So, here I am. Two years on the site and 3 years watching South Korean media and I finally watch “Descendants of the Sun”. With an average rating of 8.8/10 over 36,639 users, this seemed like it would be an amazing watch.

Now, it was pretty good, but not amazing.

First of all, I really, really did like this series. I thought it was pretty good for a few reasons.

The main reason, in fact is that, romance is not my genre. At all.
It is not something I willingly sit and watch (and truth be told, I did only watch this for Lee Jin Ki as Lee Chi Hoon). Now, normally, I’d have thrown the towel in as the romance started going, rolling my eyes, sighing heavily and coming back to this after a few months and struggled through it for the sake of completing it. For “Descendants”? I found there was actually a lot of other sub-plots going on that allowed me to remain glued to my screen and involved. The action plots were pretty superb, the medical knowledge was pretty on point with very little mistakes, and the disaster line made me cry over three episodes more times than I can count.

However, I have some qualms that really knocked the rating down for me.

On the “Descendants” media page, we’re given the tag ‘strong female lead’. I’m sorry but Kang Mo Yeon hating most men until she falls in love, meanwhile being a horrendous jealous pathetic woman constantly talking behind other’s backs just because they’re more successful than her is not in any form a strong woman. This was exhausting and I actually cared less about her than most of the characters. Romance wise, all I cared about was the third story line – not the second leads, but Song Sang Hyeon and Ha Ja Ae. I felt I connected more to their story than I did the whole fall in love romance line going on with Yoo Shi Jin and Mo Yeon. Eye rolling and boring, if I’m totally honest.
This goes the same for Dae Yeong and Myung Ju… why are they acting like cat and mouse and they despise each other when? It made no sense, and they were all boring save for Sang Hyeon and Ja Ae.

Secondly, again, the romance was just everywhere. She hates him, she wants to go on a date with him, he tells her he has a very important job, she respects he has a very important job, he goes to do his job, she gets annoyed, and breaks it off, then suddenly they’re paired up again and falling for each other all over again? Come on, at least be slightly more realistic than this. As much as I loved the acting from these Song Joong Ki and Song Hye Kyo, I really didn’t feel any chemistry between the characters and it drove me up the wall. I also felt Jin Goo and Kim Ji Won had no chemistry between their characters; save the one hazmat scene, I didn’t feel any other feelings for them.

Other than these two points? I loved the drama. I loved the rest of it, I loved the characters, I loved so much about this. It’s just a shame that the two main points let me down quite a bit, but I would quite happily rewatch this in the future. A solid 7.5/10.