I was sadly disappointed by this drama. I wanted to like it, because I like sageuks and Ji Sung, and because there aren’t many sageuks specifically about Gaya, so that was cool, but the drama was underwhelming to me, for a number of reasons that are individually not big issues (or even “issues” at all, sometimes), but put together, add up to make the drama “not bad but not great either, just meh”.


Thing 1: lack of originality.

The drama takes place in the early times of Korea, at a time of myths and kingdoms (and confederacy in the case of Gaya) being created by legendary kings (born in divine eggs for a lot of them), so it’s not too surprising that Kim Soo Ro would have several things in common with dramas covering similar times. The world of Soo Ro is not exactly fantastical but has a spiritual side, and the story is a “coming of age” one (something common in sageuks in general, true). Our hero is the One, he comes with a prophecy, but does not know of his own status, because of course, we love to root for an underdog. So yeah, he’s the One but doesn’t know he’s the One and will have to face challenges to be worthy of his destiny. That’s nothing new: not an issue in itself. Like, I loved Jumong, and it’s the same concept. Lack of originality doesn’t mean much in itself to me, so all I’m saying here is : there was no special selling point to the basics of the story. Basically: there was no plus, no malus to it.


Thing 2: Soo Ro is not a character I find especially interesting.

Don’t get me wrong: he’s likeable. Ji Sung is a good actor (and also so pretty), he made me want to root for Soo Ro. Plus, Soo Ro is just a cool dude: he’s honourable, fair, inclusive, fights for the weak and stands up to the bad powerful people, etc. He really only has two things to work on: 1/ he’s too impulsive and has to learn to be more mature and think before he acts (though he always acts for the good reasons) 2/ he has to learn to accept his destiny, because he’s basically the only person not aware that he’s perfect to be a leader. Other than that, the dude is pretty good from the start. It’s not that he doesn’t evolve, but he doesn’t have a lot of ground to cover to get to “worthy of kingship” level, and I was happy to root for him but I’d be lying if I said I found his inner evolution complex and riveting. He was nice and likeable, he just wasn’t an epic character, like, say, Lee Bang Won from Six Flying Dragons (Soo Ro has nothing in common with Bang Won, I’m not saying they should be compared, I’m just using Bang Won as an example of what I’d consider a rich character with a very complex character arch). But there’s nothing wrong with “nice and likeable” though ! Rooting for a nice character against adversity is cool !


Thing 3: the “adversity” just wasn’t cutting it for me.

Most hardships felt too easily dealt with, their impact not felt enough. It’s not that Soo Ro is not affected, but I wish the drama had still made him struggle more. I also wish we’d gotten better villains. They’re just so bad at what they do ! Mostly, we get two I can discuss without spoiling: Shin Gwi Gan (the leader of a nearby clan that wants to gain control over other clans) and Jung Gyeong Bi (a powerful lady that wants her kid to be king, and also she’s Soo Ro’s biological mother, which we know from ep1, but Soo Roo doesn’t).

Shin Gwi Gan fails so hard so often I felt almost sorry for the dude, to be honest, and Jung Gyeong Bi doesn’t fare much better. Thematically, they’re written to offer contrast to Soo Ro: Shin Gwi Gan and Jung Gyeong Bi are more similar than they think because they’re driven my personal greed, while Soo Ro isn’t, and it’s precisely because he’s not thirsting after power that he’s right for it. At least that’s what’s implied by the contrast drawn by the show between its hero and its villains. And that’s cool and all, but it would also have been cool to have actually competent villains ? The villains in this show are not especially charismatic nor cunning, and that makes for “meh” confrontations and schemes, which is particularly sad in Jung Kyeong Bi’s case, as her complicated relationship with Soo Ro could have made for really great drama. Are you starting to see the things pile up ? A common start, a likeable but not riveting main character going against underwhelming villains…


Thing 4: the world felt a bit small

I feel this might be just a consequence of how many big sageuks I’ve seen now, though ? The sets were cool, I really liked the temple for example, but it felt like we were spending a lot of time in the same locations and the scale of the world felt small to me, despite the obvious fact that the world wasn’t small: one of our lead is from another country and there’s lots of talk about other countries. Still on an emotional level there was a lack of grandeur to the show for me, I wasn’t wowed by how big it felt. And there’s, again, nothing wrong with that, but it’s yet another aspect of the show I could have been wowed by but wasn’t. In this whole review I’m not trying so much to point out the presence of badness but the absence of greatness.


And what makes me sad about all this is how much potential Kim Soo Ro had, at least to me. It has so many characters that I could have loved. There’s an over-ambitious “never fully on one side” character that should have been my favourite but he’s so obvious in his duplicity that he never seemed clever to me, he only made other characters look dumb. Soo Ro’s rival for the throne, his half-brother, is a character I really empathized me at some points, because all his life he’s been brought up harshly and told he was the One, and suddenly everything slips through his fingers, but the show makes him SO whiny and goes so far in the pathetic and dumb that I just got annoyed. So many characters could have been good, and the show writes so many scenes that seemed to deliver exactly what I wanted to see, but all the things I mentioned before made it all feel so lacklustre, because even the stuff I liked felt too unearned. (also some characters were dropped in weird ways)

The reasons I kept watching were 1/ I’m trying to watch as many sageuks as I can, and it’s Soo Ro was still pleasant enough 2/ I did really like Soo Ro and Ji Sung, and 3 / Hwang Ok.

At first, I thought Hwang Ok was gonna be a cliché annoying character but I was very pleasantly surprised. She’s awesome. I was a little sad that the show didn’t make us feel more how she’s from another country (she only speaks in Korean and the actress is Korean too), I’d have loved for her to bring more of the character’s own culture to the show (though from what I gathered, historically it’s not clear what country Hwang Ok actually came from ? My “knowledge” might be incomplete though). Still, loved her more and more as the show went on, she rocks.

I also did really like the last episode, so the show at least left me on a positive note.

Anyway, I did not hate this show at all. I do not have strong feelings about it at all. Which is the issue. But I like Hwang Ok, and I like Soo Ro, and I like Ji Sung’s face a lot, so there’s that !