If you love historical dramas, you can't miss this one. This is one of my top favorites!
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Not quite there...
It started off with a big war and lots of action. Ships, canons, battles and massacres, but that was only for the first 5-6 before dialing back the clock to the very beginning of the ML's childhood days and turning the drama into a massive snoozefest. That was a massive bait to hook the viewers in. It took 1 singular eternity before the drama managed to pick itself back up. The entire first half was the admiral backstory with little to no action. You don't get to see the admiral in action and you don't get to see what the drama promised until the second half which is way too delayed to stick around for. The production value is acceptable when taking into account that this was made 20 years ago. It's a bit scuffed but they had to work with what they had. It wouldn't matter much because that only shows with the action/battle scenes of which there were only a few (out of the 104 episodes). One of the most jarring things that is holding the drama back, aside from the aforementioned points, is its characters. A lot of characters got benched regularly regardless of their importance, relevance and prior investment. Making emotional scenes less impactful and key characters less memorable. Which also takes away from every climax and transition period. This is due to a combination of uneven pacing, long runtime, and frequent transitions. By the end, it seemed everyone was expendable, other than the male lead of course. On the other spectrum, the drama had a lot of anime-esque villain moments that I wish we had a lot less of.Was this review helpful to you?
Really good but not great!
The story is captivating, you learn a lot about Korean history! It started with ML's childhood days and adult youth, which was the most boring part of the show. The second half was an action pack extremely well-paced and the writing was top-notch. Four issues held this series back from being the best history Kdrama. The pace and story of the first half was awful! It's a truly boring watch! Second not including the fact that Admiral Yi Sun-Shin had three wives in the drama. Third Im Chun-Soo's storyline and character were a massive unnecessary snoozefest to the drama! Lastly, the most jarring thing about the show was that everyone was indispensable without the main protagonist! A good one could've been great Kdrama but still one of the best historical Kdrams ever.Was this review helpful to you?
