Story: Many would have you believe that this is the Korean adaptation of the highly successful Chinese drama Bu Bu Jing Xing (BBJX). It is not! More accurately, there are only a few similarities (can be counted in one hand) of circumstances but other than that, this is an entirely different story. In a nutshell, it's a story about a woman from the current time accidentally ended up in the ancient times where she became a part of a royal household and became friends with the princes of that era. She was caught in the middle of the political rivalry between the brothers for the throne.
I would like to reiterate that this Korean version was not written by the original Bu Bu Jing Xing writer. This is entirely a Korean written drama. The biggest difference are the characters. The main male lead in this drama is a bit of a ruffian and pariah with tendencies towards brutality. The female lead of this drama is a weak character who is always the victim and never a success of her own (which is so unlike the female lead in BBJX!). Maybe the idea of a strong, arrogant, cold male with tendencies towards brutality and a weak, simpering, without backbone and a blur-bordering-on-being-stupid heroine appeals to the Korean audience as per the rich, arrogant, powerful, abusive chaebol guy and the poor, happy, innocent woman formula. In any case, the lack of strong lead characters (including that of the second male lead) totally spoiled this drama for me.
The charm and success of BBJX relied heavily on its unforgettable characters. The storyline of time-traveling and involvement in palace politics itself is not new and pretty 'standard' in the Chinese drama scene. Popular examples include Palace: Lock Heart, The Myth and the recent web-drama comedic hit Go Princess Go. The Chinese have been making such time-traveling dramas for decades now. What made BBJX achieved such a big success was mainly because of its unforgettable characters and not necessarily the storyline itself. The Koreans went and adapt the main idea of the story and the open ended ending but pretty much made a mess of all of its characters.
Do not get me wrong here. I am not comparing the Korean version with the Chinese version. To do so, will be like comparing chicken to duck. Both are two very different products although from the same story idea! I am merely stating that if the Koreans had decided to do a drama based on time-traveling, palace politics and romance - they could learn much from their Chinese counterparts about writing characters that create lasting and strong impacts instead of following the usual mold of what constitutes a successful Korean romance pairing (rich abusive guy with poor weak woman). I believe if they had dared to break away from this mold and give the audience a strong female character with a strong, upright and strategist of a male character against a kind but ambitious second male lead, the drama would have been a much bigger hit. The only characters that this drama did well are the characters of the 10th prince and his wife. To this day, I cannot decide if I like BBJX's 10th prince and wife better or this Korean version's 10th prince and wife. In both versions, the characters of the 10th prince and wife were given good justice although both had different stories and endings for the 10th prince and wife.
Acting/Cast: Most of the male casts did well, as did the supporting actresses. The female lead, however, was a total let down. She only had three expressions: shy smile, expressionless and shocked. Her body language was a bit stiff too - making it hard for me to be convinced that there's even chemistry between her and the male leads; hence making this so-called 'great romance that caused brothers to fight against each other for the throne' less convincing. Even the shocked look looked rather unconvincing. In cases like these, there are 3 possibilities: 1- This was how the character was depicted in the script, or 2- The actress is bad in acting and shouldn't be acting, or 3- Both 1 and 2. I do not know much about the female lead as I do not follow news of Korean young idols and since this is the first drama of hers that I'd watched, I cannot make a concrete judgment of her acting skills. The jury is out on this matter. What I can say for absolute certain was the lead female character was the reason why I dropped this drama after 6 episodes and only caught up after it has finished airing (with fingers firmly on the fast forward button!).
Music: Nothing that stuck in my head.
Rewatch value: I will not be re-watching this.
Overall: Enough said. I recommend that you go watch Bu Bu Jing Xing instead if you haven't watch it.
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