I went into this with high hopes. The summary, ratings and reviews all seemed to indicate that this would be a most epic drama experience... It. Was. Not. Don't be fooled by the hype like I was.

Let's start with the good:

The concept of the story was really good. There aren't that many dramas that deal with this fairly recent period of Korean history so I was interested to see how the material would be handled. Plus, everyone loves a hero with a cause.

Joo Won in a suit, preferably when he was walking away. Why? Because I'm a perv and he wore the heck out of those suits, that's why.

The first 10 or so episodes of the series laid the groundwork for a truly epic story. I couldn't stop watching those and finished them pretty quickly.

The rest:

Setting and plot:

If you're thinking about watching this drama to experience how Koreans lived and coped with the Japanese occupation, don't waste your time on this drama. The period/setting of is a backdrop to an overdone and poorly developed and relatively flat love "triangle" or square, depending on how you look at it. Very little is actually dedicated to what the occupation was really like for the average Korean but interestingly, you got a pretty clear idea what the rich got from selling their country.

The imbalance in the presentation actually detracted from the overall story since much of the story's conflict and resolution revolves around liberation from Japanese oppression. Don't get me wrong, the issues of comfort women, taxes, introduction of Shinto temples, name changes, etc. are introduced but few of them are really explored in a way that would make anyone really understand why the liberators absolutely had to fight to get their country and culture back.

Writing:

The writing overall was really sub-par. In addition to the glazing over of critical story points, a *great* portion of the drama is spent on the recurrence of a single conflict. If you thought the poisonings in Faith were bad, ladies and gents, you don't want to know who Oh Mok Dan is. In the interest of not posting spoilers, that's all I'll write. Don't say you weren't warned though.

Acting:

I've read quite a few reviews and comments that the acting is exceptional. Maybe it is and the actors were just working within the constraints of poorly-developed characters. I'll concede to that premise. However, the result for the viewer is still bad acting. I lost track of the screams of frustration, smirks and the scrunched up faces with no tears or one tear from one eye instead of real crying.

Overall:

I really wanted to love this show. However, there were just too many things about it that I really hated and the longer I watched, the more I hated it. I was so unsettled by my hatred of it that I waited a day or two before I wrote this review. Thinking about how bad it was is making me angry again that I wasted my time on it. The writers had 28 episodes to fully develop all the characters, conflicts and goals and the first part of the show set them up well to do that but they chose not to. Instead, they hyper-focused on a single conflict and left too many points underdeveloped or unexplored. It was irritating to say the least.

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