Reviews

Watch this solely for the meta moments, to laugh at the way it pokes at the k-drama fans and K-drama itself. This is where its strength lies.
The acting is mediocre, as is the story (but that could be part of the intent!). This is very short - 10 episodes running at about 11-12 minutes long, which accounts for why the story wasn't fleshed out better. Think of this as more of a parody than a real story and you will probably still be entertained somewhat.
Just don't take the story too seriously and you will still have fun. Try to watch in one go if possible since it's short enough to do so.

Leia Mais

I did not read the manga this drama is based on (I didn't know there was a manga until I read other people's reviews), so I can't tell you how good or bad of an adaptation it is. But as a viewer who has not read the manga and was experiencing the story for the first time, I thought this drama was superb, very heartwarming and sweet. (I also loved that there was a Lolita character, as I also wear Lolita.)

If you read and loved the manga, you will probably agree with the other reviewers. If you have not read the manga, then I suggest giving this drama a chance. I think you'll find yourself liking it.

Leia Mais

For being a historical drama. One with over 50 episodes. I almost didnt watch it. So glad i changed my mind during a drama slump.
This is for those who appreciate a heroine that is intelligent and uses both skill, mind and some cunning to outwit her rivals. Add to the mix she is creative and comes up with new things almost like an inventor and last but not least beautiful. But she still has a good heart, never cruel and retained that to the end despite the palace life. That roughly sums up Lu Zhen.
Gao Zhan is a crown prince that has capability to be king, to lead and one who appreciates the qualities in Lu Zhen and is patient and willing to wait for her. His main trait other than good looks is his loyalty and love that was unwavering. In fact i appreciate that quality potrayed here. Even the emperor and later General Sheng are loyal faithful people whose heart only faces one person. Thats so hard to come by during the olden days where harems are aplenty and men of power have wives and many concubines.
Back to the story. The romance part is really nice. How Lu Zhen and Gao Zhan rescue or help each other the first few meetings. I love that the drama effectively uses its many episodes to show the growth in both their characters and their love.The two faces alot of problems either stirred up by their rivals both politically or romantically and also secrets they keep from each other. In many cases it was potrayed that their pride also caused the rift. They learn to overcome that. I really love that Gao Zhan com to realise that to truly love Lu Zhen is not tie her down to be kept in his residence but to give her freedom of choice and use that intelligence of hers that could contribute to the nation. Most importantly i need to mention that Chen Xiao and Zhao LiYing has wonderful chemistry and totally filled the screen when they are together.
I need to mention that i usually hate palace drama. Too much strife evil and power struggle. In this case the director and script allows small victories that we celebrate together as we see Lu Zhen overcomes them step by step to ascend to that place of power. It also realistically shows it wouldnt have been possible if not for those people that assisted her or believd in her, either her supporters or advisors.
Last but not least i love that the supporting character especially the emperor's wife also grew and mature from hateful to accepting.
Mind you because i read reviews and comments before i started i elected to NOT watch the epilogue. Im a stickler for Happy endings so i chose to watch until the bit where they won against the main antagonist and Gao Zhan was proclaimed emperor while holding hands with Lu Zhen. For me that is enough, no need anything else to twist my heart and wring tears from me.
Now im looking forward to another drama by this director.

Leia Mais

This is a very subjective and different review seeing how much love this show has gotten.

This is probably the most boring highly-rated Kdrama I have ever had the displeasure of viewing, without completion. It has taken me over a year to finish, and I'm only on episode 11.
I must be doing something wrong, I must be missing something. But I just don't feel the magic in this show like everyone else does.
The plot is extremely repetitive from what I've seen and the typical rude, cold demeanor of the wealthy male stereotype just wasn't working for me like it usually does. The male and female lead were so off putting that I couldn't enjoy the apparent comedic chemistry they share. The gender-swapping plot line was so slow and uninspiring, drawing out the tiring push and pull between the annoying leads.

Don't know what it is, I have watched some pretty unknown dramas and have enjoyed myself more.

Every scene honestly felt so damn cringe-worthy.

Anyway just my 2 cents, different things for different people I guess.

Leia Mais

How could i not fall in love with this series. I don't think any of the actors main or supportive role over did any scenes in all of the episodes. The storyline is cute and I just started this series this past weekend with my husband and couldn't stop watching till we finished the whole first season in one day. The main actor does an awesome job playing the hard to read sometimes cold hearted jerk but only shows his vulnerable side to the one who matters most and the main actress does such a great job showing the right emotions and facial expressions at the right scene you can't help but keep watching these two. I can't wait for season 2 if there will be one. If not i can watch season 1 over and over again.

Leia Mais

As my first Wuxia this series blew me away. I bombed through 54 episodes without skipping forward one single minute in just under 5 days. I was intrigued by episode 2 and I was hooked by episode 6.

The BRILLIANT cinematography and dramaturgy is breathtaking and really pulls you in. There is an atmosphere that is overwhelming and is still with me days after I finished this series. The emotions and feelings came across so well, with a lovely original sound track. There were moments in this drama that were so brilliant that I had to remember to breath. I felt so moved and invested by the end that I cried because I won’t ever get to watch this for the first time ever again.

The actors were fantastic and the directing was wonderful. These characters are not all easy to portrait but they came across so well. The whole ensemble worked very well together. The actors and director set a tone that was intriguing and appealing. How they moved and the mannerism they used were perfect and it was very satisfying to watch how it reflected the way royal court worked in the old days. The costumes are lovely and beautiful. The setting locations, the backdrops and the props were just magnificent!

The main story is very touching and not a straight up revenge story, but instead about fairness, truth and justice. I found that so appealing. Shades of grey of good versus evil. I was so invested in the friendship between the two main male leads, it was beautifully portrayed and involved elements like loyalty and trust. They were perfect together. As the story unfolded I rooted for them, cried with them and cheered them on.

One of the things that made me really interested in this story was the fact that our hero is very sick and weak. His power is not brute strength but his brilliant mind. For me this is the first of watching a drama where the main character is truly dying and very weak, at no time does he pull any superhero stunts. Except when his mind solved problems with impossible odds!

The romance is almost none existent in this drama. It is sweet but chaste and not at all any main focus. I actually quite enjoyed it being so on the low and not in the way for the more important events. You won’t be seeing the hero rescuing the princess from the castle, because she can take care of herself. I do actually think this drama is labelled wrong when the tag says romance.

The story pacing is excellent! The side stories spanned two or three episodes, often overlapping, and were all linked to the main story. The plotting and planning was exciting. I was worried going into this that I would not enjoy or be able to follow the politics, but it was more like watching the detective case of the week and before I knew it I suddenly knew all the characters and was perfectly following along how everything unfolded. Not getting it the first couple of episodes was not frustrating an everything was presented so naturally that I was never confused or frustrated. There was never really any effort.

I am having problems with coming up with downsides of this series. What did I not like, what were the mistakes. But I seriously can’t. It was like it was made for me.

My views on this is as a total beginner of this type of drama (Wuxia drama that is, though I am a fantasy lover and watch loads of Korean drama). I usually avoid fantasy with too much “flying” fighting, because it breaks my immersion, and go for the more realistic (haha…) fighting style productions. But before I watched this I stumbled upon a short description of the typical standard Wuxia world building and I suddenly understood that things did not work as they do in our “world”. As a nerd I filed some of the information away as totally legit and comparable to a D&D rule set.

Shallow as I am I also need to address the two male leads again and their "bromance". Hu Ge who is playing Mei Chang Su/Su Zhe took on a role I think is very difficult to portrait without coming across as fake. He is supposed to be very sick and that is easy to overdo. With just his body language and demeanor he made me feel his pain. There was no room for overacting. Still he was very sexy. Because a brilliant mind is something extremely attractive.

Wang Kai who plays Prince Jing played a more rough cut type of role. Even so when he broke into emotions it was heart achingly good. I could feel his sorrow and believed the emotions he displayed. Also, the very dark voice he has is something of the sexiest I have ever heard. I am just that shallow I guess. :)

These two together were amazing!

I loved this! I can’t recommend it enough.

Leia Mais

At first I thought it was kinda' boring but as you watch it further it'll be funny, romantic, and an absolute tear jerker! The two main characters 'Kim Joo Won' (Hyun Bin) and 'Gil Ra Im' (Ha Ji Won) both did a good job on playing their own characters and as well as playing each's characters when they switched bodies specially Hyun Bin. He was so funny when he was acting like he was trapped on Ha Ji Won's body. It was kind a weird to see an arrogant president of a dept store, (his character) turned into a girl. You'll be like "what the actual galactic freak is that?!" hahaha it was really funny. Ha Ji Won also did a good job! But her transformation was not exciting and funny as what happend to Hyun Bin because her character was really a boyish. She was a actually a stuntwoman so it's not that surprising unlike Hyun Bin's transformation. Other characters also did a good job except to Director Im (Philip Lee) his acing was so lame! :| Overall i'll give this a perfect 5 stars. I enjoyed it that I was like glued in the screen :)

Leia Mais

I usually spend more time on my reviews but as I stumbled upon Roy Adeed Haeng Rak while searching for another lakorn (I still am - it has a similar revenge plot where the hero believes the heroine had something to do with the death of his fiancee) - I thought I could do this one in bullet points.

* Our hero, Tonnarm - crazy pants though he may be - is played by the pillowy lipped Wisetkaew Sukrit, aka, Bie. It may just be the writing that gave Tonnarm such an angry expression throughout the show but personally, I wanted to see him move from simmer to boil. Kind to his family but cold to our heroine.

* The plucky heroine, Peerot Yaapin Mueangngaam (Mew) as Mean, is cute in a very natural way and is able to tease the unusually-angry-eyed Tonnarm. Unfortunately for her, he responds with more arm grabs than a Korean drama. Mean looks - tolerant.

* Side characters include Tonnarn’s forgiving grandma - played by a Thai actress who usually plays very strict and intolerant characters. She did a lovely job here - but it was a bit disconcerting after see her play “mean” for so long. Family and friends are also very naturalistic - kind friends, foolish servants, screechy greedy evil leads, hardworking parents- the director used all the character tropes in the book. It did feel a bit like a mixed bag but it worked! One nice plot point were the medical situations. I like a show where doctors/nurses/hospitals appear professional. All together, my acting rating was a 6.5.

* Plot - ah, plot. Revenge for an idiotic reason. It was so thin that I can’t believe it made it for 31 episodes. Basically, Tonnarm is the most unlucky hero as he has not one but two fiancees who get hit by cars. I’ll let you guess just how that happens and the results. And on his birthday, too! My rating - 4.

* The music was a pleasant background to the acting. Sometimes bad music can take center stage in a drama - either poorly fitted to the action or an obvious rip-off of another show - but this show's music was not distracting in any way. I’d say that made it a - 6.

* Rewatch value is practically nill. Actor Bie was lovely to watch but most of the time, our heroine, Mean, looked scared of him. Not interested, not intrigued, not tempted - just scared.

Leia Mais

Sometimes you can sit through a drama with subpar plot if you feel the chemistry of the leads. It is the opposite in this case. The plot is actually ok when it started well. Bai lang aka white wolf was a well-written characther. I really like it related to reality that wolves are loyal creatures and only recognise and have one mate for life. That changes your perception of wolves.
I really like the magic show part and girl saving guy for a change. Then i keep waiting for the romantic development. Plotwise it was moving but the feel between Hawick Lau and Tiffany Tang was lacking. They were individually okay in their roles. Hawick Lau as usual nails the angsty lonely male figure who has power and wealth. But every time they get together i couldnt feel the spark or believe the love. In scenes where it would have fireworks or catapult to kisses, nope we dont get the kiss scenes, almost like it was avoided. I ended up shelving this drama so many times cause I couldnt connect with them. (Maybe cause Tiffany is Hawick's wife's bestfriend in real life? So they are friendly but hard to dwell into romance?? I dunno)
The only thing left to comment is they hav good sense to write a good ending.

Leia Mais

I'm not entirely sure I even know where to start writing a review for this show - so many thoughts. It was so layered and tightly written. The only thing that knocked off that half point for me was that there were a couple of episodes in the middle where it got a little draggy, but not enough to ruin it for me.

This story is about choosing love over fear, loving someone unreservedly, living without regrets, how ones perspective can impact one in ways you don't even realize, and how the decisions made can change your fate The layers of perspective make it meaningful, and the writer was able to tie in things that you would not have thought important at first look. I experienced the emotions of the characters with them and felt all the heartbreak, tension, and giddiness along with them. Despite any shortcomings this drama may have had, the characters were its strongest draw. The main couple had intensity and and passion. My advice would be to not judge the characters motivations and actions too quickly on this one. (Perspective, remember!) What you see at the beginning may not be a full picture, so you need to watch it unfold. Also, because Do Kyung's job was to do sound for movies and such, I started to become hyper-aware of the sounds in the show. It was pretty cool actually. It was a pretty interesting addition to the storyline to see a little BTS magic, but was also relevant to the story. The cinematography was also beautiful. I thought that there was a good closure at the end and lots of good resolution that the characters needed.

While so many drama characters are black and white, good or bad, hero or villain - the characters here are more shades of gray, imperfect, messy, a little dysfunctional, and sometimes selfish. They were interesting and against type. This is not just a romance, but a little slice of life as well. You almost feel like a voyeur peeping in on their developing relationship because they have an off the charts chemistry and hold the tension so well. The characters (nearly all of them) experienced growth throughout the show. The main romance was not the only love relationship either. There was a 2nd and 3rd romance, as well as family love. They were all realistic and raw and make mistakes. Our Oh Hae Young was emotional and honest. She can also be petty, jealous, and quick tempered, but is quick to admit when she has been wrong. She cut right through to Do Kyung's core and took down his walls brick by brick and unlocked his heart. (And I would just like to say that our leads should give kissing lessons to the rest of dramaland because WOWZA! That's how you kiss!) Do Kyung is thoughtful, but so reserved and introspective. His feelings come out in his actions long before he allows himself to express them in words.

The secondary characters are also well done. Do Kyung's sister, Soo Kyung, is such a strange character when you first meet her. At first you will believe she is just there simply for comedic effect, but you soon learn what motivates her as well. She became one of my favorite characters next to the main leads. In fact I loved every one of DK's family, save his mother (who was pretty much the worst mother ever. She barely had a shred of anything resembling maternal in her). Speaking of secondary characters, I have to say that OHY's parents may be my favorite drama parents ever. Mama Oh especially is like a mama bear with her cub, OHY. She may seem harsh and quick tempered, but she loves her daughter so much and always does the right thing for her in the end. And Papa Oh is a quiet support for them both. He doesn't say a lot, but he always knows when to jump in with his support. In fact, OHY's parents characterizations seem to parallel OHY and DK. The 2nd leads aren't even really 2nd leads, though, and their impact on the story does not equate with their portion of screen time. But honestly, I didn't really want to know more about them.

The casting was well done, and I felt that each part was done believably. I was swept up into their world.
The music went very well with each scene as if they were written for it, and the main theme was cute, if a little overplayed. I think it was very well done even though I don't always notice the music so much.

Would I re-watch this? I think I would. I think the layering of the story makes a great re-watch because you catch even more the 2nd or 3rd watch-through.

Overall, I was thoroughly entertained by this show. I do not expect my characters to always act realistic and the way that you would expect people to act in real life. But they do still manage to make them feel real and relatable. If you dropped this drama before the back half, you really have missed out and I think you should give it a second chance. While this was a romance that maybe should "never have been", at the same time you feel like it's the only way it could have been.

Leia Mais