '100 poems in one night' legendary scene. I think the scene between Fan Xian and Zi Ye was compelling though, and the scene at court when FX is accused of bribery or when the Censorate makes a complaint about the emperor. I feel like they went a little over the top with the humor and keeps trying to make the second prince a crass villain when I'm not convinced. All of his schemes fail, and yet he tries a new one. The second prince was almost cartoonish in this season. The CP's character also drastically changes from S1, in which I'm not sure whether he's a good guy or the show is trying to make him a good guy because of FX's influence, but then he burned a whole town, and callously tells his mother to forget about the slaughter of her entire clan. I'm actually not sure why the CP was made the CP, when compared with the emperor who is hard to read and whose plans reveal themselves when the deed is done, it's hard to see how a guy who is an open book can lead the country. I keep thinking that the emperor wants FX to be CP instead, what with making him a 'lone subject'. Others have complained about Ye Ling Er so I won't add on to it. I just don't get why she is making eyes at the 2nd prince whom she knows has no regard for human lives and keeps falling for his lies. Then again, this show has a problem with writing female characters, especially our female lead who is on all the posters yet I can count on two hands how many times I saw her in the whole show. The source material is a male fantasy so there's not much to improve on. I totally forgot that the whole point of the show was the Divine Temple and all this futuristic stuff, which seems to me like it was cut down to avoid censorship. It was so out of place in the latter half of the show. Despite my complaints, I'll watch season 3, I think we won't see Fan Si Zhe in the next season since his send off was made such a big thing.

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I watched it for the plot...

While watching you can tell this was made by a film director. The cinematography is great, the fight scenes were awesome, the close up shots on Heo Joon Ho and the cop turned loan shark were fantastic. Now that I've used up all my adjectives, the weakness of this show is the plot. It seems to have a flow for 6 episodes then turns into a new show, almost a season 2 in episode 7 and 8. Understandably it is because they needed to edit around the lead actress, but if you don't know what happened you find a choppy plot.

The brotherhood between Woo Do Hwan and Lee Sang Yi was the best part of this series. I found myself wondering why directors haven't used that cute side of Do Hwan up to now. He's this big muscly man who can kill you with such gentleness in his eyes. The first introduction of his character sets the tone for how he acts and thinks towards the whole series. Sang Yi is a bit underused, he's comic relief and a screen partner that brings out Do Hwan's cuteness but we end up knowing nothing about him other than he is really loyal.

Heo Joon Ho and Park Sung Woong bring their A game as always. The former has always scared me since Come and Hug Me and in his one fight scene I thought he would win. Here the director understands that his strength is in his eyes and enhances that with every person he has a scene with. If I was watching PSW for the first time I would have hated him but I've seen him in roles where he's nice so that softened him for me. His ending was a bit anti climatic though but man, I have to hand it to him, he's doing those stunts at 50.

Finally, they really could have done without that chaebol subplot and given more to the boys. The most interesting bit for Gun Woo's development was when he asks if he's really become a bloodhound. The chaebol did nothing but whine and whinge the whole time he was on screen. He didn't deserve a bit of Gun Woo's kindness, and that while charity bit at the end was laughable.

TL;DR This show had potential but it drops the ball in the last stretch

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